Previews

Hands-on with Starlight Inception - a Wing Commander descendant for PS Vita

Flight of fancy

Hands-on with Starlight Inception - a Wing Commander descendant for PS Vita

Starlight Inception is a space combat game in the vein of Wing Commander, and it's coming to your Vita very soon.

It's also quite a bit like other games in the genre, for better and for worse, and looks like it'll appeal specifically to those fans.

Which, I imagine, comes as something of a relief, since the Vita isn't replete with games about shooting things in space.

Cockpit

When you fire up the game you're given a quick briefing on your upcoming training mission. Then you launch into flight itself. The entirety of this mission can be accompanied by visual prompts to teach you the finer points of the controls.

Because, much like the games from which it draws inspiration, Starlight Inception features a complex control system, made all the more impenetrable by the fact that it's played with buttons and sticks rather than a keyboard and mouse.

For one thing, there are multiple menus to navigate if you want to use every facility at your disposal. You have a wingman that accompanies you on missions, and you can set some general tactics for them, such as attacking at will. But to get to that option you'll need to press a fair few buttons and dig through a menu or two. You get used to doing this with practice, but it's not as immediate as you might like.

It's the same issue for transferring energy resources from one area of the ship to another to boost performance. The beta also hints that you won't simply be dog-fighting, which makes me wonder whether the controls will quite be up to the task

The other slight niggle is that the controls for yaw and pitch are on the left stick, while roll is on the right. I couldn't find a way to change the setup, and I would prefer pitch and roll on one stick, with yaw on the other.

Sapper zapper

There's nothing in the control setup that can't be overcome, though, and for the most part you're left to zapping enemy ships with lasers and rockets, zooming through space, and doing barrel rolls.

Only a few enemies were on offer in the version I played, with the usual assortment of small craft and stationary drones. A particular favourite was the Sapper Drone which, when you approach it, reduces your abilities greatly by draining you of energy, and forces you to think about how you approach them.

The beta was quite limited and only gave me access to the first mission of the Campaign mode, so I couldn't test the Online or wander about the USF Midway at all. Regardless, what's here is good.

What starts out as a training mission quickly takes a turn for the worse, and soon you're dog-fighting with some bad guys that have launched a nuclear strike on Earth.

The setting is "one hundred years from tomorrow", and because of this the craft aren't incredibly futuristic and sleek. Instead they're bulky and angular, reminiscent of today's submarines and battleships.

The air is filled with radio chatter and static, you feel like your own craft is quite limited in its abilities, and I like that. This is a near-future scenario, and it feels appropriately close to our reality.

I'm keen to see the full version of Starlight Inception, the final build for which is currently in the hands of Sony's Q&A team. If you remember the adventures of Blair against the Kilrathi with a certain fondness, then you should be keeping an eye on this too.

Those living in the US can grab the beta from the PlayStation Store now. We'll be re-docking with Starlight Inception nearer to release.
Peter Willington
Peter Willington
Die hard Suda 51 fan and professed Cherry Coke addict, freelancer Peter Willington was initially set for a career in showbiz, training for half a decade to walk the boards. Realising that there's no money in acting, he decided instead to make his fortune in writing about video games. Peter never learns from his mistakes.