StarLancer
StarLancer Review
Sometimes the flaws in a game work to its advantage. The particular bugs, oddities of coding or developer mistakes provide a game experience that is more entertaining or enjoyable. StarCraft is one such game, its various multiplayer bugs enhancing the gameplay and allowing it to enjoy a 10 year status as one of the best RTS’s available for competitive play. StarLancer is another such game, although in this case it is the outstanding Americanism displayed in the narrative and dialogue of the 2001 spacefighter simulation that enhances the experience; rather than the ever-present random crashes.
In any other game a pilot cheerfully chirping the phrase “Looks like command’s finally decided it’s time to roll with the Diceman” in a strong accent would result in mocking tones from a reviewer. Instead, it adds charm and humour (intended or otherwise) to what would otherwise be a generic ship-blasting fare. In the same way that Independence Day is so American it’s brilliant, StarLancer’s portrayal of everyone in the Eastern bloc as a murderous scumbag and its intensification of the characteristics of all nations to the point of caricature just makes it that much better.
The plot is best described as Red Alert in space. The player takes the role of a volunteer pilot for a new squadron after the Alliance (good, western guys) suffers heavy losses to the Coalition (bad, Russian guys) at the start of the war. From initial simple missions to scout out territory around Neptune, objectives and tasks vary constantly between levels as your unit is given more responsibility. While short (no more than 20 minutes for the longer undertakings) each has multiple possible endings depending solely on just how good the player is. A failed mission does not necessarily mean game over (unless you’re killed) and the better a player does the quicker he gains access to stronger ships due to a promotion system based on performance. Balance is sometimes a little off, with superiors or co-pilots demanding that the player do things which are entirely luck based, impossible without fore-warning or just plain hard but most instructions are achievable and difficulty levels are varied enough to allow for a challenge.
Multiplayer consists of both competitive and cooperative play. Up to eight people can fly around shooting each other in a variety of situations – including a map featuring a giant death-tower that’ll one shot your ship if it locks on – with teamplay as well as free for all. If helping your friends is more your thing than killing them all, coop lets you run through the entirety of the campaign, although maximum capacity is halved to four. Some of the inter-mission storyline is cut, assumedly so the action can proceed without players having to wait for each other. A lack of hardware won’t hinder you since, unlike many of its peers, StarLancer is perfectly playable without a joystick. As usual, it makes life easier if one is used but those without won’t feel the game is unplayable or fall massively behind their more well endowed friends. There’s even a basic auto-aim feature built into certain ships which makes keyboard flying that much simpler. Default controls are well spaced and make sense, but those wishing to change them can do so easily.
Unfortunately, not all of StarLancer’s coding screw ups add to its charm. It’ll crash. A lot. Just after the player kills an opposing pilot seems to be a favourite, though the timing is completely random. Crashes on alt-tabbing seem to be based on how long it has been since installation. Thankfully, the game as a whole is worth its errors. Auto-saves at the beginning of every level minimise the amount of time which is lost and the game is worth a few playthroughs – requested or not. An underrated classic of a lost genre, if you see a copy hanging around in the bottom of a bargain bin it’s definitely worth picking up.
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