Starflight 2: Trade Routes
of the Cloud Nebula
| Developer: MicroMagic | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Electronic Arts | Sound: |
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| Year: 1991 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Adventure | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
6/10 | |
The sequel to Starflight, released on PC-DOS in 1989, resembles its predecessor so closely that it could pass for a simple expansion. The story takes place some twenty years later, in another galaxy populated by different alien races. Could the Tandaloo design be inspired by Olapet, a character from the Green Lantern comics?
Be that as it may, you’ve just received a missive from your friends the Spemin. They’ve recently “got their hands on” hyper-advanced technology, complete with an inexhaustible energy source, which they intend to use to conquer their neighbours and reduce them (you) to slavery. Assemble a crew once more, then thwart their plan before their ultimatum expires (indeterminate, but I believe there’s no real time limit this time).
Group formation remains strictly identical to the previous game and customisation is limited to giving names to your crew (as well as to your ship). As for the stat sheets, they no longer fool veterans. I knew the engineer and doctor were useless, so I simply contented myself with training the navigator and science officer with two clicks, never touching this function again.
The only notable (but expected) innovation: bartering! You can now buy and sell all sorts of goods by visiting trading posts scattered throughout the galaxy. It’s even possible (and encouraged) to haggle with certain locals through an appropriate dialogue interface. It’s amusing at first, though somewhat “mechanical” after prolonged use. Moreover, searching for these trading sites, randomly placed on planetary surfaces (and which change position with each visit) quickly becomes tedious.
Armed with my tormented experience of the first episode, I began by clearing my desk. Then I obtained a copy of the manual (which I read in its entirety!), a map, accompanied by a small notebook for taking assiduous notes (I’ll wait for Starflight 3 to move to spreadsheets). I devised a plan: prospect nearby planets in search of precious metals, mine, sell and upgrade my ship as quickly as possible. I also took care to scrupulously respect space etiquette. You know, deactivate weapons and shields before saying hello to fellow spacefaring voyagers… And despite my organisational aspirations, I suffered even more than before, had me belching up bedstead legs!
Yet I followed the plan to the letter: starting by buying the maximum number of additional containers to increase my cargo space, then going to fill them with ore. Luckily, I found important deposits of gold and platinum to exploit! But I was disappointed when I returned to the spaceport. Impossible to sell my cargo. The trading post in the neighbouring system didn’t want it either. I had to drag it from system to system, searching for aliens to flog it to. It turns out, though I couldn’t have known, that unlike the first game, poaching exotic creatures proves far more profitable than mining. The sought-after species are even indicated during planetary analysis.
This initial complication had two unfortunate consequences. Firstly, my ship moved more slowly and I was no longer able to escape “hostile” encounters. Secondly, my surface shuttle could no longer unload its cargo to the (full) hold of my main ship. I think this is what triggered a particularly troublesome and persistent bug: at each landing, a corrupted “object” would materialise in my all-terrain vehicle’s hold, and an error message would interrupt me each time I consulted my inventory. I tried to dump this intruder in the wild, and it began jumping about everywhere whilst continuously emitting other error messages. I euthanised it with laser cannon shots, which didn’t prevent it from “resurrecting” in my hold at the next landing.
Another thing drove me completely mad: these “additional dialogues” with crew members, who baulk and respond to orders sarcastically, adding an extra delay (on top of loading time) before displaying the desired screen. Throughout the entire game, I wondered what had possessed the developers to implement these repeated insubordinations, as irritating as they were pointless. I discovered belatedly that they were caused by the “gas slug”, an artefact I’d picked up at the beginning of my mission and kept throughout without knowing what it was for. Well, it serves as an elaborate prank! Given that the shortest jokes are the best and this one ruined my existence for at least twenty hours… I appreciated it modestly.
Otherwise, the plot development seems more artificial than in the first instalment. In addition to stereotypical and rehashed dialogues with the same aliens, always encountered in the same places, important information or special equipment is conditional upon the prior delivery of “specialities”, obtainable on a single planet situated arbitrarily in the galaxy. And of course, each civilisation demands the speciality produced by another, which forces you to encounter them all in the right order. The spirit of adventure transforms into a logistical puzzle.
Another difference that disturbed me: in the first game, tunnels (flux) allowed rapid travel over long distances, with fixed entry points clearly identifiable by their coordinates. In the second, these entrances are often clustered in groups of 5 or 6, too close together to be easily readable on the map, which makes navigation unnecessarily confusing. Once again, I don’t understand this decision. Added to this is the game’s irritating habit of triggering combat as soon as you exit a tunnel.
Furthermore, serious slowdowns occur in the vicinity of nebulae (represented by large green discs on the map). It seems that the simple change of background colour is enough to bring the computer to its knees. At that point, it might have been better to leave the background black and signal entry into a nebula with a small indicator light on the interface.
To finish with the slander (I need to air the place out a bit, my gas slug is starting to stir), I found the spaceport less hospitable than in the previous game. Before, I used to anticipate with pleasure the ritual of stopping over at my home station, between two extended expeditions, to read the news on the “notice board”, repair, refuel and sell my cargo. Now, there are virtually no more atmospheric messages, and the “commercial depot” no longer has a useful function. You can’t even buy fuel any more.
Note that there were several attempts to develop a third title. First the game Protostar (1993) which didn’t obtain the right to use the name, and several semi-amateur remake/sequel projects in the 2000s and 2010s, which never came to fruition.
I was so focused on space etiquette that I forgot about the very existence of my shield. Don’t look at these images too closely, thank you.
Otherwise, I’m selling platinum and a few bedstead legs, give me a shout.
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