Anyway, after the planetary battle, I decided to go and help the military take on the evil Dominators. Except my ship was far too slow and I was only a third of the way to the rally point by the deadline. I heard, though, that there was a black hole about to open up in a nearby system, so went there. Either it had been and gone or I couldn’t detect it, though. Not seeing any sign of a black hole, I decided it might be nice to go and scavenge some stuff from a system the Dominators were invading.

So I jumped there. Picked up some nice equipment… then realised that I had a problem. FIrst, I noticed that the Dominator invasion was over – and they’d won. No friendly ships or planets in the system. Just me. Alone. Second, I realised that I used all my fuel travelling to this system, so couldn’t jump out again.

No fuel. Nowhere to refuel. And a ton of Dominator ships bearing down on me.

Game over.

(I’ve also realised that I can’t remember how to unlock areas of the map that are blanked out when you start. I thought if I got close to them they’d be uncovered, but that’s not the case. Hmm.)

I started a second game, did the tutorial missions again (with a quick detour to sell some weapons to a planet experiencing a civil war), then got a mission to deliver an historic computer virus named “Windows” to some chaps who wanted it for research purposes. The first problem was that I had to deliver it to a system that wasn’t on my map. So I headed out in the direction of uncharted space and, er, was shot down by a pirate. (I might have made it to safety, but I was also being shot by a transport ship I’d tried to rob earlier, who obviously decided to bear a grudge.)

Two games, two early deaths. I could reload, I guess, but I think I’ll start again.

Also, the planetary missions crashed the game when I tried to play them. I think I’ve worked out why, though, so they may be okay in future. Though I’m not sure I want to play an RTS on a trackpad, so I may just avoid them.

It was crashing out on start up and it took me so long to find a fix that I didn’t get a chance to actually play it. It at least gets to the main menu now, though.

Loaded last save game.

Died three turns later after finding my last game was saved in a Dominator-controlled system. A frantic dumping of cargo to get my ship to move and a run towards the nearest warp point were to no avail. The comforting rings of safety were almost within my grasp when my ship finally succumbed to the Dominator onslaught. So near, yet so far…

Yeah, well, I’ve quit and I’ll start a new game later. Should probably do the tutorial again, too…

And it was all going so well.

Okay, so I got message that Johan had died in combat, but he wasn’t much use and I barely mourned.

Wait, wait, back to the beginning. Where did we leave it last time?

Ah, yes, I was trying to get to the planet Banana to snap up some cheap luxuries, but the system I had to go through was plagued with Dominators. So when I started tonight I gave up on the idea. And came up with a new one. I bought a high capacity fuel tank and warped into the dangerous system. I flew round for a bit grabbing some of the debris that was scattered around – systems at war are a great source of spare parts – and jumped back out the way I’d come in. Two trips and there wasn’t anything else I could safely get. The big fuel tank was using up a lot of space on my ship, so I sold it and went back to standard one.

Not sure I made a profit in the end, but it felt good to snatch that stuff from the jaws of danger. Went back to my home system to give the ranger boffins some of the Dominator tech I’d grabbed. They were happy with me, which was nice. Went over to the medical station and bought some medical supplies, thinking they’d be cheaper there than anywhere else. But nowhere else in the system would give me a profit on them. About to sell a loss, I was, but then checked the news and saw that a planet in a neighbouring system was desperate for supplies. Result! Quick warp over and some nice profit.

Warped back home, went to the scientific station and bought my first probe. Basically, you can land on an uninhabited planets and send the probe out to search for stuff. I searched one planet and found medical supplies, weapons, a ship’s laser and some other bits. (It was while doing this search that Johan died, somewhere off in space.) Went to the nearest planet and sold everything (took a couple of trips) and asked for a mission. They asked me to deliver some special asteroid stuff to another system within a time limit.

Piece of piss!

I thought.

It’s a shame that the system I have to fly through to get there on time is under Dominator control. Not even being attacked by the Dominators. They’re there. They control the horizontal, the vertical and every other fucking thing in the system.

I warped in without knowing this. I looked for a planet to refuel on, but they were all under Dominator control. “Shit!” I said. Luckily, the remains of some ships were nearby, notably some fuel pods. I can use them to get out, but making my delivery on time is looking to be out of the question.

My first mission and I’m going to let my employer down. This is not good.

(Note: I’m playing the game in a semi-hardcore way. If I die I don’t restart the game from the beginning, I load my last save. But I’m only keeping one save, so if I discover I made a bad decision a while back I have to live with it, not just jump back a couple of saves and do things differently. It makes the game more tense and stops it turning into a constant quick save fest. I recommend it.)

