Computer System: Acer Predator Helios 300 Laptop
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0 Build 17134)
CPU: Intel Core i7-7700HQ @2.80GHz
RAM: 16GB
Video: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
Game Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (32bit @60Hz)
I have not completed the first chapter, yet, but wanted to give my first impressions of the game so far. I am at the point where I have brought Wymdoo back to the starbase. I'll continue to play it and then am going to replay it at least two more times as was recommended.
Introduction:
This seemed a little rushed to me. Star Control II is my favorite game of all time and so this means I am familiar with the lore of the original game, but with Origins so far, I thought the introduction needed to get me up to speed more on what is going on with humanity. I don't remember seeing what year it is or even some events in human history to lead up to what is going on. I felt a bit too in the dark here and I'd like to see a more informative introduction here. The introduction right now just shows you that we have a ship, there's a captain of the starbase, and then that's pretty much it. When I replay it, I'll be able to see if I've forgotten anything here.
Your first conversation with the Starbase commander (I don't think I even caught her name) lacks any introduction (and I couldn't name myself or my ship) and gets right to the business of flying to Triton. Okay, that is kind of interesting, but for humanity's first ship, it seemed a little strange to me that we were immediately going to the outer solar system. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but humanity's first strides in our solar system were far from baby steps. It seems like we are running pretty quickly.
Flying to Triton:
There is an arrow indicator to clue you in to which direction to go, but there also really needs to be a mini map here so that you can see where all the planets are and where you need to go or the ability to change the zoom level. I think this is going to be very important to have once we start exploring solar systems that are not familiar to us (which is pretty much every one, except Sol). I'd suggest having both a mini map and the ability to change the zoom level manually.
The spaceship requires constant thrust to keep moving. This is obviously quite different then how space really is and so I found it to be quite odd as of right now, if you stop thrusting your ship stops. Not certain what the thinking is here, but call me a purest - I like how it worked in Star Control II and prefer the physics to be right here.
Landing on Triton:
When you pull up to an object to land on (in this case Triton) you are presented with a lot of information here right off the bat. It seems like you are expected to know what to do here. I figured out that right click dragging the object allowed you to rotate it and see what was there. I think there needs to possibly be a tutorial or something included in the finished product to clue first time players into what to do when you encounter an object you want to land on as well as things to look out for.
At first it was not obvious to me how to control the decent of your lander. At first, I thought I had to use the mouse, but once I started landing outside of the landing zone (on successive planetfalls) I realized that I had no control over it. I finally figured out that I had to use the arrow keys to stay within the zone. The visual feedback as you are descending seems insufficient to land properly in the zone. I'd like some arrow indicators to let you know which controls you need to use to bring your lander back within the zone (the way it is now is certainly seat-of-the-pants, but it seems like humans are technologically advanced enough to east have something to help you stay within the zone).
Another thing here, is there seems to be no reason why you need to land in the landing zone. It seems arbitrary that you must land here and you must stay within the boxes, but there is nothing visually apparent as to why you need to land in that spot, for one, and for two, there are no hazards that seem to exist outside of the landing zone that would indeed cause damage to your lander. This just seems contrived to me to add a mini game here that doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Sure, maybe it is fun to have to land within the box, but when I was landing on Triton (and other places) nothing seemed dangerous about being outside of the box, except that I was outside the box and therefore your lander should be damaged. Perhaps the landing box size should change in regard to the apparent peril of the terrain and being outside it. Plus this would be a great way to make certain planetfalls easy (the box is really big!) and others more challenging (the box is much smaller).
Exploring Planetary Surfaces:
Once you get down to the surface, once again I'd like to have a mini map here to show me where everything is. It took me a couple of planetfalls to notice the squares and triangles to aid you in where to go for objects / resources on the surface.
At first I did not understand what my cargo capacity was (I think it would be nice to have a visual cue to show you when you have picked up a resource (maybe the cargo capacity should flash the new number as a possible example) to let you know that it has increased as the number changing by itself is not a visual cue enough) when I picked things up and also there was really no cue to indicate that you could not pick up an additional resource because your cargo was full. I'd run over a resource and it would not pick up and I didn't understand why at first. I was also on a planetfall to Miranda and there was a resource that contained 94 of something and I had almost an empty cargo, but it would not let you pick it up as I had no idea that it contained that many. I figured out later that it must have a large number of resources in that single container. So I think there needs to be an audible / visual cue here to indicate that your lander's cargo is full (Star Control II used the old gas tank is full sound).
The controls for moving on the planet's / moon's surface seemed to be okay. I'm wondering if it is possible to bring up the controls in case I forget the sliding controls (I haven't tried to use them yet and I didn't try to bring up the options menu here, maybe I can).
First Contact with Wymdoo:
I found this fun and enjoyable for the most part. Everything here seemed to work okay, I cannot think of any bugs or issues here. There may have been a few dialogue lines here or there that weren't voiced yet - I'm guessing you are already aware of this.
