Mobile Game of the Week: Star Command (iOS)
Most big iOS games get their 15 minutes of fame and not much more. The App Store’s turnaround rate is a vicious cycle for indie developers, as is the limited mobile game press. But then there’s Star Command, an iOS game that has been in development in front of expectant gamers for more than two years now. And despite having launched one of the more notable Kickstarter campaigns in recent gaming history, the release of Star Commander really does fall on a peculiar year.
By 2013, gamers had already been delighted by a certain similar-looking 2012 game called FTL: Faster Than Light—an incredibly challenging rogue-like that put you in charge of a ship and a crew to great effect. Not only did that little indie game deliver more than it promised, it really did make you feel like a captain of a starship. Furthermore, since J.J. Abrams rebooted the Star Trek films, the series is more present on the collective consciousness than it’s been in years.
As a small indie iOS game, Star Command doesn’t live up to whatever hype the successes of FTL and J.J. Abrams might reflect upon it. More importantly it doesn’t deliver on its own promises of galactic exploration and a free-roaming spaceship simulation. In its current form, Star Command is primarily a strategic space combat game. There are some cut-scenes and a faint sense of open-endedness (meaning you can usually choose which planets you visit next) but this is most definitely not the open world space sim it set out to be two years ago.
These battles, which are presented in a very arcade-like way, are stressful and difficult—sometimes in a good way and sometimes in an annoying way. The player must balance launching lasers and weapons at their opposing starships via a simple mini-game, while also handling more detailed situations on the ship such as dealing with on-boarding enemies and putting out fires. This frantic decision-making recalls FTL’s battles, albeit to a lesser extent. You’ll find yourself having to make a lot of frenetic choices such as whether to send a medic out with your gun-wielding crew to stop a ship invasion or to have an additional scientist boosting your ship’s shields. For the most part, these battles are a lot of fun and although they get a little repetitive, there are a lot of different strategies to try out.
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