Star Command for iPad

I'm not the only one who's been looking forward to Star Command for a long time now. The game has been teased on numerous occasions for what seems like forever. I've waited and waited and the game finally came out the other day. I immediately downloaded it for the princely sum of three dollars and have since then spent several hours playing it.

Star Command hasn't been everything I'd hoped it would be, but it's still been a pretty fun experience. I think most of the disappointment comes from having it built up in my mind for so long. I've been stoked about this game for well over a year. Some of my disappointment also stems from having played a whole ton of FTL. Star Command is not the somewhat deep roguelike experience that FTL is. At the same time, I never expect Star Command to be so incredibly cheap. There's no way I can't recommend the game at a sub five dollar price. It's not perfect, but it's much better than it's price would imply.

Star Command places the player on a very Star Trek like space ship, charged with protecting humanity, exploring new worlds and generally kicking ass for Jesus, or in this case earth. The first thing that struck me about the game is that it's not a roguelike, which is to say it's not all about getting as far as possible, dying and then restarting. It plays much more like a strategy RPG. If the player dies, he or she can just re-load their saved game. This will happen pretty often because Star Command isn't easy.

As captain of a starship, the player is charged with building various rooms on their starship, hiring crew members, choosing where those crew members will be placed and generally blowing stuff up. This last part is the main focus of Star Command. Players will not be able to talk their way out of fights. They will be attacked constantly, and though the script is clever and often makes me laugh, the plot its self is extremely linear.

The meat of the gameplay then, involves battling other space ships. Battling space ships is done by firing weapons while simultaneously killing the numerous boarding parties that inevitably beam aboard in the heat of battle. Ship to ship weapons are on a timer, when the timer fills up, the player can push a button to activate a mini game. These mini games determine the effectiveness of the weapon and are actually one of the strong points of the game. After several hours of play i'm still only able to reach maximum efficiency about one in every three tries. Stopping boarding parties is much more difficult. Boarders can only beam aboard when the player's shields are down, but this usually happens within the first ten seconds of a battle. They then beam aboard in an infinite number of waves, separated by a timer, until shield power is restored. In order to repel boarders, the player must send their own crew down to fight them in phaser to phaser combat.

This battle system effectively means that there is always too much going on at any one time. This is a good thing and by design. However, touch screen controls can sometimes get in the way. AI pathfinding is OK at best and moronic at worst. Maddeningly, once an AI crew member is selected it must then be deselected or moved before anything else can happen. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but when I click on a crew member to move them, and then quickly change my mind (remember there's always too much going on at any one time) I must then take the extra step of deselecting the original crew member before anything else can happen. This leaves me often selecting a crew member, immediately realizing i want a different crew member and then clicking on said other crew member. Instead of selecting this second crew member, I end up accidentally moving the first crew member over to where the second one is standing. Very frustrating. Multiple crew members can not be selected at the same time, so it can take a few extra precious seconds to move a large group of crew members someplace else in the ship. Orders can not be given while the game is paused. Things end up being about 80 percent difficult by design and 20 percent difficult by...er...lack of design.

This would make Star Command a pretty average game if it weren't for the aesthetics. I love the graphics, the character design is great and the animations are top notch. The sound effects when clicking through menus are just perfect. Even just saving a game is somehow incredibly satisfying.

The designers have promised future updates including the ability to send away parties to planets. That sounds just dandy. If they can improve some of the more awkward elements in the UI while they're at it, Star Command might just become one of my favorite mobile game experiences. As it is, it's merely recommendable. Far from perfect but at a price that's too good to be passed up.