Star Wolves 3: Civil War Review

First impressions can be a dangerous thing; my first hour or so of playing Star Wolves 3 was a rather frustrating and monotonous experience. The interface was clunky, the missions were dull and there were numerous localisation issues - I was ready to score the game very lowly, however I persevered and found that the game exceeded my initial impressions.
Star Wolves 3: Civil War is (unsurprisingly) the third in 1C Company's space-based RPG series and sees the player commanding their vessel whilst trying to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of a number of trade convoys. Throughout the course of the game there are new ships and upgrades to purchase, as well as skill points to spend on pilot abilities.

The player starts off with a feeble, unarmed cargo tug and is quickly introduced to the main factions vying for control of the games many solar systems. At times it is disorienting and the numerous switches of allegiance early on make it difficult to determine which factions (if any) should be considered the ‘good guys', especially seeing as the player's character (who is no stranger to the region or the politics involved) acts outwardly hostile towards almost everyone he meets.



Whilst the plot does suffer slightly in at the beginning due to the ambiguity of the nature of each faction, the story does branch at multiple points resulting in a large number of possible endings depending on who you allied with throughout the course of the story and whether you were able to bring the factions together to work against the eventual common enemy.

There's only so much fun that can be had ferrying cargo back and forth in your starting ship, thankfully you soon find yourself in possession of a larger ship capable of equipping weapons as well as holding a selection of smaller fighter craft which can be launched to provide an escort when needed. As you progress through your journey, you will be joined by a variety of NPCs allowing you to increase the number of fighter pilots at your command.

With multiple vessels under your control at any one time, it's important to have a solid control scheme. Commands are given through traditional RTS move/attack orders rather than having direct control over individual units as is more common in RPG titles. Unfortunately it's all too common to be a couple of pixels out when issuing commands resulting in units being given move orders rather than attacking, despite the cursor appearing to be over the enemy in question. Similarly, clicking ever-so slightly off centre when instructing your ship to travel to a station or portal tends to end with the ship positioned next to the location in question; resulting in a somewhat painful wait as the vessel manoeuvres to the correct destination.



Outside of the storyline missions, there isn't a huge amount to do; whilst you are free to roam the hundred or so star systems there's generally little of interest beyond killing a few pirates. Despite the protagonist's trading background and numerous trade stations, there are no goods to be bought or sold other than ship upgrades. It's unclear whether trading has been left out due to the fact that ships appear to have limitless cargo capacity or vice versa; one thing that is certain, you will end up with a vast number of escape pods salvaged from wrecks in your hold with no apparent way of getting rid of them.

The game universe appears to be powered by the same engine from the original game and first sequel, or at least an updated version of it; which would explain the low system requirements - the recommended spec is a Pentium 4 with GeForce 6800 or Radeon 1900. Despite being less than taxing graphically, it's still very common to see "Not enough resources" when attempting to use the 8x time acceleration; a feature which is practically essential when escort trade convoys at snail's pace through a large system.

The audio fares slightly better, with a nice mix of background music and a competent range of effects and explosions. One noticeable omission is the lack of voice acting; whilst the opening and closing cinematics included English voices, there are none during the game itself, leading to long pauses during cutscenes where one would expect the actors to be speaking. After some investigation, it appears this may just be an issue with the review code that was sent to us - the localisation folders contain plenty of WAV files for each character, however all of them are blank; hopefully this has been noticed and the retail copies will feature the correct files.



This, and a number of other small niggles combine to transform an otherwise solid game into one that is quite frankly a bit of a chore to play. Pathfinding, both for NPC and your own ships is questionable and the quick travel system needs the option to be activated manually when offered.

As it is currently, when needing to travel long distances between systems, you are sometimes given the option to travel straight to the system without having to fly through all the systems in between. Unfortunately, this normally occurs directly after completion of one mission with the following mission starting immediately on your arrival at the location; meaning that if you need to stop to carry out repairs or rearm, you have to decline the fast travel offer and manually pilot your way through 10 systems until you reach the next storyline mission.

Despite its flaws, there's nothing game breaking; for anyone that can cope with the combination of little issues, there's plenty of fun and challenge to be had with the multitude of upgrade and customisation options, as well as a twisting storyline that can be played through a number of different ways.