Fans of Chris Roberts’ space everything simulator get their first significant slice of gameplay with the launch of Star Citizen alpha 2.0, which should push the world’s most crowdfunded anything past the $US100 ($139) million mark.
A bunch of little playable things becomes several massive playable things in Star Citizen alpha 2.0. Players basically get a sector of space to explore, bringing with it the first taste of things like multi-crew ships, first-person combat and wandering outside in space without one of those pricey ships.
The main crux of the new gameplay takes place around a planet called Crusader, because in the future planet names are pretty cool. Players start off on a space station and from there can wander outside, hop into a ship alone or with other people, and then fumble with the controls until they crash into the deck. At least that’s been my experience so far.
To my credit, I’ve also jumped off the space station, spiralling off into nothingness while trying to use my suit’s thrusters to help me not die. The results have been mixed. Last time the game crashed on me before I found out if I made it. Cliffhanger!
Most exciting airlock ever!
Those who make it off the station can do all of the things on this bullet-list that came with the official announcement.
- EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) — drift out of your ship’s airlock and venture into the void of space and back
- 20+ random encounters — combat and exploration (lost wrecks and abandoned space stations)
- Quantum travel — travel in ships through the vastness of space at 0.2 the speed of light
- New flyable ships including the Constellation, the Retaliator and the Vanguard.Large world tech — explore extremely large expanses of space seamlessly, without loading screens
- Locations to explore:
- One planet (Crusader)
- Three moons
- Three distinct space stations
- One repair/restock station
- Nine comm arrays
- Wreckage to scavenge and never-ending battles in the Yela asteroid belt
- …and much more
If you plan on picking up a ship and playing, be sure to read up on both the full update features list and the known issues post, so you don’t get surprised when the crab in the hangar fishtank doesn’t animate properly.
I’d love to do a video, but between the really choppy framerates and the random crashes I can’t seem to get one done. I will keep trying.
In the meantime, the current crowdfunding total for Star Citizen is $US99,942,530 ($138,797,187). Hopefully some of that is going towards fixing that crab.
Comments
21 responses to “Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 Launches As Crowdfunding Approaches $100 Million”
I’ve been playing the PTU for a week, it’s rapidly stabilised since Monday and is AMAZING. I have never seen this level of detail in a space game, it’s simply incredible. Star Citizen is everything I ever wanted and more. It’s AWESOME.
Yeah I’ve been playing it for a while, it’s really great and I’ve already had some amazing moments, even for an Alpha I can already see the potential for it to become something great.
Was pretty excited to see this released yesterday.
I spent around 4 hours playing yesterday and only experienced two crashes. The servers appeared full initially but they seemed to have fixed that now.
Overall it runs really well for me and I’m loving the whole experience as it’s heaps of fun for an alpha.
Can you play it offline at all? We only have dialup access for the next 8 weeks.
Na I don’t think so mate as you have to connect to their instances (servers).
Goddamn it now when I try it today all Im gonna see is that damn crab…
Got in for the first time last night…
I haven’t stopped smiling since! SO GOD DAMN GOOD!
Now all they need to do is throw in some planetary mech combat and I’ll be at home
Crashes will stabilize in time, I think it’s mainly a result of increased server load, which is the same reason the alpha is a lot more framey now when compared to before it went live. The devs have been amazing at pushing out patches on a near daily basis with fixes to issues that the community has reported, it’s been great to see.
I’m thinking this might finally have just enough meat on it for me to consider buying it, but the store is really confusing. None of the game packages say anything about access to Alpha 2.0, just Arena Commander, and I remember there used to be different levels of access? But the post on the site about the update says it’s available to “all players”…
What I would give for a button that was like “Buy the game” not “Buy this ship which incidentally comes with some kind of game access”
…In any case, can anyone confirm that if I buy one of the $45 starter pack things I’ll actually be able to play this new update? Or not? I legitimately can’t be sure based on the information on the store.
Edit: Nevermind, figured it out… clicking on “Fly Now” under “Promotions” rather than going to “Game Packages” under “Store” actually tells me that yes, these will include access to Alpha 2.0.
I maintain that the store is very confusing.
Just something to remember. If you buy the base version you can then gain in game funds which allow you to rent ships. This is only intended for the life of the alphas and beta, but still it is nice to test some of the other ships.
Yeah, the store is completely confusing for anyone coming to it new. It is difficult to even know if you are buying the game at all or not, and how much of the game.
Hoping the in-game UI is less confusing 🙂
Yeah I mean who would have thought you have to actually read to work out what you are buying…..
I mean the shop is sorted into different Areas a Section which literally says Game Packages, pretty obvious what that means….
its people who are to stupid to actually read what they are buying that have trouble with the store
Just tried it. Flew to a point. Killed some pirates. Got out of my ship, floated down into the array. Spent like 5 mins getting use to the zero g and trying to stop my spinning. Found the uplink inside the array and activated it. Got a bit lost, but found my way back to my ship. Got back in. Pirate(s) came and blew me up before i could even power up my ship. The experience was incredible.
Well I do want to play this now.
Star Citizen has just clocked over 100 million in crowd funding.
I’ve never even played a space game before other than Mess Effect… I think I need to try this.
It’s a nice release, but I really REALLY want them to focus on framerate and performance related issues.
“One… hundred million dollars. Mwuahahahaha!”
Why is there not a Dr. Evil image in this article?
Curious: to those who are playing Star Citizen, what hardware are you guys running?
Keen as a bean for launch just wanting to gauge have much I will need to spend in order to get the full experience (hardware wise) as I have heard SC is quite demanding.
Also, would it be worth opting for oculus commercial release? or should I just get a decent monitor? so many decisions lol
i7 920 – 16GB ram – 980ti.
Currently upgrading my PC piecemeal – next is the harddrives to an SSD and a SSHD – then I’ll do the CPU and MOBO last as they iron out some of the issues with the new chipsets and get the best for longest life like how my i7 lasted me 6ish years.
I’ve had my money’s worth just watching Derek Smart’s most-public implosion as Chris Roberts ascends toward yet more accolades.