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1. Darkstar One
2. Darkstar One Trainer
3. Darkstar One Game

DarkStar One is a space trading and combat simulator game developed byGerman studio Ascaron and published by CDV.

Summary: DarkStar One is an open-ended action/adventure title set in a huge universe populated by a variety of unique alien races. Players will take on the role of an intrepid young adventurer, Kayron Jarvis, as he explores space, upgrading and customizing his ship – the DarkStar One. Download the best games on Windows & Mac. A vast selection of titles, DRM-free, with free goodies, and lots of pure customer love.

The PC version of the game was released on June 16, 2006 in Europe, August 14, 2006 in North America and subsequently digitally via GOG.com on December 17, 2006 (English only), and DotEmu on May 19, 2008 (English, French, German). The Xbox 360 version was released on July 20, 2008 under the title Darkstar One: Broken Alliance by Kalypso Media, featuring 1080p and improved gameplay.

Storyline[edit]

The DarkStar One is an advanced, partly organic starship that was built by the protagonist's late father, Simon Jarvis, using technologies from an ancient race. Jarvis was the co-founder and co-owner of a security firm, SimRob Industries; and his business partner and friend, Robert Altair, gives Jarvis's son Kayron, the protagonist, the starship after his father's death. After Kayron becomes familiarised with the controls of the DarkStar One, Robert tells him the manner of his father's death. The weapons system on Jarvis's ship had been sabotaged by Jarvis's former co-pilot Jack Forrester. Robert identifies Forrester as a traitor and murderer.

While Kayron sets out to hunt Forrester down in revenge, a series of attacks takes place on research stations across the Galactic Union (GU). The attacking ships, identified simply as drones, appear to be a type of vessel completely unknown to the GU, and Robert convinces the Galactic Council that they are of Thul origin, a genetically engineered human civilization. This antagonises all races within the Galactic Union against the Thul.

In a state of heightened tension, military units are mobilised to the GU's borders in anticipation of galactic war: precisely what the Union was founded to guard against. Unfortunately, this leads to an escalation of unrest already present within GU territory: border disputes between the Arrack and Oc'to, and an increase in piracy and smuggling in the more remote and independent systems.

Soon Kayron meets a pilot called Eona, who – enigmatically – is also looking for Forrester, but she does not divulge why. Eona's mysterious past, of legally questionable nature, means she has many contacts otherwise unavailable to Kayron, mostly linked to the criminal underworld. She becomes Kayron's co-pilot.

Their adventure together leads them to Eona's sudden kidnapping and her subsequent rescue, the collecting of information from four research stations pertaining to Oc'to scientist Dr Zarkov's research into the drone attacks, and the eventual discoveries of Forrester and Dr Zarkov. There is also the revelation that it was Robert who was behind Kayron's father's death, for which he framed Forrester, and that the Thul are not responsible for the drone attacks. A highly advanced, extra-galactic race called the S'kaa is behind the attacks, and they are bent on galactic domination. Their primary means of achieving this is to control individuals in power, including Robert, and intimidate them into divulging where the weakest and most easily conquerable planet systems are. They also exploit tensions already present in the galaxy's politics, subtly manipulating races into wars that will weaken all sides.

With help from allies who they meet during their travels – including the Thul cruiser Eoghane II – Kayron and Eona manage to find and reach the system where the S’kaa mothership is located. Together they formulate a plan of attack: using the DarkStar One’s unique plasma cannon, they create a rupture in the S’kaa ship's (otherwise impenetrable) shields, shortly after Robert – who is held captive inside the mothership for his failure to kill Kayron earlier in the story – double-crosses the S’kaa and sends a message to Kayron detailing the mothership's shields. With the shield penetrated, Kayron manoeuvres the DarkStar One through the ship's maze-like outer hull and into its core. After destroying the shield generator in the core, he flees from the ensuing explosion and flies back out to space.

