🔵 Pros
+ An huge galaxy section to explore filled with quests, secrets and encounters.
+ Varied gameplay situations, including shooter-like combat and management.
+ Generally decent and interesting main and side quests.
+ Very good sense of discovery and progression throughout the game.
+ Good variety of weapons, equipment and ships to include in our Fleet.
+ Great polishing and smoothness.

🔴 Cons
- Resource collection can become very repetitive and boring in the long run.
- Combat feels like a secondary feature, could use more depth.
- Some quest objectives are unclear or misleading.
- Weapons do not have written stats such as Damage, DPS or Energy Consumption.

Star Control: Origins (SCO) is Stardock's attempt to recreate a "starfleet captain-like" modern experience, and it is a success, but with some rough edges. For starters, the sheer amount of solar systems to explore, each containing multiple planets, is immense and alone worth dozens of hours of content, a true joy for exploration fans. The bad part about this is that most of the time, on newly discovered planets, you won't find anything interesting, but instead just resources to collect or maybe a crashed ship to pick up in your Fleet. very few planets you discover will actually contain unique quests or content: this in the long run can make all that huge amount of explorable things just repetitive.

Combat and Management are overall decently done gameplay features, but neither of them provides great depth or options to it. Combat is quite simplistic and boils down to 1v1 real-time top-down arena battles, where opposing fleets deploy their ships one at a time, and winner is who destroys all enemy ships. Management consists mostly in checking fuel supplies to not run dry in the middle of space, getting a decent fleet composition, and aswell making a lot of money (RU) to buy upgrades for your Flagship.

Overall, SCO is a very good space exploration game that fans of sci-fi games, space simulators, and why not even RTS will surely like; it is a bit less complex than many other games of the same type, allowing accessibility even to newcomers or more casual players. Some features could have used better depth as the game clearly has gone all-out on exploration and quests, leaving other parts behind. But all things considered, a solid purchase for the genre.

Liked this review, and want to see more of the same quality? Check out Tamaster's Review Archive to see all my Reviews in a single, convenient location.

🎮 Gameplay
Gameplay of SCO will mainly be divided into Exploration, Combat and Management. As you can guess, exploring the galaxy is this game's number one feature, and is done via Hyperspace in a 2D layered map (but with 3D models) where all solar systems, space stations and other ships are displayed in real-time. Entering solar systems will enable you to scan and descend on single planets with Landers, each providing different resources and encounters based on planet category and location. Resource collection is manual, driving your lander through the eventual dangers of each planets, including automated defenses and volcanoes, and carry the most possible amount before leaving. You can of course land on a planet multiple times to get everything.

You will also encounter many different alien species, some hostile, some neutral, and a few even friendly from the start. Getting good relationship with them is one of your main mission parameters, and to do this you will often have to complete quests for them, involving unique objectives or the classical resource gathering.

Management part is very light and consists mostly of being attentive not running out of fuel, having a basic grasp about efficiency in gathering and movement, and having a decent fleet composition to face a variety of different threats.

There also are additional modes: Fleet Battles, consisting in combats against the AI or live players, where you can use also custom ships created with the Ship Editor, a powerful and complete tool to design ships from scratch. These are quite nice additions but marginal to the main experience. User generated ones can be downloaded.


📖 Story
Story of main and side quests is coated with a background light humor, do not expect the seriousness seen in Star Trek for example, because you won't get that. You won't be getting completely silly interactions either, let's make it an halfway through point. Stories are often decent and include mystery and political intrigues more than once. The ending part of the main story feels a bit rushed though.


👊 Combat System
Combat in SCO is a quite basic top-down shooter system. Each ship in combat features two weapons, each consuming Energy when fired, which in turns recharges passively. Ships in our fleet cannot be modified, only our Flagship can, to include better combat-oriented upgrades such as newer weapons, damage reduction items, and even fleet-wide bonus auras.

It takes a while to grasp the control system, the lack of a long distance sight makes it difficult to aim distant enemies and it is quite an issue sometimes. Also, an option to aim with mouse should be added as using only WASD is quite uncomfortable. On the battlefield there will also be environmental hazard such as Ion Storms that sap energy, wormholes and temporary upgrades to boost ship stats.

The combat is not brilliant, but it does the job alright and is quite fun once you get into it.


💰 Content & Pricing
Priced at 35€ as base tag, and offering roughly 30-35 hours of content for a mostly full run (consider 35-45 for a 100% run), with overall good quality of gameplay, i'd say the price is fair enough unless you don't particularly like the genre, in that case you may want to wait a sale, but otherwise go for it.

