Starbound

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Game Information
Release Date: 12/04/13
Developers: Chucklefish Games
Publishers: Chucklefish Games
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Genre: Adventure, RPG
Players: Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Rating: 6.9/10

---

Synopsis

Starbound begins with the player inside a spacecraft fleeing their homeworld, each race with their own unique reasons for leaving. With nothing to guide it, the shuttle shoots into space without direction, becoming hopelessly lost in a sea of stars. As luck would have it, the space shuttle touches down on a habitable planet and an adventure begins that takes the player hurtling across the universe. Starbound contains both quests and story driven missions, buried inside its vast sandbox universe. The space shuttle acts as the player's vehicle while exploring the galaxy, containing a teleport pad the player can use to teleport down to planets the shuttle is visiting, a ship locker for storing items, a fuel panel for refueling the ship, a 3d printer for creating objects, and a cockpit for piloting the ship. The interior of the ship is also fully customizable, with any blocks able to be placed in the ship.

---

Gameplay

If you have ever played Terraria, this game will feel very close to home in respects to its similarity. The minecraft-esque system of gathering materials and surviving can sometimes be very overused but this game utilizes it with its own twist. While using Coal as fuel and wood as a building material like most minecraft prodigies do, it also uses a plethora of different weapons, environments, and monsters/animals so that the game is always ever changing. Some environments are uninhabitable and require special apparatuses to travel on, while some are abundant with resources. This game is always spicing it up with every new area you discover, but be weary of the dangers that lie within these worlds. Multiplayer is how one would imagine, a quest to work together to survive and adventure throughout the vast amount of planets and environments. Overall its a great game, while not unique in the sense of its Minecraft/Terraria like survival system, its other features definitely do make up for that. Sadly it also has a lot of downfalls. It can become excruciatingly boring if your patience is low and is little to no fun unless you're playing with a group of friends. Especially if you have gone through the whole Minecraft/Terraria craze where you played hours upon hours of both, it will just get repetitive and feel like you're doing the same thing you did a couple years ago.

---

Graphics

Unlike Terraria, this game graphics are actually up to par. While still being a 2D sidescroller type view, it manages to capture you in its vast array of multi-colored environments and details. I find myself playing this game and admiring the trees and the detailed grass and simply just taking everything that surrounds me. Overall this game hosts a great set of graphics for its play style and I have found it very easy to run even on my seven year old Logitech laptop.

Graphics/Sys Requirements

---

Controls

The controls for this game are simplistic as one could imagine, A & D being your movement keys and your left and right clicks being your action keys. The game's play style is not very hard control wise, as the controls are both easy and run smoothly with the actions they do. It probably would not take even a novice computer owner 2-3 minutes to figure out how to play this and besides.

---

Ratings (Personal)
Game play: 6/10
Graphics: 7/10
Controls: 9/10
Overall: 6.9/10