Spaceship command simulations have been a popular genre for many years, building on the success of such science fiction shows as Star Trek, Star Wars, and the fiction of Heinlen, Asimov, Clarke and many others. The Space Empires saga has been framing a universe populated with the usual human race and 3-4 alien races that are either friend or foe. Previous episodes of the series have been empire building turn-based strategy games, where sacrificing a ship to achieve a strategic objective is perfectly acceptable. Now, in Starfury, you take command of a single ship, and that strategic sacrifice is much more personal.

The basic idea of the game is sound, but unless you are a dedicated Space Empires fan, you will come away thinking that you played this same game back in 1995. The gameplay is your straightforward dock at a planet, take on various missions, navigate to warp jump points, and repeat. There are a fair number of ship styles open to you as you progress through the game, and the availability of separate fighters and an interesting array of weaponry keeps you looking for credits to afford that new point defense cannon that will keep the torpedoes off your flanks.

At first glance, the 3-D graphics of the game are gorgeous, with nebula, realistic-looking planets, etc. The problem is, then you have to move, and you suddenly realize that you are only able to move in two dimensions. This quickly reminds you that you are simply playing on a 2-D gameboard with 3-D pieces.

I enjoyed playing this game for a while, because I also loaded it on my new Tablet PC and could run everything with the pen. This might make Starfury an interesting play for Tablet PC owners as well as fans of the Space Empire series. Since the hardware requirements of the game are fairly low (P3-500, 3D card), owners of older PC's may also be interested.

If you enjoy space-based trading, exploration, and combat, with a healthy number of ways to customize your ride, then check out Starfury. If you are looking for a new gaming experience, since Starfury breaks no new ground in gameplay or graphics, you may wish to look elsewhere.

Download links:

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8 August 2009 14:11 | ICQ: -- |

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29 September 2009 07:26 | ICQ: -- |