First Contact with the Scryve:
This seems okay, although, I'm sure it's part of the story as to why they want to exterminate you when you are in such a fledgling state. Perhaps this story line is overused, but I'm guessing you have reason to making them be like the Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah.
First Battle with the Scryve:
This seems to work okay - I had no issues.
Returning to the Starbase to Converse with the Commander:
When I went back to the Starbase to get permission to help Wymdoo, there were a couple of dialogue lines here that weren't voiced and when I tried to go back to see what I had missed it only allowed me to repeat one or two lines here, but there was probably five or six lines of dialogue and I missed like the second or third one (as things are being voiced I tend to follow along with the dialogue text as they are saying it, but I found that as soon as the voice went silent I was waiting for them to say something and start following before I realized that this line wasn't voiced and missed some of the text because I was too slow to catch up). I'd like to be able to review the entire response from my last selection with the repeat button here. Perhaps see all the text somewhere as well as re-listen to the audio segment for this response.
Getting Wymdoo's Stuff:
I found this quest to be fun. I find that I like to go and pick up all the resources when I'm on a planetfall as well as finding the other goodies / talking to aliens. I landed on Miranda just to see what was there and that's where I found the resource container that had 94 of some resource. Anyway, getting the part from the other Uranian moon and then going to Mars to get the other stuff worked reasonably well.
Having Wymdoo Join and Fighting the Scryve Legate:
I had no issues going back to Triton and getting Wymdoo to join me, but after I left the planet, the Scryve Legate talked to me and then when Wymdoo chimed in, instead of seeing Wymdoo's screen, it was just blank (the inner part of the screen was blank, but the border was still there). So something weird happened here when switching from the Scryve Legate's conversation screen to Wymdoo's as the region where Wymdoo was supposed to be was blank. I'll probably have to have a screenshot here to show what happened.
Fighting the Scryve Legate:
I didn't realize at first there were extra goodies in the combat arena for me to grab. Unfortunately, when I picked them up, I had no idea what they did. So there may need to be an aid here to help you understand what you are getting (like a + this, or something like that).
That fight there went okay.
Comments about the Scryve:
For an alien race that is supposed to be very formidable with their extermination rhetoric, I found it quite odd that humanity's first spaceship (which supposedly is scraping the bottom of the barrel based on intergalactic standards and what other star-faring races ships should be capable of doing) easily destroyed two of their space vessels. They don't seem all that terribly powerful that we need to fear them right now (I realize that this is certainly not supposed to be the case, but just basing this comment on the in-game experience). I'm not certain what to do about this, though, as this part of the game needs to be a bit easy or you'll turn off new players, but at the same time, the Scryve ships that we fight seem to not instill any fear or portend that they are indeed all that powerful.
I'd go back to the starbase (wrongly) saying that there is nothing we need to worry about since we easily destroyed two of their ships with pretty minimal losses.
Returning to the Starbase with Wymdoo:
This went okay, except that I did not receive the Earthling ship that they said they gave me and then when I went to the outfit ship screen it said I didn't have sufficient fleet points to get the Earthling ship (presumably the one I was just awarded). Also, I could not even tell how many fleet points I even had or how many more I needed.
That's pretty much where I stopped. I saw that there was an outer planet named Artemis and its moon Epsis (or something like that), but I have not tried to deal with the robots or whatever that are there.
I'm going to do that next and continue and I'll provide more comments about my experience after I've played that portion of the game.
I'll then continue the rest of Chapter One and then repeat it at least two more times as recommended.
Final Comments / Thoughts So Far:
I do have to say that I am enjoying the game so far. I really like how the planets in our solar system actually look like the real planets from the pictures the various probes / telescopes have taken of them. That is really cool.
I really do think there is a need for a mini map for both solar systems and planet falls as the little squares / triangles I find are really not sufficient to aid you in finding objects quickly on the surface. I can see a need to help streamline the redundancy and improve the efficiency of a player's solar system traverse and corresponding trips to planetary surfaces.
Keeping the lander in the boxes seems like a somewhat arbitrary mini game, but I'd at least like some arrow cues to aid me in keeping it in the box as I descend and the box to change size (bigger when there is no apparent danger when landing outside the current box size and perhaps a little smaller when there is).
For selling cargo, there needs to be a sell all capability (as in the entire cargo bay). We had that with Star Control II where it would just offload everything.
Lastly, I think more consideration is required for making the game easier to understand for first time players. I could see a little "training video" for new captains or some sort of tutorial to allow new players to get up to speed quickly on understanding the various mini games within the main game.
I think the part that I've seen so far shows a lot of promise and want to thank the Stardock team for all the hard work that they've done so far and for allowing us to participate in this part of the game!
Matt
StarControl Forums
