‘Star Prospector’ Review – Searching For The Spark
The idea behind Cryptstone Games‘ Star Prospector is perfectly engaging – you’re a lone space miner scouting worlds for resources to farm and a full-scale rebellion to extinguish. You’ve an android army at your disposal and a kitted-out mech in which to stomp around. Furthermore you’ve a hundred randomly generated missions to complete, each on a planet of its own. So you’ll be travelling the galaxy, fighting small-scale RTS wars and upgrading your tech from battle to battle. The idea is engaging, as I said, and with a fair amount of vigour I entered into the game, looking for variety and violence with enough depth of character to keep me coming back for more.
The beginnings were a little shaky. No tutorial is provided beyond being pointed towards the first hunk of rock to explore so I was left alone with my stompy-stompy walker and a working knowledge of the RTS format to lead me on. Luckily, this was all I required. Making progress in Star Prospector is a fairly straightforward affair – you’ll need to mine for ore before you can do anything else and this can be carried out by your own avatar, free of charge, or through construction of some cutesy pick-wielding robots. Power units need to be built to keep production running smoothly and oil, your second resource, is needed for building anything even remotely murderous. Getting this all sorted before coming under attack becomes second nature after your first attempt – unfortunately, after the fifteenth, it becomes something of a drag.
The game is solidly built, confident in its implementation of genre staples, but the thrill of an open galaxy filled with an abundance of randomated missions can be somewhat dulled by the unchanging format of build/fight/upgrade. Whether you’re tasked with taking out an enemy base, scouting for research material, or repairing facilities you’ll only ever be going through the motions of every other mission up to that point, mopping up fog of war like a fussy caretaker and knocking off baddies as a matter of course.
Graphically, the game is functional. There’s nothing here to wow the player at a glance, but all the elements fit together well enough. Combat is the only thing to really take a hit on this front simply because it appears so stilted. I was hoping for frantic fire and lights from warring machines, but enemies travel in a straight line towards their targets, stopping dead thirty yards from each other and firing intermittently until dead. There’s no sense of movement to the fighting, or any visual spark. It’s just too apparent that there are numbers crunching before you with repeated zapping noises to fill the time. It’s a real kicker when the combat experience doesn’t warrant the time you’ll spend knocking together your finest army.
This wouldn’t be so bad if you were given the tools with which to experiment and grow earlier on in the game, but as it is progression comes slowly and you’ll need to put in the hours if you’re to find a play style that suits you or to have a chance at strategising more effectively.
The addition of a separate tower defence game mode by way of the recent DLC is a generous addition to what is already a fairly effective time-sapper, but it does accentuate the lack of focus applied to the main game. There are worse crimes in game development than an over-abundance of ambition, but it doesn’t stop Star Prospector falling way short of the mark when it comes to playability and battle-bot fun. Hardcore strategy fans with a time-sucking wormhole to fill may find something to feast on here, but for everyone else it’s likely worth a pass unfortunately.
Star Prospector can be picked up from Desura, Gamestop or Gamersgate.
Review summary Pros:
Non-linear approach allows players to pick and chose their battles; many unit and upgrade options available to earn; huge amount of content for the purchase price.
Cons:
Awkward combat; Predictable AI; Repetitive structure to many missions; Slow to get going.
Rating: 54%