🔗 Balance & Challenge
Weapons balance could use some rework. Some weapon categories (Missiles, Lasers, Beams) are outright OP and outclass most of other weapons, rendering them useless or just worse to have equipped. There are a few exceptions, but that's mostly it. Challenge spikes up a lot nearing endgame, but generally is on Medium/Low levels.





🎥 Graphics
Quite simple regarding planets, ship models and the galaxy in general, featuring polished but still basic models and textures. Good effects in battles and planets. Beautiful models during dialogues with other ships and stations. Overall, graphics is not the strong part of this game, as expected.


🔊 Sound
Excellent voice acting in dialogues, as the game is fully voiced. Good quality of sound effects and sountrack. Overall solid.


🔩 Performance & Stability
Rock solid, never seen any problem. (GTX1080, 16GB RAM, i7 4820K, 1440p res.)


💻 Artificial Intelligence
Enemy AI during combat is actually quite smart and will know to be in advantage or trouble, many ships have unique patterns depending on their equipment. Solid.


🏠 Quality of Life
Some improvements are needed. You cannot sell materials partially but only in bulk, so if you need to keep a part of some material for a quest but also need money, you are in trouble. The possibility of marking locations and having a dedicated, customizable list for markers is great.


🐛 Bugs & Issues
Very few and minor, nothing worth reporting.



SCO is a very good space opera game. It blends many elements well and offers a good amount of content for the price proposed. great polishing ensures a smooth experience. As expected from Stardock, another quality title.


This product was reviewed using a free key provided by the Developers.

When I was 12 years old, my best friend and I drove with his mom up to Sacramento to stay at his aunt's house for the weekend. She was old, and I think she might have been a witch - but she DID have a computer. A good one, I was told, that could probably handle the intense graphics of this new game my dad picked up for me from Egghead software.
We binged on junk food, snuck drags off her old cigarettes, watched naughty R-rated movies with N and SSC on HBO, and booted up this crazy new space adventure: Star Control II
Gaming, for us, was never the same after that. We kept a bound journal and logged every single detail, clue, story development, mineral rich planet, life rich planet, rainbow world, etc. We drew our own approximation of Quasispace coords. We waxed philosophically about the nature of life in the cosmos. We theorized endlessly about the origins of the Orz, where the Androsynth ran off to, and just where exactly was *above* and *below*.
I waited 25 years, and now I jump into Star Control: Origins and all of a sudden, I'm back there, with my best friend, unable to stop thinking about what just might be in the next system over.
10/10 would relive childhood again.

Ok, I reccomend this game, but it's conditional. If you played the original Star Control series, and are not expecting much in the way of changes, then you will enjoy this. Otherwise, don't bother. This is not a 4x game for strategists, it's not a space combat sim, and it's not Mass Effect at it's best for story. The humour is great. For those of you who have complained about this in reviews, please understand that this game was never meant to be serious. That tone was set with the original Star Control. It's meant to be goofy, wacky, sarcastic, and at times darkly funny. If I find a single moment of serious in this game, I'll be surprised.

So, what you have here is a simple game that goes back to the roots of the original space exploration games. It takes time, patience, and a desire to explore every nook and cranny of a rather large section of the galaxy. There are all sorts of goodies out there, but you have to be willing to take the time to look. In this modern society of instant gratification, that doesn't bode well for many younger players, who will get frustrated very early on because they don't want to take the time to explore.

As for the negative reviews, I agree with a lot of the technical points they bring up. The game could definitely use a little more polish. However, what I don't agree with are the gripes about the crappy ship. I took my time and explored right off the get go. Most of the sweet upgrades I now have on my ship I FOUND. My ship now screams through hyperspace, turns on a dime in combat, and accelerates like a beast. It's the only ship in my fleet that can go up against a Scryve Battlecruiser and blow it to hell, sometimes without taking a scratch. But you HAVE TO EXPLORE!! It is ultimately what this game is all about. If you don't have the patience for, or do not enjoy this kind of game play, then pass this by.

Can resource collecting get tedious? Sure it can. But it doesn't have to be. I learned early on to ignore planets with the crappy blue resources (worth 1 RU apiece), and focus on planets that had the grey and dark pink(5 RU), green (10 RU), yellow and orange (15ru) and bright pink resources (25 RU). When I'm flush with cash (at one point I was over 80K), I even ignore the grey/green resources. If you do this, it speeds up exploration tremendously. And, again by exploring, you will find the upgrrades you need to go down onto the toxic/heat worlds safely. You can actually mark a world you think is a great resource to come back to by creating a system waypoint on the map and typing in a brief description.