Okay, I started again and this time Roger was called Johan. I had a chat with him and we took down the robot ship together (I had to repair myself and a reload or two may have been involved) and after that he became my partner. Being my partner seems to consist of two things -

1) Appearing near me at random intervals.

2) Stealing minerals I wanted, dammit.

After killing the robot (lesson learned: avoid all combat) the tutorial was pretty much over. So I decided to look around for something to do. In the news bulletins I learned of a planet called Banana, which was apparently overflowing with cheap luxuries after an archaeological discovery. Another planet in the same system had recently had an alcohol ban lifted and was begging for booze. Can you see a cunning plan forming? I could.

There was, however, a problem. My ship can only jump 17 parsecs at a time, which meant there was one system I had to go through to get to the system with Banana in. And this system was under attack by uber-baddies The Dominators. I tried to get through it, many, many times. And I died many, many times. I soon gave up on the idea of flying to a planet in the system to refuel, so bought an upgraded fuel tank that held enough for two full jumps. But you still have to fly across the system to jump out again and The Dominators always found me, even when I tried skirting the edge. Once, I took Johan with me as a human shield – okay, he just happened to follow me – but after killing him The Dominators still killed me.

I’m beginning to think I’m not meant to get to Banana. Especially as, well… The galaxy map is divided up into sectors, each with four or so systems in. You start off in a sector which contains our solar system. Well, you do if you play a human, might not be the same for all races. Anyway, there are two ways out of the sector on my current map and using my current engine. And both of these exit systems are under attack by the Dominators. I don’t know if this is just a cruel result of the random map generation, or whether this is a gameplay mechanic designed to keep you in the starting sector for a while.

I might start a new game to find out. Otherwise I can scrape a living for a while and try to buy a bigger engine. (There’s one I can get, but it only gets me jumps of 19 parsecs and I need 20 to bypass the dangerous system.)

Like I said, phew!

This evening has been really good. I’ve learnt how the game works, basically. Things like taking notice of your grapple capacity and checking what a ship can carry before buying a new one. (I thought I’d got a bargain on a new ship until I found out it couldn’t hold scanners or shields. Oops.) And some things still seem odd. Sometimes you can seem to choose to go somewhere and the game won’t take any notice. And the interface is a bit clumsy and does need learning. But I’m more or less there now, I think.

Overall this is looking really, really good. I love this type of open-ended gameplay. And it’s worth noting I’ve not seen any of the other gameplay elements yet, just the main map section. None of the arcade or RTS or text adventure bits.

One part of the tutorial is to destroy a robot ship. Last time I tried I got blown up by that transport I’d attacked on the way into the system and so died.

Now, this time I tried again and was being constantly followed around by Ranger Roger. Apparently I have good relations with him. Now, I’m not one to judge, but I think there must be some backstory missing here that I should have been filled in on.

Anyway, this robot ship was, somehow, kicking my arse. (Maybe I’m meant to ask Roger to help, eh?) But I flew back to a shipyard for repairs, took off again, resumed shooting at the robot ship (well, I think I was, it’s hard to tell) and then a nasty pirate ship flew up and killed me.

Oh.

I get the impression this game isn’t going to be won any time soon…

How was I to know transport ships (a) have weapons and (b) bear grudges and (c) have friends?

I’m getting into this, though. And I’m quite glad about the last death. I forgot to change my name and everybody called me Timothy, which was very odd.

(The other death was me trying to help a ship in distress. I won’t be doing that again.)

Basically, it’s Elite meets, oh, something else. God knows. There’s an excellent review up at Eurogamer, which is the reason I bought it in the first place.

Anyway, I just installed it – it’s got Starforce copy protection, be warned – and started a game. I was pottering around trying to find my way around the interface and doing the training missions, when someone said we had a duty to kill another ship hanging around. Not being one to shirk my duty, I joined the fight. Long story short, all my shots seemed to leave my ship at a 45 degree angle and miss the baddie ship completely, but all his shots hit me. He offered to let me live if I gave him money, I cut the connection to his ship. Just like Captain Sisko would have done.

So he killed me.

Dead.

Before I’d even got through the tutorial.

And I’d been feeling so clever about buying some machinery on Venus when I dropped off the medicine I was told to take there.

Ah.

I’d not saved, either. So, well, I’ll try that again sometime, eh?