Star Traders RPG

Pirates of the beardy-nautical variety are exciting. Throw in a science fiction backdrop with space travel, bounty hunting, and law evasion, and you've got the foundations of a great escapist role-playing game.

Unfortunately, Star Traders’s depth is largely based on a series of repetitive simple tasks that feels more of a grind than a dream career.

Like Elite before it, the game sees you darting between planets trying to make a living without getting shot out of the sky, or suffering a mutiny at the hands of your ungrateful crew. You can pick a character class and which faction to align yourself with, but ultimately the game plays more or less the same whichever options you pick.

Money is earned via both honest and not so honest wheeling and dealing; shooting and looting other ships; or taking on missions for cash rewards.

As you progress, you level up your character in various areas from being more effective in battle to not being intimidated when your malnourished staff visit your quarters baying for blood (or a sandwich).

Like all RPGs, the game relies on repetition, but unfortunately Star Traders doesn't have interesting enough gameplay mechanics to pull it off.

You follow a pattern: visit a planet, take on one of the three types of mission, head to the right location, and press a button or have a quick battle. Then you head to another planet, repair, sell off any loot gained, and get yourself another mission.

You can mix this up by going off to explore planets on your own, or by bullying other smaller ships, but the same mechanics apply, so it doesn't really help vary the gameplay.

There are battles, bounties, and criminal records to be had, but confrontation is something you quickly learn to avoid. Not because the fights are difficult, but because they’re slow moving and keep you from your mission goals.

Battles are turn-based affairs, giving you a limited number of options - open fire, attempt to board, or move backwards and forwards.

These bouts often take upwards of 20 turns to complete, and the frustration is compounded by the fact that the ship graphic, damage meters, options, and battle commentary don’t all fit onto a single screen (not on an HTC Hero, anyway), meaning you need to scroll up and down to keep on top of everything.

Most of the non-battle events take place as text-based descriptions, which may seem quite detailed at first but does mean key points or requests become lost within the similar paragraphs, and the lack of graphical detail

For hardcore RPG fans, there’s some satisfaction to be had from the constant incentive to level up and buy bigger and better ships.

But for many, the search for a killer Android RPG is set to continue.