I am anowhere near to finishing the game because I'm having to much fun doing side quests, and interacting with all the species. And the thrill of discovering some cool new piece of gear never gets old. But I like exploration games. As I said above, if you don't have the time or patience for this, then give this game a pass. However, if you're like me and love to explore....if space is your final frontier....then you will really enjoy this game. :-)

I feel like one of the biggest Star Control 2 fans there's ever been. I've waited for this day for a LONG time. That's why it's very sad that I have to write the following words: Star Control Origins is not ready yet. Personally, I’m stopping playing after 12 hours of play, uninstalling, and putting it back on the shelf to try again when it’s more done.

If you're a super fan too, go ahead and buy it. Support Stardock so they can continue to improve what may become a wonderful game with future versions.

If you're new to the series... wait. You won't want what's here... yet.

The game in it's current state is just plain unfinished. They needed another year or two to really get it right. Here's a things that bothered me that I didn’t see mentioned by anyone else.

- Minor alien encounters are bland and not fleshed out. For example, meeting a race of beings that are made of crystal. All you see of them on their planet are two things... a small generic thumbnail of a pentagon like rock that's their avatar and a generic building that look more appropriate as a near future human colony. It didn't even look alien... so here's the whole planet with a new race that's so far from being human they're not even carbon based... and they have a space marine barracks for a house. Realize I’m in a 3D environment on their home planet and I can see nothing that makes this visit to this rock any different from dozens of others.

- Similarly, I am on a planet to rescue some Mu'Kay ship in distress. They start talking about the incredible pre-spacefaring civilization that lives on the planet and how they've surrounded the ship. I'm in my lander literally right next to the crashed ship (which looks undamaged) and all there is around us for the entire planet is desert and rock. No mark of civilization, no water, no animals, no people. There's just nothing. This could have been a text based adventure for all the immersion.

- Speaking of planets, there's really nothing on the planets. Sometimes they'll throw a few generic trees on a planet, but they don't mean anything and they're only there to be obstacles for your ship. It’s really just bumpy ground given different colors. There’s a few generic aliens that they put on the surface that are all exactly the same. Kill a huge one, you get 1 critter meat. Kill a smaller kinda aggressive one, you get 1 critter meat. There’s like 3 different critter models and that’s it. There are like 2 tree models. And then nothing.

- There are no meaningful or fun upgrades for your ship that I’ve seen yet. It’s just generic upgrades to stats. Turn faster, accelerate faster. It’s not fleshed out at all. Lander modules are basically protection from different elements.

- When you’re flying around and your ship intersects with another ship in the non-battle view, you actually push them out of your way. That’s right… you push them. No physics involved at all. They just slide out of your way. Why even give them hitboxes… let things fly right by, it’s space, it’s vast. When your ship is given the representation of being 20x bigger than the planet it’s next to, we understand it’s a representation or abstraction… why not just let them fly by?

- Conversations with other aliens isn’t deep. The bare minimum of script is present for each conversation. Meeting a new and seemingly interesting race turns tedious really quick. Also, conversation choices aren’t dropped after asking nor are they shown as something you’ve followed. So it’s easy to assume for a while that asking certain questions might yield different results. They don’t.

- They also throw new races at you like crazy. Visiting my first star nearby I met several new (minor?) species all at once to the point I just wanted to skip past them after a while because they were obviously just placeholders for fetch or kill quests in the local system. Little to no info about any of them available. When you land on planets you can find broken down ships that you magically get to keep and are filled full of crew. I don’t even know what race they are, but I’m flying their ship, and they’re in my fleet

- When they give you a new ship, there’s no info about anything. You just have to throw it into battle to find out anything about how it works or what it’s weapons are. Some ships are missing their secondary weapons for some reason, so you can’t even rely on which one from a certain race are the good ones and which are the bad ones.

- They make you push the thrust button at all times… there’s some sort of cosmic drag everywhere… you can’t just send your ship in one direction and let it go… you have to ALWAYS BE THRUSTING!

Star Control 2 (from many years ago) has always been this one of a kind phenomenon. No other game has ever recreated the humor, exploration, and general feel of it. They tried with Star Control 3, but it was considered a mis-step in the series. Something the fans have tried to forget about. Unfortunately I feel like SC:Origins will be too, unless they do something about it in the coming months. I really think they can. They just released this one WAY too early. Let’s see where they are in a few more months.

inginging nannanaa :D
Great humor and great game, what else do you need for spenging time with computer?

