Star Raiders

Star Raiders is the re-imagining of a 1979 classic of the same name. Developed by Incinerator Studios, it brings the game that pretty much created the space combat simulator to a new generation with vastly improved visuals and some new features.

First things first: the story is fairly average – you’ve got the typical “humanity vs aliens” shenanigans, all told with some rather well drawn, graphic-novel style cutscenes. The “Zylons”, the primary antagonists, aren’t very well fleshed out, however; having no real background or precursory explanation as to why they’re at odds with you and your allies leaves the story feeling rather hollow as a result.

Missions are dished out to the player in a “galactic chart”, reminiscent of that in the Mass Effect titles. The only difference really is that Star Raiders‘ galactic chart is a much more basic affair. The missions themselves aren’t particularly thrilling to be honest – while they’re listed as “missions”, which are story driven, “combat missions” and “recon missions”, telling the difference between the three is an impossibility. Each type of mission begins in almost exactly the same way: spawn, destroy enemies then collect objects – this serves only to make the game very repetitive.

To complete these missions, you’re given a ship with the ability to transform between three modes: the speedy “Attack” mode, the nimble “Assault” mode and the death-dealing “Turret” mode. Having three modes for your ship adds a layer of strategy to the game, should you choose to use any of them. Firstly, I found that the weapons you have in “Turret” mode are far too short-ranged to actually be of any real use in a firefight. Secondly, “Assault” mode feels too much like a cut-and-shut of the other two modes to have any real worth. Lastly, when you switch to or from “Attack” mode, the left and right thumbstick controls are swapped between being used for aiming and moving – really irritating when you’re in a fight or are in close enough proximity to crash into something.

Another aspect that falters is the upgrade system. To purchase upgrades, you need to hunt for salvage dropped by destroyed enemy ships or ore contained in small asteroids. The problem is that collecting ore feels like a massive chore and it’s not really a necessity in terms of progression, because using the word “progression” is an overstatement. After a hefty bit of ore farming early on, I managed to upgrade my main light weapons to the maximum. I’d expected to be able to take out smaller space craft with relatively more ease, but I honestly couldn’t see a noticeable improvement in firepower between upgrades.

The visuals are fairly underwhelming as well. While I will say that the ship models are fantastic and are very detailed, almost every other aspect of the game bar the user interface falls visually flat. Enemy ships, be they fighters or frigates, come near exclusively in a dark grey while space stations and moon bases are similarly drab in palette. Only the ships of your allies are particularly bright in colour – even your own ship is just a bright grey! At the very least, I was expecting the vacuum of space to be a dazzling array of colourful nebulae but instead it’s just a soulless void of blacks, browns and greys.

All in all, Star Raiders is really more frustrating than fun, but if you’re fan of space combat simulators and have the Microsoft points to spare you might just find some enjoyment in this.