Being an old game, the graphics and sounds in Starflight are not especially impressive. Instead, the important part is its essential ideas.
The main focus of Starflight is on exploration. While this is initially for the sake of discovering the lost past of your colony, it soon becomes a much more serious matter. You need to search out important information and objects, while at the same time earning money to buy fuel and improvements to your crew and your ship.
The process of exploration works well because of the atmosphere; you’re not a powerful fleet commander, you're a tiny speck in the void.
Most planets are uninhabited, and some you can't even land on, being frozen lumps of rock, or covered in flaming gases. The number of planets is vast, and it's impossible to search them all. While you do start with some information, it's incomplete. What all this leads to is a sense of awe at the great number of unknowns confronting you. This means that there is a great feeling of accomplishment as you make your discoveries and slowly put them together. Taking notes on everything is vital, especially the system co-ordinates.
The other aspects of the game are weaker; Combat is rather crude, and planning out your crew isn't too much of a problem. This does mean that you don't have to spare too much
concentration on them, but it makes the game feel a little flat sometimes. There's also a definite problem in the ease with which certain opponents can crush you if you run into them unprepared, and the only solution seems to employ trial and error to work out where you can move safely.
The interactions with other races work well, and interacting with them is one of the main ways to progress; each has their own area of space and a history that is associated with your own. They come across as having distinct characters, although it would have been nice for there to have been a greater degree of individuality in the captains that you meet. The fact that no one else seems to have space stations is also a bit odd.
Starflight does manage to give the best atmosphere to space exploration that I have experienced in a game, and this makes up for its other flaws. I recommend this game if you have the patience to keep track of a lot of information, and enjoy collecting it!
