What is it?
Star Citizen.. hmm.. just mentioning the very name of this game gets some people angry. Its been over 10 years in the making and was originally born from a Kickstarter campaign. Now as you may or may not know I'm partial to a Kickstarter game or two. But. Not pc gaming. I've only ever really invested in Boardgames..
I've not really ever been into pc gaming. I was into all the latest consoles as a kid.. the Nes, PS One.. even the Xbox. But the only game I ever really played on PC was Quake 2. That's where my knowledge of Gaming on a PC stayed.
As I got older I dabbled in more games on the PC but they were all relatively high graphical games which I didn't have a good enough pc for so I could never really get the best from the games. I did however play a little Wing Commander and Freelancer, other space sims which allowed you to Fly, fight, trade and upgrade ships...this was the start of my love for SPACE SIMS!
A friend showed me some
youtube videos recently for this game called Star Citizen. It was of a player who started on a planet and managed to use some other players medical ship for his own gain. It was amazing. Not just a 1 player game, fighting NPC's.. it was player against player. Fine PvP.. done that before. But this world that was created around the youtuber was intricate. He wore a helmet so he didn't die in the atmosphere. He had to open doors, traverse to the front of the ship turn on the ship, ready the ship for take off, and then actually take off. All this without loading screens. There is no god mode in this game. There's no flashy fight scenes. It IS exactly what you make of it and exactly HOW YOU want to play.
Want to do missions?
- There are Bounty's to locate and execute.
- Delivery missions (which is fantastic for new players to learn new skills, like flying ships, take off and landing can be EXTREMELY scary!!
- Medical Beacons.. if other real players die in the game, you can find them, revive them and move them to a safer area or off planet to get them to a hospital for an injury you can fix there and then. This is probably my favourite as I'm a little bit of a goody two shoes!!
- There are investigative loops too, find someone's goods which never got delivered and explore crashed ships / ship sites..
- Help out local security teams with boarding parties or complete MASSIVE missions with potentially hundreds of players!
- Mining! In space with a mining capable ship, or by hand in caves all around the verse.
- Most recently, Savaging has been added to gameplay and this allows you to scrape the hull of downed ships an then sell on the material.
- Racing! Yes, there are even racing ships available!
While you're doing any of the above, if you commit a crime you WILL go to prison and serve a sentence.. of which you can assist with jobs around the prison.. or maybe you'll be lucky enough to escape??
Or you could just fly and walk about the verse.. park up at a mining facility and just loot the place! Then sell it all at the local space station.
What do I need to run it?
So, this being quite a high graphical game, you're going to need a pc with a bit more oomf.
At least 32GB Ram
At least a Graphics card of around 8 - 12gb. More if possible.. I'm running this game pretty well on 8GB though.
There are specific details in Discord groups and on the RobertsSpaceIndustries.com website which are really helpful.
There's also the option of face tracking.. thats quite fun..
Anything else I need to know?
Yes. This game is STILL in alpha. They are literally adding new things to this game ALL the time. At the time of writing Patch 3.19 has been passed for testing to the first line of people who originally backed the game. Being a Kickstarter campaign, these original backers get the first look.
However it's not long before it's all released to LIVE which is where we the other paying players can play.
There is also a single player game being created in the same universe which is being developed at the same rate as Star Citizen, it's called SQAUDRON 42, so, more on that as and when it's released!
So, how much?
On that note, the game itself requires you to make a pledge of at least $40 which is around £32. They do have regular free to fly events which allow newcomers to download and get into the game entirely for free for the period.. However what they also do is discounts during the Free fly events and if you use a friends referral code, you can sometimes get a free ship and 5,000 credits ingame. Which doesn't seem like alot, but it could get you some decent armour or some much needed med pens!
Game pledges, usually include the main open sandbox game, a ship, some credits and insurance.. Insurance currently isn't a used thing in the game, but, we're hoping it will require you to pay a little ingame money to be able to keep claiming your ship when you crash or if it gets blown up, one of the million ways..
Referral Bonus
My referral code of you'd like to sign up is
STAR-JPXX-P3Z6. The deal with these codes is that you need to use it when you initially create an account and if you like the game and pledge for a game pack, you get the extra ship. BUT if you forget to enter the code, you won't get any referral bonus, so make sure you use a code when you INITIALLY sign up.. Sadly I didn't on my first go, so I missed out on the bonus :(
Community
When you pledge the game and start playing, it will do you good to make some friends in the verse. This is for many reasons really:
Making friends is good!
Allows you to see if your friends are live nd how many people are on that server (the less the better it runs.. at the moment!)
It allows you to get help if you are on the same server, so many people are worried about asking for medical assistance and getting looted by pirates.
Also good for game help too, there's so many key bindings when you first start, you won't learn them all at once. I've been playing since November 2022 and I still have alot to learn.
So, what's next?
There's literally SO MUCH! Get onto
ROBERTSSPACEINDUSTRIES.COM, look out for a free to fly, there's one in May so not long to wait!!
I'll be doing more reviews too! So look out for those!
Remember to use my code to get free stuff when you sign up!!
