Star Conflict Review

Star Conflict is a squad based Massively Multiplayer Online space shooter with both Player vs Player and Player vs Environment elements developed by Star-Gem Inc. and running on their proprietary Hammer engine that stylistically remind me in a big way of Tachyon: The Fringe. 

As a member of one of three factions, the player jumps in the cockpit of their ship, straps in, and launches into the fray. Once the choice between Empire, Federation and Jericho has been made, you get dumped in a hangar with your little tier one ship and given a tutorial to play through. The tutorial is worth your time as it explains weapons, movement and the usual intricacies of space combat we know and love.

The story is that mankind have sent out colonists who after 3000 years found themselves in sector 1337 surrounded by the remains of an ancient alien culture that we have decided to call “Precursors”. They are described as having been wiped out by “a pulsing anomaly that burned out all life within this sector”. 

Mankind being mankind, we’re not the caring sharing type and we did our usual thing and went down the “he who dies with the most toys, WINS!” route. The Empire, Jericho and the Federation saw all the lovely toys these dead aliens had left around and decided to go to war over them. As you do. 

Each faction has three classes of ship: Interceptors, which are light, fast, and a little squishy, Fighters, which are more powerful and the real big guns, and finally Frigates, which are heavily armed and armoured in the support roles. Each can be outfitted for specific roles, ECM, Gunship, Recon or whatever so picking a particular ship because you like its looks doesn’t necessarily obligate you to a specific task in a battle.The combat gameplay is third person which removes blind spots nicely, and controls are keyboard and mouse only which suited me just fine but could possibly alienate console players who fancied an intro to PC gaming or those PC gamers who also prefer controllers.. 

As is the case with most free-to-play MMOs there is an in-game store that lets you purchase toys for real money, upgrades for your ships, new ships, decals, and the like. You can also purchase a licence, which grants certain rewards. Not least of which is more loot at the end of the battle and the chance to use the best ships in the game. 

Putting the somewhat hackneyed plot aside, the game itself is a fast paced squad-based space combat game that reminded me a lot of Unreal Tournament. The slightly confused UI can bamboozle the new player, but a bit of “what does this do?” style button-clicking finds out what is what in no time. 

If you have a desire to experience high-speed shooty goodness in space, then you could certainly do a lot worse than Star Conflict, but the game is rather “pay to win” since your ability as a pilot and team member doesn’t really have much to do with levelling up to a new ship if you can just buy the new hotness in the store.

There is enough to this game to keep most people interested, the exploration mode is engrossing enough, but the game as a whole though feels a little empty. No doubt the new content Star-Gem are due to release for the game will fix that over time, as all new MMOs suffer from the same issue.