Starlink: Ongoing Review of the Battle for the Atlas – Realistic Toys with Fun Toys

Starlink: Battle for Atlas is a significant step forward for the movement of toys to life. After the murder of Disney, Infinity, Activision did not make plastic figures for Skylanders at its last opportunity. And that's fine. The games were OK, but these action figures lacked one key ingredient: the action. They were stuck on plastic bases and you could not put them on.

This is not a problem with Starlink spacecraft. You can zoom them into the room without silly basics, and even more, you can swap different drivers, weapons and even wings on dang objects. My children had fun flying and pretending to engage in space battles and to exchange different configurations.

It turns out that the game is rather fun too.

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Starlink: Battle for Atlas comes from Ubisoft's Toronto studio and will be retailed Oct. 16 for the Nintendo Switch. GamesBeat did not have the game until Friday, so I did not have time to make an adequate review. These are my impressions after four days and four nights spent with Starlink and its spacecraft, and my kids have gone crazy about these fun toys.

What you will like

Fun toys outside the game

My kids had fun with Disney Infinity characters, but their interest was limited when they wanted to pose characters, just like their toys Star Wars and Transformers. So now there are more decorations in my living room than toys to play.

I do not think that's happening with these Starlink ships any time soon. Heck, even I like to fly with them, participate in imaginary space battles, run from the living room and walk down the hallway to their bedrooms, and get into the repair bay (c & # 39; that is to say, the coffee table in our living room) to change arms and wings. If you have two of three ships and two or three sets of weapons, you have more than two or three ships – you have a number of different configurations. I like to take Fox McCloud's wings from the Arwing and install them on Judge Neptune's ship, giving this fighter tank a different look. I did not notice if this made the ship more agile in the game, but it could be due to various reasons.

Explore the planets

Starlink takes place in space and on planets, and although I prefer to focus solely on combat and explore the stars, I really enjoyed flying around the planets.

Missions take place on these worlds, but when you zoom in on objects, you can fight enemies, find loot to loot and scan native life forms. My youngest dug this – you scan a creature, fly around it in a circle to finish getting the information, then you see how well you've learned. You must often scan two or three individuals of a species before learning enough to know what it is.

These planets also have an old technology that hides behind gigantic doors and you have to solve a basic puzzle. The "door" on these will have specific colors that match your weapons. A red and blue door means you must use your firearm and frost weapon to open it and get the loot. These are basic puzzles, but look at them from a child's point of view – once my children realized that colors matched weapons, they felt like the smartest people in the world. piece.

Tinkerin '

You play Engineer on your star hunters, both in the game and in your living room (or wherever you are).

In the game you find items that can enhance the abilities of your ship and your weapons (some are hidden behind the riddles that I mentioned above). These mods can give you more armor, increase your speed, make your weapons stronger, and more.

You can also trade weapons while you play. Sometimes you may need different weapons or missiles to take advantage of the elemental weaknesses of your enemies. When you remove a weapon, the action pauses and takes you to the equipment screen, where you can then put a new weapon on the open slot. My youngest son decided that he was the "master of arms" and was in charge of exchanging firearms and missile launchers. I enjoyed this because not only did her help release my hands, but she also gave the impression that we were playing together.

Swapping wings is more about following the "cold rule" than improving your ships. Seeing different configurations come to the screen is just fun. It reminds me of the "kitbashing" that you see in Star Trek and other sci-fi franchises with models – you take parts of two or more ships and "jostle" them together to see what you're getting (that's it). so is a number of Trek vessels have their appearances in television shows). This also evokes the Uglies – Star Wars starfigthers have assembled salvaged pieces (think X-TIE, an X-wing with TIE wings, or the TYE-Wing ", which combines a TIE combat pod with a motor, making it one of the worst starfigthers to take in space – and nickname it "Die-wing").

Star Fox

Starlink is now the second partnership between Ubisoft and Nintendo, and this one looks like another success. The campaign is isolated, but Fox McCloud and his friends add a Nintendo touch to this story of space. The Arwing is an excellent ship, and it does not even need Snap-On weapons, it comes with lasers. And you can also call on your teammates.

Do they match the story? Kind of. Ubisoft takes an interesting approach on how Fox and Friends fits into Starlink, and I like to see how this partnership works.

What you will not like

The shield button

I do not understand why you can not attack combat with your shields raised. You must press the button during the fight to receive some protection. I would much rather have a way to put these things in place without pressing a button, as if I were slipping into the cockpit of an X-wing in every Star Wars space game known to mankind. This decision makes no sense, and considering that Starlink is addressing a younger audience, I feel it's a horrible design decision.

Elemental Weapons

Look, if I fly in space, I do not want stink weapons or guns. Give me frickin 'laser beams! Ubisoft has indeed sent various weapons, such as a missile launcher with a prescription that levitates its target, rockets that create an implosion and even rams. Starwing Arwing has lasers, but none of the other ships I've received have standard weapons. And none of the weapons that Ubisoft has found to be as reliable and useful as basic lasers. Moreover, shooting with a flamethrower in the space is a feeling … wrong.

Platform

Yes, you must "jump" to complete tasks. In a starfighter. With chain engines. And jets. It can hover. Yeah, I'm not a fan either.

For some puzzles, you have to carry objects such as feed ducts with your seizure harness to activate old engines and so on. But these ducts are too heavy for you to carry while flying. So you are stuck in overflight mode. But thanks to the boost and well-placed ramps, you can install these ducts high up on structures and other bricks by hooking up to speed and jumping to the end.

It's as if Luke's soilpeeder in Star Wars had to jump to Junland Trash to find R2-D2. Yeah, it's a bad idea. It just does not fit what starfighters should do. Now, if they did this to your pilots when exploring the planet, I could buy it.

But make a starfighter platform? I would prefer to fly a Die-wing.

Conclusion

Starlink: Battle for Atlas shows that the idea behind the toys of life is not bad is that the action represents the actions that other companies of the first wave have simply realized. Starlink fighters are fun, whether you're playing with them in game mode, or just running in the living room or fighting dogs with your kids or friends.

The video game part is promising, with a fun exploration and many ground or space fights. Exchanging games on the fly is fun and until now, my kids and I enjoy learning more about the planets of the Atlas system.

It's not a starfigter game in the X-Wing or Colony Wars lineup that I wish so much about modern consoles, but it's fun, and it has potential. I would like his orders to be a little more user friendly.

Score: to be determined

Starlink: Battle for Atlas is out October 16 for the Nintendo switch. Ubisoft has sent GamesBeat a set of five pilots, four ships and various weapons, as well as a digital copy of the game for the purposes of this review.