Starlancer

Moby ID: 1842
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

It's 2160, and the Eastern Alliance has launched a surprise attack on the Western Coalition's fleet and decimated it. The call has gone out for volunteers to become Alliance fighter pilots, and you have signed up with the 45th Volunteer Squadron.

Designed by Chris and Erin Roberts, the creative force behind the Wing Commander/Privateer megaseries, this space fighting simulation features the genre's standard mission types: escort, fighter sweep, interception, attacking space stations, fighting in asteroid fields, etc.

12 pilotable fighters (you can choose which you fly as well as missile loadout, but not all are available in the early missions), 9 enemy fighter types.

Spellings

  • 星际枪骑兵 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (Windows version)

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Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 43 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 49 ratings with 5 reviews)

Definitely flashier and better, but nothing new here...

The Good
Great graphics... The ships look better than just about anything out there. The weapons effects are GOOD, with missile trails, ship engine flares, and more. Even your bunk has animated graphics. The local jump AND the warp gates are quite cool also.

The Bad
After a while, the extra touches gets distracting. Instead of comm screen comes on like with a bit of static, you get a "morphing" graphic icon THEN the video. You also get "transition movies" as you move from one section to another (and you can't turn it off, just "skip" it with a mousepress).

The mouth also don't sync with the words except in the pre-rendered movies.

The Coalition vs. Alliance storyline is about as old as you can get (where Coalition is USSR and China while Alliance is Europe+US+Japan).

There's NOTHING new here. You kill torpedoes, escort ships, kill enemy fighters, some of which can cloak, you kill turrets, etc. etc. etc. All of this has been done before, and Starlancer doesn't add ANYTHING to the genre. Even the plotline features your standard "kill the traitors" twist.

Some of the missions are also horribly hard, and if you fail the later hard part, you must endure the earlier EASY parts again (which could still take up to 7-10 minutes) just to fail again at the hard part. There is no provision to skip the mission after X attempts.

The Bottom Line
Starlancer is basically your next evolution of the space combat genre... With flashier than ever graphics, and not much else. It is essentially a flashier Wing Commander, and that's about all it is.

Starlancer is about the 45th Volunteers, called to duty after the "Pearl Harbor in space" where the Coalition fleet with its cloaked fighters staged a full surprise attack on the peace conference and the Alliance fleet. The 45th started as a scartch outfit, but would eventually help win the war by performing some of the most daring missions in the war, but I get ahead of myself... Initially you are assigned to the ANS Reliant, an old carrier reactivated for the war.

You start in your bunk. You can access your terminal, combat sim, your bunk for your medals or news, and even a "CD player". The graphics quite good as you can sort of "see" things from your viewpoint as if you move around.

When you go to the briefing, your "walk through" the corridors to the briefing room, and watch your squadron commander give the briefing of objectives.

Starlancer gives you the choice of choosing from available fighters based on your clearance level and customize your weapons loadout. As you advance in rank, you will get access to better fighters. Fighters are rated on acceleration, top speed, agility, amount of afterburner fuel, internal guns, and more.

The slightly new twist here is you can load "fuel pods", which would give you additional afterburner fuel. On the other hand, the missiles are still limited to your standard dumbfire, rockets, fast lock, slow lock, disabler, and such. Nothing really new here except a "shield buster" missile.

After that, you see a cutscene of you and your wingmen run for the boarding area, and you start in the cockpit. (All crafts are two-seaters)

The ship is then dropped into space similar to the way Babylon 5 launches its Starfuries (but you only get to watch). You then use a "local jump" drive to jump to the next jump point. You fight enemies by shooting your main guns or launch missions. You also have a special key to target torpedoes and/or bombers if they are present. Some ships have "blind fire", which is basically a limited-auto-aimming gun. All ships have "shot predictor" that will lead the target properly, but those with blind-fire will actually point the gun toward the shot predictor within the narrow cone that it can instead of requiring you to do so. There are also a few other special devices in the game, such as reverse thruster (sudden stop or fly backwards), spectral shields (limited duration energy shield), and even cloak (only on certain ships).

You can also adjust energy among engines, guns, and shields if you choose to do so, with obvious benefits and drawbacks. You also get ECM (which disrupts enemy target lock-on, but limited duration) and Countermeasures (chaff packs) that is supposed to draw off enemy missiles fired at you.

The ships are protected by both armor and shields. Shields regenerate, armor doesn't... Your standard stuff, nothing new here.

Combat is your typical "a few ships against everybody" type missions. While you are usually launched as a wing (with up to 5 other fighters), and they seem to hold their own in combat, they don't get too many kills. You will make kills at 10-20 per mission, and you never see any of your wingmen get on the killboard.

As mentioned before, some of the missions require you to shoot torpedoes, and you need to target them and shoot them ASAP to protect your ships. As torpedoes are usually launched in huge salvoes (up to 6 per bomber, with virtually NO locking) kill torpedoes is NOT fun, esp. when they've passed you and are now approaching your ships and you're in a tailchase.

Most missions have primary and secondary objectives, but often the secondary objectives are not stated or even mentioned. If you accomplish the secondary objectives you will get a great debriefing. If you don't... You get not-bad, bad, or even disgusting debriefing. Your mission log will explain what you may have missed, but it's in a paragraph format with no clear points on how to accomplish them.

Some of the missions also have a "Shoot the Hole" mission. For example, there's a mission where you need to blow the cover off of a base vent, then fire a missile into it to blow up the base. Of course, you need to blow up all the turrets nearby first. Does this start to sound familiar? Imagine then you get to do this again, then again!

