Startopia First Look

Many games had been presented to the public for the first time on this year's E3. One interesting game that attracted a lot of attention even though it does not feature excess violence was the Mucky Foot's Startopia. Frankly, I never believed that Startopia could have that interesting gameplay until I played the demo. I simply thought that this game would offer nothing more than good graphics in a sim game. I was wrong. Judging by Startopia, we can soon expect to have new standards in sim gaming.

As most of our readers are probably already aware of, Startopia puts you in the role of a manager and supervisor of a space station in a galaxy far, far away (no, it's got nothing to do with Star Wars mythology, on the other hand the visitors in your station look as if they do). Your base goal is to maintain the station in proper working state to please your bosses. In fact the whole thing revolves around the visitors that come to your station and their attitude towards you.

The game has three basic modes: Missions, Sandbox and Multiplayer. Missions contain the game campaign, Sandbox is a classical free play mode and multiplayer will allow you to compete against other colony managers.

You start the game by controlling one oval chamber in the space station and you have to build an array of facilities which should make your visitors feel better, and help you broaden your area of influence. As the visitors bring money, it is very important to please them. This can prove to be very difficult, especially if we have in mind the versatility of races in Startopia. Each race has its own needs and functions on your station. The Salt Hog will only require basic nourishment and rest. The Grey require the same things as the Salt Hogs but they also require laboratories and research facilities. The Zedem Monks are the spiritual leaders of both guests and employees and make them happy, but if you have a lot of idle creatures around the station, they could turn to zealots. The Grekka Targ are bird-like experts for radars and sensors and can provide you with detailed information about your or enemy station. The Gem Slugs are one of the most requiring types of guests as they are of noble birth. The Dahenese space-sirens love fun and games, and they are ideal guests on your station as they themselves provide good (and quite intimate) entertainment for the rest of the guests.

This is just a part of the menagerie that will spend some time (and money) at your space station. You have to keep in mind that you are in open space and that there are a lot of other space stations about. This also means that you can explore the space and discover new races.

The campaign consists out of missions you have to complete before you can progress through the game. In one, you will have to build a huge number of lavatories (or lavotrons, as they are called in the game) in order to satisfy the needs of the population, in another, you will have to cure a famous diplomat in your sickbay, in one mission you will have to cooperate with the detestable Gem Slugs in order to produce a certain quantity of money and energy, etc. The missions don't have only one goal; you will have to sort out a large number of smaller problems before you even start moving towards the core goal, not to mention all the little things that can pop-up spontaneously when you're leading a space-station, like enemy attacks, rebellions and dissatisfaction of visitors. On the other hand, the Sandbox mode is completely open and presents a perfect choice if you want to have complete control of the station. All features and accessories are accessible here, that is, if you manage to play the game for some time with a fairly limited budget.