The S’kaa escape by detaching the top of their mothership from its main body and activating a portal back to their home territory. The rest of the mothership disintegrates. The DarkStar One and its allies destroy the portal beam generators that opened the portal, thereby preventing the S’kaa from returning. Victorious, they all return to the Thul cruiser on which the final battle was planned.

Eona leaves the DarkStar One afterwards, but programs the ship's computer with her voice so that Kayron will 'never be alone'. The mission log reads 'No more story missions available', but the open-ended activities of trading, escorting merchant ships, carrying out mercenary assignments and fending off pirate attacks can still be done.

Setting[edit]

The story takes place in the Milky Way, beginning in a solar system called Pencah, several light years away from the Earth. Starting in Terran (human) territory, the game takes Kayron Jarvis, the protagonist, across the known galaxy, in which he encounters five alien races – the Mortok, Raptor, Oc'to, Arrack and the Thul – each with their own distinct cultural identities and fighting styles. The Terrans, Mortok, Raptor, Oc’to and Arrack together form the Galactic Union (GU), a UN-like confederacy which was formed by the Terrans after a major galactic war, in order to prevent such large-scale conflicts from ever happening again.^[1] Because of drone attacks, the Thul have become isolated to their territory, while the rest of the galaxy slowly organises itself against them.

The galaxy is divided into 23 sectors, or ‘clusters’, which contain 331 solar systems. There are seven races in the galaxy, however only six have territories. These are Terrans, Mortok, Raptor, Oc'to, Arrack, and Thul. The S'kaa are the seventh, and their home territory is unknown, their mothership just occupying an abandoned system in Raptor territory. In Terran territory, the Galactic Union has its Council – its headquarters – on Earth, Sol System, Alpha Centauri cluster.

Gameplay[edit]

The game is divided into different action role-playing quests. These are main storyline quests, side quests, and missions which can be accepted from trade stations. The latter can further be broken down into missions which include freighter escort, transportation, bounty hunting, espionage or taking photos of objects that are of interest to your contractors. In addition, the player is also able to trade, mine, or liberate star systems from space pirates.

The DarkStar One[edit]

DarkStar One has some action role-playing elements in it, which are reflected by the ship's properties.

The ship, DarkStar One, is a long-range fighter that is partly organic in its construction, and is upgraded by absorbing alien artifacts that are scattered across the galaxy, usually found inside large asteroids. The artifacts will allow the ship to be enhanced, enabling greater firepower, compatibility with a variety of alien weaponry, manoeuvrability and resistance to attack. Artifacts add to the exterior of the ship, changing its physical appearance over the course of the game, and increasing the number of weapons and equipment it can carry.

The ship consists of four upgradeable parts: the hull, wings, engines and plasma cannon. Every time sufficient artifacts are recovered, the player is given the opportunity to upgrade one of the first three along with upgrading the plasma cannon as well.

The plasma cannon is a unique weapon within the DarkStar One universe, and can be used to provide a number of additional attacks and abilities designed to give the player the edge in combat. These can be offensive or defensive, aiding either the ship's weapons, shields, or to attack enemy ships directly. Once all 100 artifacts have been recovered, the plasma cannon also unlocks a zero-point drive, allowing unlimited hyperspace travel throughout the galaxy.

Critical reception[edit]

DarkStar One received positive to mixed reviews, scoring 71/100 on Metacritic based on 33 reviews. The graphics were often praised, but the gameplay was not.^{[citation needed]}GameSpot lauded its accessibility and simplicity while ActionTrip derided it as overly simplistic and repetitive.^{[citation needed]} The game was frequently compared to other space sims including Elite, Freelancer, and the X series.^{[citation needed]}

References[edit]

1. ^'DarkStar One Game Manual'(PDF). Steam. Ascaron Entertainment. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
2. ^'DarkStar One for PC - GameRankings'. GameRankings.
3. ^'DarkStar One (pc) reviews at Metacritic.com'. Metacritic.
4. ^'Darkstar one Review from 1UP.com'. 1UP.com. Archived from the original on 2010-01-05.
5. ^'DarkStar One Review'. Eurogamer.
6. ^'DarkStar One for PC - Reviews'. G4TV.
7. ^'DarkStar One Review'. GameSpot.
8. ^'IGN: DarkStar One Review'. IGN.
9. ^PC Zone Staff (August 29, 2006). 'DarkStar One'. PC Zone. Archived from the original on June 23, 2008.
10. ^Smith, Quintin (August 2006). 'DarkStar One'. PC Format (190). Archived from the original on September 24, 2006.

