Star Command (2012) (2012)

Star Command's violent romp through the galaxy is equal parts challenging and clever, making it a must-play for sci-fi strategy fans.

Star Command is a very unique iOS experience that I hope to see a lot more of in the future. The biggest problem I have with this game compared to FTL is that you aren’t going to see a lot of variety in your play experiences because, unlike FTL, there is a full story here that takes about four hours to run through so you’re pretty much tied to the same path every time you play with very little branching.

If you’re looking for a simple strategy game that’s funny, frenzied, and dripping with style, you’d have a hard time doing better than Star Command. And besides – if you won’t travel the stars to introduce humanity to a surprisingly hostile galaxy, who will?

This is a smooth and engaging time-eater. [Aug 2013, p.79]

Persevere beyond the obfuscation and awkwardness of the opening act and everything begins to click into place: your finely-tuned vessel becomes a labour of pride, and deliberating how best to distribute tokens rewarded post-conflicts – the in-game currency used to build, staff and upgrade facilities – becomes genuinely involving.

A repetitive sequence of identical star battles, usually frustrating and without a strategic method. A fanciful diversion for the Star Trek fan but not the simulation you are looking for.

Star Command couldn't live up to the expectations it set for itself. The great visual style and sharply written dialogue form the shell of a failed Kickstarter-project. Star Command lacks diversity, the entertaining space battles quickly become repetitive, the artificial intelligence is bad, it isn't well balanced and succumbs to a wealth of bugs.

Fantastic game! Star Command is an absolute gem. It runs flawlessly on my iPad 2, it has ZERO microtransactions (thank lovely 8-Bit style graphics, and a lot of fun. If you've played FTL then you'll already have KIND OF an idea of what the game is like, however, it has less ship component management and more crew management. Its still a very different game to FTL but if you loved FTL (like I did) but wanted some more crew mgmt and more of a Star Trek vibe then give this a shot. Its a bargain at twice its current price!

I went into this game knowing nothing of it. I recently got it from Humble Bundle (Android) and decided to give it a try. I must say, I had an enjoyable experience. Animations and frame rate were solid, and game play was different from usual mobile games. Its far from perfect though. Story felt lacking, characters felt almost forced. You don't feel like dialogue choices make any sort of impact in the game world. I can see why people are unhappy. Personally, I didn't have any issue with the problems others were having. Moving crew made sense, and while tedious, you're not doing much else while waiting for weapons to charge. A tutorial would be nice, but not impossible without one. The devs overstretched and underestimated costs. They didn't make things better with PR either, but considering this is their first release, I'm willing to forgive this as oversight and spur the moment feelings if they keep up with development and listen to their customers. By itself, Star Command is a decent game that could definitely use work. Not everyone will agree, but I say judge it on what it gives you, and enjoy the ride.

Star Command is a game whose story is actually bigger than itself. The product of a Kickstarter campaign, SC is a game that languished in development hell for two years before exploding onto the iOS scene amid fanfare and viral PR. The long and the short of it is that SC puts you in command over your very own Star Trek-style ship, rendered in obviously-lovingly-wrought pixel art. Equip your ship, hire crew, fly to other planets, shoot at enemies. A great premise. On the plus side, the graphics are second to none, provided you like pixel art. It's clear that the developers spent a lot of time on artwork; it's all high quality and very carefully and lovingly made. Audio is quite good, although the orchestrated arrangements for the background music don't exactly match the graphic motif (Pixel People did better with its chiptune soundtrack), nor the 8/16-bit style sound **** those sound effects fit right in and work well. The game also forces the player to split attention between ship-to-ship combat and defending one's own ship from boarding parties. So you're simultaneously handling ship weapons and steering your security crew around to handle unwanted guests. Unfortunately, the game doesn't follow the slick polish of the graphics and front end UI. Problem 1: everything is hostile. There's no exploration, and certainly no diplomacy; you're given a new place to go which, no surprise, contains a new ship that wants you dead. There's no other approach, nothing new to see; it's just a matter of what the new aliens who want to kill us look like. Dead dull. Problem 2: basic game mechanics are a nearly epic-level fail. Not only do your ship's weapons and equipment need to charge, but you need to generate a "token" to use most of them. Consequently, you need two time-consuming charge-ups to use your best gear, which is just bad mechanics. Weapon charges, fire weapon. Don't go requiring a second thing, particularly when it takes two minutes to make a token whether you're in combat or peacetime; you will be waiting. Problem 3: you're cramped. There's no really effective way to improve your ship because there's just no room. There are bigger ships, but they're locked with no clear answers on how to unlock them. And Problem 4: the combat curve is sharp. Your ability to defend yourself is rapidly outstripped by your enemies' ability to beat the snot out of you. You will quickly end up being beaten senseless by antiship weapons while your ship is swarmed by boarding parties. On top of that, a lucky shot by an enemy can kill several crew, meaning that battles can become hopeless quickly. Ultimately, I'm hoping that some additional thinking and reworking to game mechanics will correct the most glaring problems, and that some additional development will give you more alien interaction options than "which first? Lasers or torpedoes?" In the meantime, the end result is good graphics and sound, but points off for bad game mechanics, lack of variety, poor balance and pacing, and a lack of play endurance (with so little to see, the game gets old fast). So 5 out of 10 for an unfinished would-be masterpiece called Star Command.

This game is very good. Addictive even with some nice features and an entertaining gameplay. So why the low score? Because this is very clearly an unfinished product. Many options are flat out unavailable and you only get a "coming soon" screen when you tap on them. Also, after you finish the game, Star Command gives you a hint that this first journey was just the beginning of your adventures, but in thruth it's also the last. After all there's no more new content, you can only replay the main story, which is very short and a little lacking. There are unfinished sub-plots, unused skill slots that were never implemented, and much, much more. I has some very high expectations toward this game, but in the end I was disappointed. The game's good, but it could've been great if they just put more content into it.

I picked this up via the September 26, 2013 Humble bundle, Played the android version all the way through. Let me start by saying this: the graphics are nice, the music is nice, but the gameplay and lack of challenge are where this "game" falls flat on it's face. Throughout the game there was ZERO sense of danger in battle, my shields were EASILY refilling way before the enemy ever attacked again, I never had to use dodge or shield boost, and I could leave the game sitting for hours in a battle and never die! Combat goes like this: Enemy always hits you first, you take a little shield damage, your shields are full before the next salvo. You wait, and wait some more as your weapons charge up. You push the weapon button, this starts a little minigame where you tap at the right time to fire your weapons, the better you do, the less time you will waste "in battle". Continue this until the enemy is out of health 10 minutes later. Hooray, repeat this fifteen times and you win the game! Good job you did two timing minigames a few hundred times. Only ONCE did I have my ship boarded and I assume that was because it was a tutorial mission with zombie cosmonauts. The only danger in the game is maybe two or three spots where your dialogue choice ends up having your ship get set on fire or boarded constantly during the fight. Additionally there is no diplomacy, and you don't actually customize your ship so much as choose two out of three weapons and two out of three special rooms. You also do not get to upgrade to a bigger ship unless you beat the game and do what is essentially newgame+, however the ship you have is invincible from the start so who cares about new playthroughs? Do not pay full price for this, it is NOT like FTL, and you will be disappointed and bored.