Boldly go where no one has gone before
Starflight is the perfect game for anyone who's ever dreamed on embarking on Star Trek-style adventures and despite its age, it remains a first-rate piece of sci-fi strategy. It's complex, deep and addictive, so if you do fire this one up, prepare to lose a lot of your time as it sucks you into its well-crafted universe. The game is a non-linear space exploration adventure, where players must first choose a crew with which to explore the stars, before blasting off into the unknown. In true RPG fashion, you have a number of races to choose from for your crew, with each bringing different advantages to their role and who can be trained up to enhance their skills. Once you're out in deep space, what you do is pretty much up to you. You can explore unknown planets searching for minerals and other resources to be sold, while alien races will be encountered and which you can either enter into peaceful negotiations with, or you can just blast them from the skies. With Starflight, the possibilities are truly endless and its open-ended nature is perhaps its biggest draw. However, the RPG-style elements are also immensely attractive and the opportunities for customisation are likewise extensive and impressive. While the options are potentially overwhelming in their complexity, things are helped by the intuitive and flexible interface which reduces any frustration to minimal levels and which just adds another layer of polish to what is already a great game. Really, if you have any interest in epic sci-fi games and love the likes of Starcraft and Star Control, this is an absolute must play.
