starebound reviow

[Cassandra 623]

Review: Starbound for the PC.

The original game was a surprise hit when it first blasted its way onto screens a while back.

Screw the establishment, man! Oversized publishers that don't move with the times are so old hat. The cool way to publish games is to be a lean operation of a couple of guys who haven't been able to afford a YCMA shower in a week who release games like Starbound for almost free and grow beards and hang out at coffee shops and have documentaries made about them. Fight the power, unless they don't give me a freebie review code, in which case they're a bunch of pompous asses.

You already know what to expect from Starbound after the last game in the series, and Indie doesn't disappoint. There's some new stuff, some irratiting bugs have been ironed out, and a new storyline bolted on to make everything look welcoming for newcomers.

Pew! Pew! Pew! The aliens are back to cause havok for you and everyone you love. So it's time for you to get your spaceship and blast 'em all out of the sky. Do you have what it takes to zap the high scores and joystick all the video game nasties.

 

 

Starbound tries to seperate itself from the pack with interesting features. Everything moves so super fast with the technical miracle that is Blast Processing! It's so super cool and bodacious, man! It got so crazy that my PC exploded which means it's good, right?

Co-op features heavily in the game, but it's a shame there's no support for 64 players at once on the same couch.

The graphics are a mixed bag. Some things look really nice and the frame rate is a solid 54 frames per second. 
With a bit more time, or if the game came out a year ago, it would have been easy to forgive the retro style's faultings.

Being a 2D game, the hardware capabilities of your PC aren't exactly being pushed to the limit.Purists may point out that the 16-bit games Starbound is trying to emulate didn't look this good, but it's a minor problem.

Performance is best on a ATI system, and you'll need at least a 8800 card to be able to run the game at the now-standard 512 by 1782 resolution with full AA and trilinear mimap interpolation. It's another feather in the PC gaming's cap. Being a PC exclusive game, no compromises were made in making this game with full support for all the latest keyboards and pedals and Oculus Rifts and such and such.
Highly recommended for Adventure fans and anyone who's after a good time.

 

Overall Score: 6 / 10
Review by Cassandra Delacreaux