Shooting turrets on ships and bases gets old VERY quickly, as are shooting torpedoes that just keep coming. There's almost no way you can shoot the bombers first, so you're always on the defensive, and turret hunting is just a matter of precise aimming, not much there.

All in all, the extra graphical touches in the game helped the game on some levels, but is distracting in other levels. The gameplay is virtually the EXACT same as Wing Commander or Freespace. Indeed, a lot fo the cockpit elements look a LOT like the ones in Freespace, but without the customizability or the usability features like the way FS2 tracks the ships you must protect.

Starlancer also fails to take full advantage of the storyline. The missions aren't that interesting to start with, and feels like an odd combination of Wing Commander: Prophecy and Freespace 2, but with Russians versus Americans instead of Terrans versus Kilrathi or Shivans. There's nothing new in Starlancer at all.

Windows · by Kasey Chang (4598) · 2002

A genuinely fun space shooter.

The Good
Starlancer has a lot to offer. Personally, I wouldn't expect a game published by Microsoft to be anything more than mediocre. But Starlancer is surprisingly fun. Not only is the action entertaining, to the point where the action alone would be enough to hold the game up, but it is constantly varying. There are a total of twenty-four missions, and each one is different. The missions aren't just all out fighting with different reasons for doing it each time. For instance, in one mission, you will infiltrate an enemy convoy using captured enemy bombers in order to blow up one of their main battleships. In another mission, you will use a prototype spacecraft with stealth capabilties to sneak up on an orbiting enemy prison to blow out their defenses and allow Marines to get inside and rescue your allies. All twenty-four missions are attractively unique, making each one feel like a brand new experience.

Another great thing about Starlancer is the story. First off, understand that the story is not at all fantasy-based, beyond the fact that it takes place in the future. It is a fairly realistic concept: Two opposing sides on the brink of peace are about to sign a treaty when the Coalition performs a surprise attack on the Alliance, wiping out a huge amount of Alliance soldiers and supplies. Enter the player, a newly elisted soldier in a new volunteer squadron, the 45th Volunteers. It is up to you and the rest of the 45th Volunteers to steer the Alliance to victory. The story reminded me of the kind of thing that would usually be used just to push a game on, to keep it going, but Starlancer takes this a step further, making the story very entertaining in itself.

There are also alot of other little things in the game that add to the overall grandeur. For one, the spaceships. You start out with four, and they all have their own ups and downs. There are six categories that all the ships are graded by: Max speed, acceleration, agility, shield power, shield recharge, and armor class. The ships will excel in some areas and lack in others, and you have to decide what you can work best with. Ships will also come with special attributes, like blind fire, reverse thrusters, and stealth. The farther along you go, the more ships you will be able to access, and the better the ships will be. In order to access these new ships, you will have to get promotions, and your promotions depend on your performance in each battle. If you really want to get the full experience out of this game, you can't just do what is required, you have to do what is required and do it well. Along with ships, you will also gain acces to new missiles depending on your rank. And while you are not fighting, you can practice your moves in the flight simulator, or watch the news to see if any of your squad's actions are mentioned.


The Bad
There were a few things about Starlancer that did bother me. The biggest thing that I had a problemn with was charcter development. Like I said, I thought the story was great, but your character has absolutely no personality. I guess you could say this is the kind of game that doesn't require real in-depth characters, but I still felt like the game was lacking in that respect. Although, besides the main character, there are some other characters that have enough personality that you can grow to like or dislike, and that goes for allies and enemies.

Another thing that bothered me, although it is a very, very small problem, were the graphics. Most of the time they were satisfactory, sometimes even exceptional, but there were some other times where I couldn't help but shake my head. (One last small thing, there is an online mode to this game, but due to the lacking popularity, don't expect much out of it.)

The Bottom Line
Starlancer is fun. I normally don't like these types of games, but this game is just too much fun to dislike. Whether you play it for the action, the story, or both, you will come out of it with a smile.

Windows · by DarkDove (63) · 2003

Engaging gameplay, but the story is not.

The Good
The gameplay in Starlancer is remembered as fast paced and frenetic at times. There's a Wing Commander V school of design here, where gameplay was the focus. Attack and escort missions were strewn about as with any space shooter while the games background story was available to the player via broadcast transmissions in your quarters aboard ship.

The graphics didn't seem to be taxing to my computer at the time, so it should run like a dream on current Windows systems. Definitely a step above the Wing Commander games, but maybe not as intense as Descent: Freespace or its successors.

The Bad
Unfortunately, the story did not seem as involving as previous efforts by it's spiritual predecessor (obviously, the Wing Commander series). The reason I enjoyed "Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger" and "Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom" was for their engaging cinematics in between and during missions. Starlancer takes a lighter production approach and incorporates the story into very brief cutscenes - I did complete the game, but unfortunately I wasn't impressed.

The Bottom Line
Starlancer is a solid effort in the way of gameplay and missions, but falls short in keeping the player engaged or involved in the story. Those who crave less of the movies (a la the later games in the Wing Commander series) in their space shooters may find more meat in the gameplay here.

Windows · by James P. Wong (2402) · 2004

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

The Starlancer demo includes two missions not in the main game, which function as a prequel to the game. You fly from the ANS Yamato and are witness to the sneak attack by the Coalition forces.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Bill Stepec.

Dreamcast added by haydn dalton.

Additional contributors: Raphael, Terok Nor, Unicorn Lynx, Independent.

Game added June 30, 2000. Last modified March 24, 2024.