Description
A NTF task force has stolen top secret weapons plans and is trying to escape with them to the Denab system, you and your task force have the pleasure of blockading the Jump node. Have fun Pilot.

Storyline:
The storyline to Northern Star is just about as old as they come – an evil Commander has gained the power to destroy anything with a powerful weapon. The Command briefing is way too short with just one-line stages and no command animations and there are lots and lots of spelling mistakes all over the mission. The briefing is actually fairly well laid out, and though it is only three stages, conveys the right information to the player. Making it a bit longer would be nice, though. The icons all match up with their ships, but some of the wing names (and hence icons) are incorrectly spelled, plus a few other spelling errors. There aren’t many messages in the mission either. The debriefing is okay, but riddled with spelling errors. The help isn’t very helpful either – “for the love of God, shoot!” is not very useful advice.

Balance:
When you first look at this mission you will probably wonder how on earth youÂ’ll ever survive. There are several NTF wings, an Orion destroyer and 4 Aeolus cruisers all bearing down on your corvette and pair of Leviathans. The first NTF Lokis going for the corvette, armed with Rebel bombs furthered my initial dread. However, as difficult to survive as the mission looks, it really isnÂ’t. Until NTF reinforcements arrived I kept at about 60% integrity, and even then I finished the mission at 1%. Sheesh, close.

Design:
Design of the mission is very basic, really. There are directives, and yes, some of them work (though to be honest more don’t than do). The only other events are for the few messages – so few that send-message-lists aren’t really needed, and for beam free events and so on. Most of the events are called ‘Event name’, which is not the most useful indication of their purpose. Some events are also duplicated – the Vasudan vessel’s beam-free event, for example.

Gameplay:
This mission is what I would call ‘absolutely frantic’. You intercept the Lokis frantically to stop their bombs hurting your corvette, and you’re usually frantically hitting the afterburners, shooting anything that gets in your way without targeting, and so on. It can be great fun, but also nerve-wracking as you don’t exactly want to die, especially thirty seconds from the end when 3 AA beams smash into you. There is a bit of beam cannon overkill here, and since you’re not in a bomber you can’t do as much as you might like to. However, you can always deal with the (mostly harmless) fighters and the not so harmless cruisers I suppose, as well as de-beam the Orion. Despite the massive task ahead of you I completed the mission in about 6 or 7 minutes.

Other Thoughts:
Come on, the GVCv Herehamehphat? IsnÂ’t that a bit extreme?