StarDrive Reviews

Was the game unfinished and abandoned? Yes. More or less. Whether that was his intention or not I don't know. I don't think it was though necessarily. As I understood it at the time the underlying engine of the game stopped being supported. I could be wrong on that. Is the game fun? Yes. Immensely. Does the base game run great in the last official patch? Not really, no. Especially not the further into a save game you play, especially if the 'map' size is set high. That said, this review is a thumbs up. The unofficial officially sanctioned patches/updates of the folks at Blackbox Mod team and the adjacent combined arms mod help correct many of the flaws present, peeling back the rough edges and allowing you to dip your toe in the world of StarDrive. Whether you play a default race, starting as the nascent Terran civilization, the honorable Kulrathi (spacebears), the cold all consuming Opteris, the rapacious Wulfen etc.. or you carve out your own specific space culture to take to the stars, they allow you to hold the reins of a space empire. Explore, fight and most of all.. Customize! Does your dakka need more dakka? Add more dakka! Research bigger dakka! Got the need for speed? Gotta go fast? If 2 engines are good, 8 has gotta be better. And why stop at fusion thrusters, lets throw antimatter out the back and see what that does! Anyways, the game is flawed. Yes. And while the mods aren't perfect but they are absolutely playable, still being worked on as far as I'm aware, and the current experience is enjoyable. The installing of the mods isn't too hard or complicated. Well worth every penny, pretty sure the blackbox mod startup doesn't increase playtime on steam. Its been 460hrs for a long time I feel like, there's no way its that few hours. Probably have 460hrs staring at the ship customization screen alone dwelling on and adjusting just the right design or optimization to a new hull type.