REVIEW & CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT BY 'SEEROO'

Last week  we took you thru the basics of starting a new character on the introductory Tansarii Space Station. As much fun as running around blowing apart everything from probe droid to black sun thugs it was time to check out the zero-g combat. Time to jump into a cockpit and launch into space combat courtesy of the Star Wars Galaxies add-on pack, Jump to Hyperspace, which is included in the Complete Adventures DVD set.

Our hero Seeroo the spy, having exhausted all the land based missions on the space station decided he should turn his hand to space combat. fortunately there was a steady supply of work. Everything from waypoint milk run patrols, pirate and black sun assaults, disable and destroy, search & rescue, even the odd escort mission. All of them relatively easy and just the thing for a newbie to get use to the controls.

The controls are note that difficult to master, simple mouse steering with keyboard thrust and target management, oh and the occasional mouse click to fire the guns, one or twice...just to make sure they work ;). What does take a bit of getting use to is the minor controls, mainly navigation management and target adjustments. For example you may have  been given a mission to ID an enemy ship, disable its engines , board it and recover parts, all whilst fighting your way through a few waves of Black Sun fighter  and trying to get back to the space station in one piece.

If you are going to be  a pilot character here is the best area for you to get acquainted with the basics before jumping into the real world, plus putting some extra experience points (XP) under your belt. Get use to the controls and make sure you understand the navigation/waypoint system.

The missions are great but can get a bit repetitive but we can assure you that this is only because you are playing in the relative safety of Tansarii Station. Once you enter the real gaming universe you can spice things up by upgrading your ship with missiles, more shielding, better armor, larger reactors, more powerful guns and even an Astromech or two. Docking with space stations is also very simple, just pull up near one, hail the docking master on the comm-channel and request either a landing port, repairs, permission to go planet side or even additional missions.

The missions are great but can get a bit repetitive but we can assure you that this is only because you are playing in the relative safety of Tansarii Station. Once you enter the real gaming universe you can spice things up by upgrading your ship with missiles, more shielding, better armor, larger reactors, more powerful guns and even an Astromech or two.

Oh one thing we forgot to mention, and if you have been looking at our images you will see that the graphics are actually quite stunning. We are running on low-res (1024x768) but the universe look brilliant. From asteroid fields which will  hammer  and rock your ship if you are not careful, to ion storm with thunderous bolts of energy blasting around you. Sometime it was just as much fun to fly around exploring Tansarii space, following transports, shadowing Imperial shuttles and just soaking experience of being inside the Star Wars Universe.

Alas our time and missions in the training are can to an end, and we hitched a ride with Han Solo  on the Millennium Falcon to Mos Eisley Space port and into the broader world of Star Wars Galaxies. Check back soon as we grab our rifle pip our ride and explore Tatooine in search of Jabba, the Sarlac and adventure.

SCORE: We have both kinds of combat 'ere, Land & Space.