Lost in Space like a Dungeon Keeper (Startopia (PC))

Member Name: Sue Hoskinson

Product:	Startopia (PC)
Date:	19/08/01 (359 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plenty to keep you amused

Disadvantages: Difficult controls

Startopia is a cross between Dungeon Keeper, Simcity and Theme Hospital. You play the role of ‘Galactic Administrator’ and are assigned missions by the various alien races.

Initially I had a terrible time just getting the game to play. As soon as it was loaded it informed me that I didn’t have the correct color to play – it plays in 16 bit or higher, a bit strange considering my computer plays in 32 bit!! After a lengthy phone call to the technical service line they informed me that I would have to download a patch to correct these errors – good start isn’t it!

The game itself isn’t very original but is quite good fun to play once you get the hang of the controls. The basic interface is very simple to use but the camera angles are a real pain, back and forward are easy but trying to turn round can be awkward and took me a while to get the hang of.
The game consists of 10 missions and a sandbox where you can build without any set goals. So far, I’ve played 7 missions and they get progressively harder as you advance. The first few are very straight forward, for instance in the second one you have to build a hospital unit – the win condition being that you have to cure 100 patients but you can’t have anymore than 10 deaths! It took me three tries to get it right. Another mission is to build a prison correctional facility where you have to rehabilitate 100 prisoners but have no more than 10 escapees – believe me, it’s not as straight forward as it sounds!!

The setting for the game is a space station that has three decks – the first is the technical deck, the second is the pleasure deck and the third is the bio deck. You have to build a ‘home’ for the various aliens that visit your station and supply them with all the basic needs including a berth (sleeping quarters), a lavatron (bathroom) and a dine-o-mat. You can also build a disco, a recre
ational bar and a lovenest, which probably doesn’t really need any explanation!! On the bio deck you can hire a race called Karmarama to do gardening and depending on the type of soil (whether it’s hot and dry or wet and moist) the plants they produce will grow into different items like food supplies, medical supplies and luxury goods. Playing around with the different soil types is very ‘hit and miss’ but some of the results can be fun. It took me ages to try and figure out which conditions were right to ‘grow’ food supplies (part of one missions win scenario) and to be honest I still don’t really know but I did it!

The currency used in Startopia is energy and sometimes it can be incredibly difficult to get the balance right – if you run out of energy, you lose. Everything costs energy to build and maintain but on the plus side the aliens have to pay to use your facilities so you can get some back. There are also ‘Starbursts’ which allow you to gain more energy to store in an Energy Collector (sounds like a bank to me).

The most disappointing thing about Startopia is not being able to actually create the space to build in yourself like you could in Dungeon Keeper. Everything has to be built within the space station confounds which are just large rectangular ‘rooms’. I did like the way the different rooms were constructed, they give you the hard plans and when you’ve placed it where you want it then has a pop-up menu giving you the different individual items to put in, for instance with the berth you have the option of how many sleeping pods you require and whether you want to include a light and an image projector (TV). This allows you to expand rooms when needed and you don’t have to build too big to start with!

So far, I’ve enjoyed playing Startopia and if you enjoy playing games that include building and maintaining communities then I wou
ld recommend it. Some aspects are quite challenging and the small manual that comes with the game doesn’t actually tell you anything so it’s a bit ‘hit and miss’ to get it right. I cheated and went on-line to find some answers!

One last note, you can play Startopia on-line against other gamers but I haven’t done this so I can’t say whether it works very well or not.

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