DarkStar One: Broken Alliance brings Elite-style space trading to the Xbox 360, but is the game design still stuck in the 1980s? And does it matter if it is?

DarkStar One: Broken Alliance (Xbox 360): in space no one can hear you trade

Every year that a new sequel to Elite goes unannounced the number of people that know or care about its unplundered potential diminishes. Debuting on the preposterously feeble BBC Micro in 1984, Elite featured an open world and freeform gameplay decades before “sandbox” became the most overused word in gaming.

Unfortunately, despite being ported to almost every 8-bit and 16-bit computer under the sun a little known NES port is all most Americans know about the game and it is their blameless ignorance which is largely responsible for the lack of sequels or clones. Indeed many assume that games such as Wing Commander: Privateer or Freelancer are the original space traders, not the copies.


This though is definitely a clone. There have been many on the PC in modern times, but the original DarkStar One was not one of the more notable ones – criticised for poor controls and endless repetition.


Now four years later a console version has emerged and it does go some way towards fixing the original problems. Alas not in terms of the story and presentation though, which features some of the worst cut scenes we’ve ever seen on the 360 in terms of animation, dialogue and school nativity style voice-acting.

Luckily none of that really matters because the whole point of Elite is the freedom to do whatever you want and very quickly you’re left with the choice to either follow the game’s breadcrumb trail of pre-set missions or just ignore it all and become a space pirate. Or a space trader, smuggler, bounty hunter or mercenary – or just a something in-between, it really is up to you.

Like Elite you never control your character directly, just your highly-upgradeable spaceship. Space combat simulators don’t tend to work very well on a console but this embraces the inherent complexity of the concept with a very useable system of menus that replicates almost all the commands available from a keyboard in a quick and easy fashion.

The more complex stuff, like X-wing style shunting of energy between shields and weapons, only comes into it if you actually buy and install the required piece of equipment. Other upgrades though are obtained via collecting alien artefacts, which allows you to upgrade your hull, wings and engines like a traditional role-playing game. There’s also a plasma cannon with its own skill tree full of different functions.

None of this is as complicated as it might sound because it’s all introduced over a long period of time and because all of it largely boils down to simply shooting bigger and badder space pirates. No matter how much the game tries to hide it the structure really hasn’t changed at all from 1984, as you tour the galaxy trading items and surviving the dangerous few minutes it takes you to emerge from hyperspace and dock with a nearby space station.

Naturally this gets intensely repetitive before too long, even with some spirited attempts to change the scenery now and again. The story missions and side quests, which Elite had almost none of, should have helped alleviate the problem but they don’t come close to the variety and inspiration of dedicated space combat simulators such as X-wing and Freespace.


Not that combat isn’t fun (despite a “match enemy speed” command that rarely seems to work) but it has nowhere near the depth to sustain all of the game’s action elements. Not given the weak enemy artificial intelligence and the huge swings in difficultly level that are largely impossible to guess when actually taking a mission.

It is still easy to become engrossed in the game, but more out of a mix of nostalgia and wistful daydreaming as to what a real Elite sequel could be with a sizeable budget behind it. Whether we’ll ever see such a game we don’t know, but this gives only a tantalising glimpse at what could be achieved.

In Short:It might not be the Elite sequel of your dreams but this is still an intriguing space trader that remains all but unique on consoles.

Pros:There’s a huge amount of detail to the game world in terms of upgrades, planets and a complex but flexible control system.

Cons:The combat and missions aren’t nearly diverse or imaginative enough to sustain you all the way through the game. Low budget presentation.

Score: 6/10

Xbox 360, £44.99 (cert 12)

Publisher: Kalypso

Developer: Gaming Minds

Release Date: 18th June

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