When you hear the name Gaijin Entertainment, the first thing that you think is probably War Thunder, its well-known air action MMO set during WWII; but this developer is behind another interesting game, which also is in open beta, which is strangely going unnoticed to most of MMO players: Star Conflict.

Star Conflict is a free-to-play action packed space combat MMO that puts you in command of your own spaceship, with which you will fight in an endless space war between three factions, and that tries to fill the lack of a good space shooter in the MMO market. Gaijin Entertainment has managed to accomplish this difficult task, and in this way make happy all fans of space combat games? Or did they fail, like many others before them? Let's find what offers this interesting game.

The first impression of the game is good; you will be welcomed with a CG intro movie and a simple tutorial. The game controls are fairly intuitive, so you can skip the tutorial if you prefer, but we highly recommend you complete them as they will also reward you with a nice quantity of credits, the in-game currency. The controls are very similar to War Thunder, but keeping the "we're in space" feeling; with WASD you will increase/decrease your speed and move your ship left and right, with Q and E you can rotate it, with spacebar and alt you will move your ship up and down, with shift you will activate your afterburners, and with the mouse you will be able to steer, aim, lock on targets and shoot with your weapons; there are also other keys such for the ship skills and modules. As you can see you have total control of your ship, and although you can take a while to completely dominate your ship, once you've mastered it, you will be able to make some impressive maneuvers, especially with the lighter and more agile ships.

After completing the tutorial, you'll have choose one of the three factions of the game, which will define your initial ship, and your place in the space war. The available factions are the Empire, Federation, and Jericho, which embody the classic stereotypes of the genre: a totalitarian empire, the rebels and the outcasts who basically went away a long time ago, and now they have returned with new and strange habits. Choosing a faction won't prevent you from obtaining other faction's ships but, of course, by doing this you can slow down your growth in your own faction tech tree, so it may be a good idea to look on the web for the ships of the various factions and see if you like their design.

THE GAME

Star Conflict controls are extremely precise and reactive. Ship responds instantly to the player's orders, and the behavior of the weapons is very realistic. Each ship is played in a different way, and you may notice a big difference between a heavy frigate, and a fast and fragile interceptor. Different ship classes have different roles in combat, and it's very interesting to learn their strengths and weaknesses for master them. Each ship also has its own sets of weapons and unique abilities, which distinguishes still more each ship, even if they are of the same type.

The matches are fast and exciting, the action is addictive, and each game invites you to "play only one more", the typical feeling that MOBAs players know very well. You feel really great when you dodge a missile, escape from an asteroid field using some crazy maneuvers or finally giving that final blow to an enemy ship after a very intense dogfight.

Between the battles you can improve your ships using synergy (which is basically experience), buy new ships, weapon or parts, upgrade the already owned ones, progress in your faction tech tree to unlock new ships, manage your fleet (you can bring three ships at a time with you during missions) or customize the look of your ships. With the exception of some aesthetic customizations and some Premium ships, everything else is obtainable with the regular in-game currency, at a considerable pace. However, even the premium ships don't seem overpowered at all, and come with maxed synergy and some convenience bonuses. The other things which are purchasable with real money are the licenses, which give you temporary boosts to synergy and credits gain rates, and other time-savers. Long Story short: the game doesn't seem pay-to-win at all, players who pay will progress more quickly through the game.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

The graphics are one of the game's aspects that most impressed us. They are very detailed and polished, and offer detailed 3D models of ships, in addition to impressive light and special effects. It's a pleasure to fly through detailed and realistic abandoned space structures, asteroids and wrecks, and fight with a bright planet in the background. The whole space atmosphere is absolutely amazing.

The ship designs are very interesting, but maybe some of them do not seem very inspired compared with others that are amazing, but in general, the whole cast is way more than acceptable. Each faction also has ships with its very own style that distinguishes them from the rest.

The sound is also very good, and you will enjoy every single shot and explosion, but we wouldn't have expected anything less from Gaijin Entertainment, after what we've seen, and heard, in War Thunder.

GAME MODES

In Star Conflict you can find both PvP and PvE missions; we read that there are different PvP game modes, however, in all our games we ended up playing only in the typical domination mode, where you have to capture some beacon for your team and keep controlling them for as long as possible in order to score points; maybe we were just unlucky. Speaking about PvP, you can access it by the normal PvP queue, and by the custom matches tab. If you choose the first option, you will see the available battles on the space war map, where all the territories are displayed as hexagons with the color of the faction which is controlling them at that time. You can quickly join a new battle and help your faction to win the battle and the sector.

In the custom matches tab you can create a custom game with your rules and with a password if you want, making this section the ideal place for guild training or matches between friends without strangers.

The PvE section offers a bunch of missions, each one with a suggested rank range, where you will team up with other players to fight AI-controlled ships and bosses, and complete particular objectives. We have to say that the PvE offer seems quite limited at the moment, and we can see how, even if enjoyable at the beginning, it could get extremely repetitive to always play the same bunch of missions. However, in a game like this the PvE section is more of a side dish used for example to relax the nerves after an intense PvP battle, so it's not a big deal.

SOCIAL

The game has an interesting variety of social features, ranging from friend lists, clan support and several ladders for both PvE and PvP where you can see the best players and the best clans around. In addition there are regular tournaments, in which players can compete for prizes and glory. The game has great potential to become an e-Sport, and it will be interesting to see if the developers will be able to push this aspect of their creature.

CONCLUSION

Star Conflict is a somewhat hidden diamond; with a way more unique setting than the currently trendy vehicles combat MMO games such as War Thunder, World of Tanks and World of Warplanes, it's really a shame that this game is not getting the attention that it deserves, from both players and the press. The technical quality is probably on par with War Thunder, and we really hope that the guys from Gaijin Entertainment will start to push it and advertise it like they are doing with War Thunder, because they have a very good product which right now is probably the best exponent of its genre - space combat MMOs - on the market, especially considering its free-to-play nature.

RATINGS

• The good: Amazing graphics | Addictive, lots of action | Huge selection of ships


• The bad: Cosmetic customizations are available only for real money | Few PvE missions

• Graphics: 8


• Gameplay: 8


• Sound: 8

OVERALL: 8

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 21st, 2013 at 8:51 pm and is filed under MMO News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.