Does anyone else remember back in the day, when games were just plain fun and didn't need a $800 video card to run? When gaming companies weren't huge monolithic corporations always in search of the almighty dollar, and people worked on games mostly because they truly loved what they were doing? Well! Prepare for a trip back along memory lane as we do a review of the first release from England's own Moonpod: Starscape. The lads from Moonpod were also kind enough to grant us an interview, which will be at the end of the review.

Premise

While conducting experiments on a new type of superliminal drive, the Aegis spacecraft (and her support craft) are sucked into another "dimension" when something goes horribly wrong. (Why, oh why must those foolish humans always tempt fate?) With the crew scattered, the Aegis badly damaged and defenseless you get yet another piece of bad news.... A hostile alien force has stolen the Aegis's experimental dimension drive... Which just happen to be your ticket our of the rather nasty place you find yourselves in. And so just like Duke Nukem in similar circumstances, you grab your weapons and set out to kick some major alien ass, get your drives back and get the hell out of dodge. (In this case, back to the normal universe.) Oh, and did I mention that they're trying to escape from this dimension as well, with the intention of enslaving all humanity and destroying Earth? No? Well they are.

Gameplay

Graphics/Environments

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. I'm a big one for the eye candy, and there's tons of bright things exploding, gorgeous starfields in the background, and lots of details on all the ship's textures, especially the big ships like the Aegis, alien stations and mother ships. The cut scenes and most of the menus are cartoons, which I also like. It gives the game a very distinctive look, at least I've never seen anything like it in a video game before.

Sound and Music

I've said it before, and I'll say it again a million times most likely. The music and sound effects can totally make a game. And in the case of Starscape, they tie into the whole feel of the game that it just about takes my breath away. If you ever listened to .mods on the Amiga or PC you know the general sound of the game, but taken to the next level. The music in general has a really well done, distinctive old school sound, and yes. the tunes are actually good enough on their own that I'm going to rip them and add them to my video game music folder and playlist. There are of course many different tunes, and the music will change depending on your current situation in the game. Jumping into a starsystem, you've got a pumping techno track, if nothings going on, it's sort of mellow. The menu systems have a very nice (if a little short) catchy up beat tune.

As for sound effects, they did a lovely job here as well. Missiles swoosh as they leave their launchers, explosions rumble your desk (assuming you have a decent set of speakers of course ;) and gems chime and tinkle if you accidentally shatter them. (And yes, be careful. You need those resources, and my clumsiness has destroyed enough jewels to create a dozen fleets!) Nice work in the audio department all around.

Research and Development/Guns, guns, guns!

Everyone know that overwhelming firepower is the fun thing about games. And why the heck would you spend all your time collecting various coloured gems all over the unknown universe, if not so you could build some big, alien ass kicking guns, and use said guns to, yes: Kick said alien ass all over the place. You wouldn't! And so the lads from Moonpod have added an interesting little R&D tree to the game. As you advance through the game, you'll be researching and developing new technologies, both for defense and offence. (Remember those resources we mentions? All of this sucks those up, so you'd better be busy collecting gems!) Shields, better fighters, missiles, bombs, all sorts of different guns for your fighters, as we as big BIG guns for the Aegis to defend herself with.

Most technologies have 4 levels of effectiveness. (Ex. Developing Laser 1 will allow you to develop laser 2, which leads to laser 3 etc.) Once you have researched a technology, you must then build it, and deploy it by attaching it to a ship for use. Upgraded technologies do more damage, are more efficient, or just take up less space on your ships. R&D will go faster based on the number of crew you have assigned to assist. You can be developing one technology, and building one item at a time. A friendly (well... sort of.) alien race you run into in this new dimension will also be helping you out from time to time with new and better toys. (Just wait until you get Beam Lasers. Oh yes. ;)

Note that you can have four ships at any time, all rigged out in different configurations for different situations and ready to roll in your docking bay. For instance, you might want to have a heavy fighter rigged with massive guns, missiles, shields, bombs and batteries for cleaning house when you first drop into an enemy fleet, but then after you've slaughtered them like the alien dogs they are, dock with the Aegis and switch over to your ship with tractor beams and less shielding to do a little mining. If you happen to get blown up, pilot your little escape pod back to the Aegis at flank speed and get into another ship ASAP! :) Backups of your most powerful ships are recommended, some of the fights you get into are pretty tough and there's a heck of a lot more of them than you!

Customizing your ships, and your decisions on where to spend your resources are vitally important to the game, especially in the early and mid-stages where you don't have much in the way of R&D done. After you play around a little you might want to restart the game and use your hard won knowledge wisely. Like the glory-happy fool I am, I chose to not develop higher end engines, but concentrated all my resources on big fighters and heavy weapons..... Only to discover that my uber fighter handled like a drunken cow on roller skates. (And yes, picture that in your mind. That's exactly what happened.) The fighter frame simply had too much inertia for my pathetic little level 1/hamster on a wheel engines to turn around in less than half the map. *sigh* After nearly getting blown away a dozen times, I finally fixed this issue and started doing really well. Just like Yoda taught us: It's all about balance!

Controls and Camera

It's a top down scrolling shooter, and has quite possibly the simplest controls I've used in ages on the PC. Arrow keys, Q for guns, W for missiles, E for tractor beam (to grab those sweet sweet candy resources of course) and R to recall your mothership to your position. (Yes, it's pretty darned sweet to be in a little battle and have the Aegis come in, all weapons blazing to your rescue.) In the menus and R&D screens etc, you'll mostly be using the mouse, although you can still use the other keys as well. It took a little getting used to to use the Q and W keys to place guns and gear on my ships, rather than the mouse, but I figured it out after a few times of screwing up my ship. It's still a little confusing for me, but no one else I talked to seemed to have any problems with it.

Bugs

We looked, ohhhhh how we looked. But there were no bugs to be found anywhere. Darn you Moonpo.... er.... No.. wait a sec. That's a good thing. Thanks guys! :)

Conclusion

Download the demo, and try it out. Starscape isn't for everyone, but it's a hell of a good old school romp, and well worth the money. I haven't been this entertained by a game in a long time. Moonpod has taken a fairly simple concept, and done it perfectly. The gameplay, graphics, music and just plain fun factor, along with the minor addiction of always wanting to develop the next big gun on the block make this a game that is well worth playing, and frankly I can't wait to see what they come up with next. I think that Moonpod is a game studio to watch.