Star Control®: Origins

I think "Star Control: Origins" is worth trying. I didn't stick with it very long, though. I do think the game was "made with love." There's a lot of humor in it, and the art direction has nice whimsy. For me, though, the core loop didn't really work out. I think "SC:O" is meant to be a joy-of-exploration thing, but I didn't get that much enjoyment from flying place to place and landing on planets. The getting from star system to star system quickly becomes tedious, because there didn't seem to be much to find in hyperspace. (Depending on where you're going, there's a LOT of hyperspace.) Then, when you get to a system, visiting the various points of interest ends up seeming like just a bunch of "checking the boxes." There are special things to find, but many of them end up showing the marker which means "an interesting thing is here, but you can't resolve it yet." The markers accumulate to the point where they aren't a meaningful indicator of where you've been, and you don't get quest log entries about them in most cases. It's difficult to self-direct your travels when there isn't an easy way to determine where you think you'll find something new. The planetary exploration is a nifty idea that didn't really pan out for my tastes. You get this rover that you can drive around and collect things with, and you can equip it with a weapon for combat. It's all fine in theory, but the repetition and frustration get in the way. The real point isn't the scenery, but rather to hunt down these resources dotted all over a planet. The trouble is that all the planet - and the lander controls - end up doing is impeding the process. This isn't like the original "Mass Effect" Mako, where terrain could be fun and comical. What it works out to is a lot of teeth grinding as your bouncy lander won't go where you want, and constantly requires you to jump to avoid terrain features that it hangs up on. And if you get into a planet-side fight, your lander is VERY fragile, which means trying to stay at long range. And THAT means fighting with how your projectiles fly over the surface in a curve. It's actually clever! But again, I just felt like the fiddling around with the laser was an obstruction and not a fun diversion. Similarly to all that, the space combat system didn't really work out for me. There are other games of this general type that seamlessly integrate the space-flights and the space-fights. To make the fleet system work, though, "SC:O" encounters get resolved in their own sort of mini game. There's nothing wrong with that as a basic choice, but the way it works out is to break the flow of your exploration to dump you into an arena where clunky, Newtonian flight, and imprecise weapons combine to create yet another feeling of "I really wish this would just get out of the way." I'm one of those folks where the interlocking systems of this title simply failed to interlock in a way that was engaging for me. Other players love this thing from top to bottom. You may as well find out which camp you're in.