External links[edit]

• DarkStar One: Broken Alliance at Kalypso Media
• Official European website at the Wayback Machine (archived April 23, 2009)
• Official North-American website at the Wayback Machine (archived July 26, 2011)

Darkstar One

• 2Gameplay

Summary[edit | edit source]

The Darkstar One is a prototype, biological long range interceptor, its new pilot, Kayron Jarvis, begins his journey to find the killer of his father - Jack Forrester. Meanwhile fragile peace amongst races grouped in Galactic Union is endangered by attacks of Thul drones on research stations of all races. Soon Kayron finds that all these attacks happen moments after Jack leaves the stations, and in this way he slowly involves himself more and more into conflict with enemy far greater than he ever thought.

Gameplay[edit | edit source]

Game is divided into few types of missions player can freely choose from. These are main storyline quests, side quests, and variantly of missions which can be taken from Space Stations. Those are divided into two groups - freighter escort missions - in which player have to defend freighter from pirates - and other missions which include transportation, escort, bounty hunting, spying or shooting photos of space objects. Additionally player can trade, mine, or liberate star systems from pirates.

Darkstar One upgrades[edit | edit source]

Darkstar One can be upgraded in two ways: biological and mechanical. Standard, mechanical equipment includes: weapons (standard, turrets and missiles), energy devices (such as shields, thruster, generator, cargo scanner) and equipment (one time use, as plasma refuel or shield recharger). These have 9 levels, and higher one can be bought only on most wealthy worlds. However to gain furtherer levels of weapons or energy devices player must upgrade his ship by collecting alien artifacts - these lead to biological upgrades which are essentially hull upgrades and plasma cannon upgrades. Hull can be upgraded in 3 directions - Hull, Wings and Propulsion. Each one of these up to 10 levels. Each next upgrade gives player more hull resistivity, as well as certain upgrades, such as shorter recharge times when upgrading Propulsion or more agility when upgrading Wings. What's more - hull and wings upgrades give additional weapons capability, up to 5 turrets (10th level of hull) and bow weapons (10th level of wings). Also each few upgrades Darkstar can use higher levels of weapons, energy or equipment. Plasma cannon can create shield, emp blast, shield overwhelming shot, stop the time for nearby units or even create impenetrable plasma shield.

Artifacts can be collected by searching asteroids in systems where Artifact is on targets list, by liberating systems taken by pirates or by completing quests (both side and storyline can bring these).

Universe[edit | edit source]

Galaxy is divided into 23 sectors which contain 331 systems. There are seven races in the galaxy, however only six have territories. These are Terraner, Mortok, Raptor, Oc'to, Arrack, and Thul. In Terran territory there is Galactic Union council in Sol System, Alpha Centauri cluster.

Darkstar One Trainer

Terran were those who created the Galactic Union after the great galactic war in which they suffered severe looses. However even now there are still disputes between Oc'to and the Arrack about the borders, and sightly mistrust between Raptor and Mortok who not far ago end the war between each other. And now, because of drone attacks the Thul become isolated in their two sectors from the rest of galaxy which slowly prepares to war with them.

Trivia[edit | edit source]

Game contains numerous references to other sci-fi universes. For example two story missions resemble final Death Star run from Star Wars or the Thul Cruiser saying 'We are the Thul. Resistance is futile.' like Borg did in Star Trek.

Darkstar One Game

Screenshots[edit | edit source]

• Darkstar One with maximum hull upgrade

• Darkstar One docking with Arrack trade station

• Darkstar One approaches alien mothership

External links[edit | edit source]