Star Control: Origins

IGN: 6.9 / 10 by Dan Stapleton

Star Control: Origins does a great job of creating a new universe and stocking it with a diverse range of weird and funny aliens to fight in intense arcadey space battles. But everything you're forced to do on a planet's surface is boring at best and an annoying chore at worst, and that kills a lot of momentum. Because of that, I didn't really start to click with Star Control: Origins until the last third of the campaign when money became mostly irrelevant and the focus shifted to its strong points of story and space combat.

Gaming Nexus: 8 / 10 by Rob Larkin

Remaining true to its roots with engaging ship to ship combat but shifting the gameplay to a more narrative focused exploration game, Star Control: Origins excels at it's prime directive. As we push out from that core loop there are elements that can drag on, but the central experience is where it stands tallest, incorporating a playful tale with entertaining delivery around excellent two dimensional, top down ship to ship combat.

GameCloud: by Nick Ballantyne

Star Control: Origins fails to capture the magic from its source material. The gameplay is dull, shallow and technically flawed, and it’s not like the story is super engaging either. There’s the occasional small-scale encounter that works well, but these alone aren’t enough to warrant a recommendation. I told one of my friends this afternoon to avoid buying the game, so “not recommended” seems about right. Hell, the fact I stopped playing after only 6 hours should give you an idea of how quickly this game loses its appeal. It’s a shame because I know how good space games can be, it’s just that this one didn’t quite cut it. One day, man, we’ll have a No Man’s Sky that doesn’t suck…