As the story goes, there has been a Huge intergalactic war and following the aftermath, most of the individual races that are still around are looking for someone to rebuild their Space Stations. For the most part these are lifeless doughnut shaped hunks of metal, awaiting for someone to come along and revive them to their former glory.

Your role as Administrator/Supervisor is to make sure that each of the Stations that you have been assigned to is set to an acceptable standard by the Alien race that has hired you. Of course, each race has what they consider their own Standards - be it pleasure, business, religious..

And so it begins...

Startopia by MUCKYFOOT is a real-time strategy game more in the vein of Dungeon Keeper than anything else. Set in a 3D environment aboard a space station, you find you must compete at times against other administrators or meet specific goals to complete a mission. And like Dungeon Keeper, you will find the game immersed with a lot of humour - those familiar with sci-fi genre will find a tonne of references to movies and tv series within the games graphics, dialogue and sound.

As with most of these games in this genre there is a necessary Resource that you need to build rooms and equipment for your station. In this case, the primary currency for Space is not oxygen nor gold, but Energy. This energy is not only required to maintain the power of all your rooms, but is used to pay for new staff.

In addition to looking after residents you hire/fire, you also need to tend to their needs. Berthing and toilet facilities as well as recreational facilities are required - after all the Alien races that come sifting into your part of a space station are going to want to come, stay and spend their good hard cash.

And it is this cash that keeps the space station running - should you run out or get very low you will find things start getting awkward.

However, you are not alone. Along for the ride are two characters which will help you out through the game - VAL and Arona Daal. VAL (Virtual Artificial Lifeform) is your sidekick computer, always with a general dismissive attitude to organic lifeforms, VAL will ensure that you are up to date on your mission objectives. You will encounter Arona through the course of the single player campaign, who will offer items for trade.

This game focus is on a space station but instead of one playing field, it is broken up into three decks. Administration and combat can happen on any of the three and you will have to switch between them over the course of the game . Each deck has it's own purpose:

Engineering - Essentially where all your high tech wizzy things reside. On the engineering deck you will use the bulkhead space to lay down the foundation for the rest of the stations activities. Here you will find the sleeping quarters, labratories, space docking stations, space ports which your visitors come through, recycling facilities and so forth.

Entertainment - Consider this a pleasure deck. If you were to go on holiday and wanted to enjoy the night-life or go shopping, this would be the place to go. Here, your visitors can shop, sleep, gamble, drink, and get some loving all in the convenience of the one floor. If the Engineering level is where most of the work is done, this is the place where your alien guests can visit the local tourist traps and your employees can wind down.

Bio-deck - This would have to be the most distinct of the three levels. Here you can manipulate the terrain to any type. In the Bio-deck, not only can you supply visitors to your stations with an environment they are comfortable with - be it temperate, desert, tropical, wet - but you can also use it to grow crops which will help with your economy. The interface for changing this is superb, and one could literally just play away looking at the variety of conditions available.

Most of the movement handled through this station is handled (as you would expect) by the mouse. Given that you are moving through a 3d world it is interesting to see how MUCKYFOOT approached this. Using the mouse to move to the extremes on the screen will move you in the direction supplied as well as several keystrokes will also enable you to move the viewpoint up/down as well as using the mouse to turn you in a direction. One can use the arrow keys as well - however, in this situation, most players would most likely benefit from a three button mouse or one with a scroll button.

Movement does have it's quirks - there is no option to bookmark a location for future reference (which you would expect to see in most RTS games) which can cause some problems as there is not a hotkey to access a certain building or Muster Point and you will not have a full view of your station as the horizon is quite small due to the toroid nature of the station. The potentially handy alert feature from a message will get you to a location when there is an important event but it puts the player looking directly down on the scene, killing the angle that you may have spent some time trying to achieve.

Keys are configurable in the game, although the player cannot choose which keys they would like to use - Instead they can choose to select the function that they would like for each key. Also due to the lack of documentation in the game manual, you will not find a key listing of the defaults there.

So how does this game hold up in regards to graphics? After all, one of the requirements for Startopia is that the player has a 3-D accelerator card - for these kind of requirements you would expect to get some eye-candy for your dollar. Even in the lowest of resolutions (640x480) the game looks great. Those expecting to see a game overwhelmed by a battleship grey hue will be sorely disappointed. Throughout the various decks of the station, there is a vast array of colours and graphical detail to please the eye. Alien races are easy to distinguish from one another, even in the distance, and some of the rooms have very nice touches to just add to the experience.

As with any graphic engine there is an option to up/down the graphical detail and the game engine comes with all the bells and whistles you would expect. Those with higher end systems will enjoy the higher resolutions, but you will definitely need more grunt in your PC to get beyond 800x600. The recommended system on the box states a 600 Mhz processor or higher and it is understandable - the review system ran admirably in 640x480 in 32bit colour, but did start to loose some frame rate as the game neared the end and as the station became more populated in 800x600. However, due to the amount of detail and the presentation, you can easily forget what resolution you are playing in and concentrate on the gameplay. After all, that is what really counts.

To help you immerse in the game, there is a range of ambient sounds to get in the mood. You will notice it more after turning down the background music (which does get a bit repitive after time), the sounds of the doors opening, the chatter of radio communications of ships docking, the laser blasts of combat. All of these add to the experience of being in a central station - after all, it IS supposed to be hub to different worlds.

The one thing that really dissapoints is the documentation - there is surprisingly little information given about the game with the pamphlet sized "manual" that comes with it. This is the biggest flaw of the entire package. It's a shame that a game with such depth and potential is not backed up with even an adequate manual. Fortunately there is some contextual help in the game and although limited in explanation it does offer a lot more insight than the documentation.

The single player experience in the game is short - with a total of 10 missions (not including the turorials) to go through. However, perhaps to reduce the risk of players flying through the game, there is an option that even if you do complete a mission, you can continue through the scenario. This is a very nicely added feature enabling you to play around with the world (er.. Station) that you have created in the last hour(s) - why take away the toys when there is an urge to just play around with the environs you have just created?

Another bonus option available to you is the Sandbox. Essentially this allows one to tinker with all the variables to create a mission "just for you" to play at your own pace. Similar to a Skirmish Mode in others of the RTS genre, it is through the Sandbox option that the player can look more into the depth of the game. With the option of just being the sole administrator in a space station, you can focus on various things that may have been nagging you in the single player eperience. Things like, what happens if there is no scuzzer to pick up the litter and so forth. This also allows the player to develop strategies for both the single player and multiplayer modes of the game, in a "risk free" environment.

Overall, Startopia is a great game. Yes it does have it's faults but nothing so major as to destroy the true genius lurking beneath the surface. There are just so many things about it that just cannot be described in a few sentences; it is these little details that will likely have you tinkering and experimenting for hours. If you are looking for a game involving the traditional tank rush, or quick conquest of territory then this is most likely not for you. Startopia is a refreshing game with a mix of resource management, sim style planning and humour to boot.

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