14 DAY TRIAL // Dark Horizon is a space simulator (no, they're not dead) developed and published by Paradox Interactive which manages to wrap an interesting story into standard gameplay. The first hour was a bit frustrating, but for all the right reasons.
15:00. So, I jumped right in, eager for some space ship combat. Believe me, I skipped all the movies. Never even looked at the control scheme, figuring that Freespace, Freespace 2 and Freelancer are tutorial enough for me.
15:02. Skipped a briefing room and auto-created a ship configuration for the first missions. Entering space in 3... 2... 1...
15:15. Flying is great. I just need to invert the mouse in order to take out all those pesky Spawns that attack me.
15:25. Ok, this went awfully wrong. I died about five times. They take my shield down quick, they take my armor and then I am dead. My teammates seem almost useless and my ship looks salvaged from the scrap yard after having been shot down a dozen of times.
15:30. Back to the game menu. This time, I am paying attention.
15:34: Controls are now reconfigured to how I remember I had them when playing Freespace 2. I didn't see a mouse sensibility slider in the Options menu, which is weird for a space or flight sim.
15:40. I am now in the Hangar and trying to build a better machine. It's a sort of puzzle game in which you need to balance the mass of the ship with the components you install, the shields you mount and the weapons you want to take to the fight.
15:50. Ok, I believe I have it now. The game relies quite heavily on the cooling and heating mechanics which change the way the ship behaves in the fight. Going cool makes you a Shadow and nearly invisible, while reducing weapon power and speed, while Corter, which is activated by heating up, means more firepower at the expense of shield protection. Knowing when to activate each can mean the difference between defeat and victory.
15:57. First mission done. Now I'm gonna check out the long story element that's waiting in my room.
Well, it's a space sim, which automatically makes it more interesting than half of today's games.