9/10 (I never give 10 since there is always possibilities to improve the game :) )

I'm 25 years older than when I played Star Control 2, so maybe that's why I didn't think it was as good as the original. However, I did finish it, which is more than I can say for most games I play. That has to count for something.
It's thinner, but more playable.
One major difference the decades have brought: no sexy lady aliens in suspiciously phallic ships. 👍

I played for about 28 hours. I could have shaved a few hours maybe, but I don't play games to rush through them now do I?

I found my enjoyment in the silly aliens and their ineptitude, and trying to use the various ships effectively in combats.
The game does a decent job of keeping you occupied in-game, but don't worry too much about collecting minerals unless you find a decently rich planet (there's a value summary above the list of minerals, I missed that for a long while).
Make sure you get the scanner as soon as you can so you don't have to hunt around for anomalies in systems.

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TLDR:

7 out of 10

A fun and simple space-faring game with fantastic writing & gameplay that doesn't amaze but suits the experience. The positive aspects of this game have been overshadowed by it's predecessor and controversy.

$30 is a fair asking price, if you're on the fence wait for a sale.

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Not Long Enough Gotta Read:

Star Control: Origins is an interesting one. I picked up the game after it was taken down from Steam once, and came back online during the trademark dispute with Urquan Masters Devs. What lies beneath is a simple and rewarding experience with high-quality writing and voice-acting that makes you want to jet to the next system and meet the next wonky alien you'll be either shooting or helping.

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The Good:
- Great Voice acting and writing to pair with, each race feels unique and has a good amount of info to share with you either about themselves or about the other wonky creatures you'll meet.
- A (mostly) polished gameplay experience, interfaces make sense and aren't too cluttered, I was able to jump in and start hopping stars pretty quickly in comparison to some other space games.
- This game was built to support a thriving community... Built-in Mod Support and Workshop Integration, a multiplayer Fleet Battles mode, a custom ship/planet/building/QUEST builder that could be home to countless expansive stories (however this is also a "Meh" - I'll get to it below...)
- Dedicated Dev team - even through the legal issues, it seems like they truly care about the IP and have already released some aspects of the expansion "Earth Rising." There are still regular updates. (although $20 is kinda steep to be honest, I haven't played the DLC so I can't tell you if it's worth it or not.)
- The top-down dog-fights are some classic fun, I don't normally gravitate towards this style of game-play but I had a good time here. Very satisfying to launch a nuke from super far to have it snipe and explode a small cruiser that was darting around like a fly.
- The aliens themselves are fun and interesting in design and portrayal.
- This would be an amazing game to get a younger gamer into this genre. It's simplistic and light-hearted in all the right ways if you ask me.
- Reading the captain's log and searching the star map is listed as a negative for many reviewers here, but I enjoyed it. It made me feel like a real space captain plotting our course.
- Great music too - I find myself humming the main theme all the time.

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The... Meh:
- Remember that thing I said about the game being built to have community support? It's true but man there's not a lot out there in terms of UGC (user-generated content). I'm not sure if it was the legal battle, or if this game genuinely struggled to find a fan-base, but there's support for a community that is hardly there as-of-now. There's a semi-active Discord, Subreddit & Forums which all have recent interaction but there's a sore need for more in order for SC:O to reach it's potential.
- The "mini-game" where you hop down to a planet and collect materials is "meh" at best - sometimes you'll find a super cool rainbow planet with a lot of materials, or a planet with alien facilites and drones guarding it, but the expeirence is often very same-y and not deep at all. It was fun at first but feels empty rather quickly. I do like how some missions incorporate this mini-game into the plot but it's still a bit of a chore.
- I was hoping to be able to change my over-world ship but they keep you in the main ship for the whole game. Seems like a missed opportunity considering the in-game ship editor.
- I wish there was more to the space-faring and resource gathering - they clearly created this games systems directly from the original Star Control games, but it can be shallow.
- Finding stuff on the surface of a planet can be fun, but most interactions end with your co-pilot saying "nothing more to do here. We'll go." - Like okay bro, I thought I was the captain but OK let's dip.
- I do wish there was more lore to discover about the different civilizations but I feel mostly satisfied with what I was given.
- Ship customization didn't feel very impactful - an upgrade here and there and you're pretty much set. I had some of the most powerful equipment very quickly and that was a little bit of a let-down.
- There's some repetitive dialogue at times (Star-bases, hailing fighters often gives the same conversation as last time) would love to see even more variety, but this isn't a large complaint since I feel mostly satisfied.

