Dark Star One, Space Empires V, and Heroes of Annihilation

I saw these games, Dark Star One, Space Empires V, and Heroes of Annihilation, at the local Software store. They look like they are from small devs and look to be RPGs in all but name only.

HoA takes pains to bill itself as a genre busting RTS/RPG hybrid.

Space Empires from reviews is a poor sequel to the much better Space Empires IV.

Dark Star One calls itself a Space/Action Game. However, with so much focus on ship upgrades and possibly story it looks to be a classical type of Space RPG.

Has anyone bought these games or played around with them? I'm wondering what you think and what their RPG elements are if any?

Dark Star One was made by Ascaron. Not by their Sacred team but by the one who did their economic sims (Port Royal and Patrician series). The reviews say it´s a competent space action game similar to Freelancer. There´s a demo on the usual sites. Several technical and content issues of the demo have been patched out of the full game.

Heroes of Annihilation has a demo also. I would avoid this game, it's 90% rts and 10% rpg. It's also extremely unbalanced. Only hardcore rts fans need apply.

Originally Posted by Lucky Day
Dark Star One calls itself a Space/Action Game. However, with so much focus on ship upgrades and possibly story it looks to be a classical type of Space RPG.

It's very similar to Freelancer, i.e. shallow combat, shallow trading, simple random missions and a forgettable story That said, it’s exactly the sort of game that can be enjoyed for short play sessions. So if you just want to engage in simple ship blasting with some very light quasi-RPG elements then the patched version may well be worth a look - but don’t forget to check if your joystick is supported first.

I hoped Dark Star One would be a "free trading game", but one review told me that there is too much fighting involved for my taste.

From what I hear, Heroes of annihilated empires is one of the weirdest games I've read about in the last years. And for that reason. I'll buy it one day.

I've still got their informational flyer from the Games Convention in late 2004 somewhere here flying around. They were actually showing very early screens back then. I didn't talk to the devs, though.

The screens of HOAE always strongly reming me of Age of Wonders, especially the last ones of the three games of this small series. I believe that Age of Wonders would look *very* good with these graphics ! I wish I could play such a game one day.

I don't know anything about Space Empires V.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
I hoped Dark Star One would be a "free trading game", but one review told me that there is too much fighting involved for my taste.

Even the FedEx missions are combat missions

It's definitely not a "free trading game" in the mould of Patrician or Egosoft's X series.

Space Empires V is a 4x space strategy in the tradition of VGA planets, Master of Orion and Galciv. It had a really buggy launch which netted a handful of bad reviews. The game itself is dream though with everything a 4x strategist would want: space battles, ground battles, carries, mines, ship designing, etc. AI is better than in previos space empires but still no good as the one in galciv.

There are only 2-3 4x space stragies (SE4 DX, SE5, Galciv2) to play so if you like the genre you should pick it. Its not good as Galciv 2 - which beats it to a bloody pulp especially with 1.3 gigabyte star trek mod - but in parts it offers more complexity that is lacking from GC2.

Thanks for the info.

Thanks for the info

based on this I'll avoid HoA and take a look at DS1 since I loved Freelancer.

I loved GalCiv2 and if it blows the pants off the SE's I'll avoid them. Do you havea link for this Star Trek Mod?

Dark Star One from what I understood was pretty much your basic action combat spacesim with the twist being that instead of buying new ships or parts, your ship "evolved" new capabilities.

I don't believe that there was much or any trading.

In the end it was reported to be buggy, and not a very good game unless you were completely starved for a spacesim, of course the comments were prefaced with not living up to Ascaron's Sacred standard… That said, I'd bet that the Evochron and some of the other indie space sim games would be a better bet.

Last time that I checked(late summer IIRC) Ascaron was still patching it. I noticed it in a local software store, but had never heard of it, so did some checking and got most of the above. (Even then(July or June) it was already down to $19.99.)

Space Empires via hearsay is supposed to be good, better than Galactic Civilizations(more complex), but ti was also VERY buggy at release. I'm not sure where the patching/fixing stands ATM…

Never heard of Heroes of Anihilation at all…