I enjoyed Privateer back in the day. I tried to like EVE a few times, but never lasted more than a month or two. Then the other day, Star Corsairs floated across my viewscreen.

I enjoyed Privateer back in the day. I tried to like EVE a few times, but never lasted more than a month or two. Then the other day, Star Corsairs floated across my viewscreen.

Someone I follow on twitter retweeted about this indie, browser, 2D space shooter mmo, so I tried it out. It is fairly simple, but after playing a few hours, it seems like it has some fun potential. You can mine or fight aliens, and if you are so inclined, you can pvp, build a space station and claim territory. The controls are a tad annoying (you sometimes spend a lot of time holding the mouse button down), but passable. As you progress, you can buy bigger ships, craft better components on your ship, and research alien tech to add buffs to your ship.

Star Corsairs is a very solid game without a lot of bells and whistles. It was just released, but the dev is working hard to add shiny new features. It has a distinct art style, and all of the necessary components are there in working order (fighting, building ships, gathering resources, crafting, auction house). It doesn’t have the sheer variety of components, aliens, missions, etc. found in AAA titles, but for a 1 man show, it is amazing.

And while it shares the same core concepts as EVE (mine, kill npcs to gather resources to craft bigger and better ships so you can go to tougher areas for better resources, and eventually territory claiming) it is a browser game with low downtime. That makes it much more accessible.

And to quote the dev: “I surely don’t pretend it’s EVE Online (how can 1 dev could ever create an EVE Online clone!) but it got some of its element. I wanted to create something that casual players could enjoy while still keeping some of the basic ideas of a sandbox-like game.”

It is just what I want at the end of a long day when I’m on the road. I travel a lot and can’t really install games on my work laptop, so I expect I’ll be playing a lot of this in the hotel room while [random cable "science" show #37] plays in the background.

You can play for free. If you want a head start, you can pay $15 for a bunch of credits and resources (I got that pack). Or you can subscribe to have access to cooler looking ships and to be able to have more points to trick out your new ships. Or you can buy in game credits. By spending any amount of cash, you unlock a bunch of added capacity to your account, but depending on how casual you are, you might not need it.

If you check it out, I’m “Winin” in game. Click HERE to check it out.

The game is made by Dave “@Over00” Toulouse (and he’s a 1 man show, which makes the game all that more impressive).

Todd "Winin" Edwards

When he's not playing games, Todd also writes and illustrates geeky stories for kids. For more info or to buy a book, visit: www.nerniandfriends.com