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The Bad:
- Some occasional crashes were experienced. I've got a GTX 970 and an i7-4700K, 16GB RAM and although I never had many issues with slowness or lag, the game froze completely a few times and kicked me out at least once. The auto-save feature here was handy though, and I didn't lose any progress.
- The loading times during initial startup are longer than I would like. At least a minute or two whenever I start the game for the first time each day.
- Re-stocking ships with crew is never explained particularly well, and many of the crashed ships you find cannot be refilled. This wasn't made clear initially and disappointed me when I found out.

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Other Notable Stuff:
- The fan-base for the original SC is in-force in the reviews here and I think they give SC:O an unfair spin. The controversy surrounding the IP for this and Urquan Masters has been settled amicably between the two dev teams (look up the story if you haven't - it involves mead, bees, and ignoring lawyers' advice... a truly interesting and refreshing story in modern gaming news) because all the creators involved have a love for Star Control / Urquan Masters and want to see both projects succeed - some of the fan-base seemed to be aimlessly angry now that there isn't a conflict. Secondly, no this isn't the original game, it's a reboot / reimagining of the formula - there are bound to be differences and growing pains but many people here seem to be expecting a 100+ hour deep space RPG as opposed to a light-hearted Space-Themed Action-Adventure game with very light RPG elements. SC:II is free online in many forms - if that's the game you want then play that or wait for the new Urquan Masters game being developed by the original creators.

This is a solid experience and a game that was clearly developed with love and care - it's a shame to see it sitting at mixed reviews at the time I'm writing this.

If you're looking for a story-driven, light-hearted space adventure... Star Control: Origins has got your back.

its good

Yep, like a lot of others I'm an almost 40yr old gamer that LOVED Star Control 2 growing up..... I actually still play UQM at least once per year (if you don't then the hierarchy wins!). This game scratches an itch I (like a lot of others, apparently) have had for over 25 years. Reason being: it has never been duplicated.

This game falls in between the cracks of genre. It's not an RPG, except is kinda is. It's not an action/adventure game, but it kinda is. It's not a 4x game but... you see where I'm going with this.

This game is a labour of love; you can tell how much the devs thought of the source material, and it doesn't at all disappoint. Disputes aside, it's obvious they wanted to play a game like this again, and they paid as much respect to the source material as how the XCOM franchise was handled. Like XCOM, one should expect an evolved experience of the same: folks that loved the game growing up wanted to re-create that experience (because no other like it exists) and did so tremendously. For that I'm incredibly grateful.

For those that have never given SC a try before but want a space-based adventure game with an actual obejctive & story (unlike NMS.....still) then look no further. I expect to lose many more hours to it over the next few weeks..... good thing my wife is a bookworm anyway!

Obligatory "I wish there was a neutral recommendation setting"
This was a decent game, not the best I have played or the worst. I enjoyed the game, and will probably be buying the DLC shortly; however, I could not recommend it to a friend. Lets list the good and bad;

GOOD
The game is pretty solid, lots of alien races and dialogue options.
Large map, lots of stars, decent graphics
Plenty of places to explore (but I do wish there were more secrets)

BAD
This game has NOTHING to do with any Star Control game that came before it. It is totally rewritten/reconned/rebooted.
None of the original alien races or characters are there.
The amazing Star Con 2 storyline was simply disregarded, again, a total reboot.

The voice acting was just average, they did their job I guess. The voices were either nothing like the over the top SC2 characters ... or it was like the actors were trying to do a bad impression.

Space combat is CRAMPED ... I mean you have really limited space (lol) to fight in. There is an asteroid ring border and then a poisonous cloud outside it that kills you. Why not just do the SC2 wraparound?

The AI is simply horrid. I have accidentally clicked to allow the AI to fight and then had to restart my game because the two AI ships were simply spinning around each other.

The ships are way out of balance with each other in power.

Most of the new game mechanics are strange. Planet landing is just too dangerous and the landers are too frail.

The game doesnt really end (this could be good or bad) ... when you fight the big baddie at the end the game just rolls the credits then keeps going.

All in all, if you are looking for a fresh version of Star Control ... this is not it. This feels like a fan made game that was afraid of getting sued if they put a Spathi in it. Not a terribly made game though.

With all that said, I did enjoy the game. I was irritated that it did not have anything to do with the Star Control history, but I finished it. Dont expect Star Control ... this is something else packaged with the name.