A fun to play, highly addictive game (once you get a decent ship, that is).
As stated, Star Fury takes place in the Space Empires universe. But, while the SE games are turn based empire builders, SF is a kind of space based "action RPG" style game. You basicaly carry out missions (quests) for the various commerce and mercenary guilds, earning money to upgrade you're ship with better weapons and defenses (or, better yet, buy a better ship). When you get enough experience, you'll get promoted (level up). This will then give you skill points to spend on you're various attributes such as offensive skill, defensive skill, negotiation, etc. Anyone who has ever played a game like Diablo or Baulder's Gate will immediately recognize the concept here.
I think the thing that turns a lot of people off about this game is the fact that it just takes so loooong to really get going. The primary reason for this is that the ship you're given when you start a new game/campaign is a little on the.......oh, lets be honest here. It's a near useless piece of crap that can't fight it's way out of a wet paper bag! Tooling around in something that will quickly be obliviated in a fight with a civillian freighter is no way to go through life. Unfortunately, this means you'll spend the first 10 to 12 hours of game time on short, low paying missions schleping cargo within the (relative) safety of you're home systems. I urge you to keep at it however. Eventually, you'll have the funds to turn you're little space going rowboat into something that at least resembles a warship. Now you can take on higher paying cargo missions outside of the home systems as well the much more lucrative merc. missions. Persevere long enough and believe me, this game will have you at the controls of a ship with a truly fearsome amount of firepower.
Speaking of which, the control scheme in Star Fury is one of the simplest, most elegent I've ever seen in a space game. No complex newtonian physics here. Just move the cursor in the direction you want to go and click. You're going there. The closer to the side of you're ship the cusor is, the tighter the turn. Click behind the ship, pull a u-ey. Targeting is also handled with the mouse. Just place the cursor over another ship, planet, starbase, whatever, and right click. If a planet or moon, targeting it will tell you wheather or not it's inhabited. If a ship, targeting it will tell you what kind of ship it is, who it belongs to, and the range to it. You'll also get a readout on you're hud telling you it's shield, armor and hull strength. Unfortunately, it dosn't tell you what kind of weapons it's carrying. More than a few times I've come upon a smaller ship thinking "I'ma gonna bag me an easy one here" only to find he had much better guns than I had. Lessons learned: "never judge a ship by it's size" and "always be prepared to run".
Combat in Star Fury is equally elegant and streamlined. Weapons on you're ship are arranged in "banks" numbered 1 through 4. Once an enemy is targeted (you can't fire at anything unless it's targeted), simply press the corresponding number key to the bank you wish to fire. Aiming is automatic as long as the enemy is within the weapon's firing arc. Weapons will continue to fire until their energy runs out at which point they will need to recharge. Accuracy depends on the given weapon type and the range to target. Installing better sensors on you're ship will improve you're chances of hitting. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, using the mouse to target enemy ships can be cumbersome. In this case, you can simply hit the T key to target the nearest enemy ship, or the Y key to cycle through all enemies in range.
All this sounds great as long it's a single ship vs. ship duel. Problems arise however, when you have to take on multiple enemy ships or worse, an enemy ship carrying fighters. See, you can only fire at an enemy that's targeted and you can't target more than one at a time. This means you're going to have to get real good using the T and Y keys to switch between targets quickly and effectivlely. The inability to target multiple enemies is, sorry to say, a total lack of common sense here.
The graphics in Star Fury are workman like at best but they get the job done fairly nicely thank you very much. They certainly convey the vastness and emptiness of space well. Planets are nicely detailed and nebulae are bright and colorful. I found it strange however, that I would sometimes come upon a planet that looked to be covered in water and dotted with continants, only to find it totally devoid of life while another planet that looked for all the world like the inside of a volcano, had a population of 30 million! Weird.
A problem arises when you first enter a system and start heading toward it's sun(s). See, every planet, moon or asteroid between you and the sun will be all but invisible to the naked eye. You've got to pay very close attention to the radar screen or you're trip will quickly be cut short. I've blown more than a few missions because I plowed into a freakin moon that I didn't see in time. Very realistic and annoying.
The sound effects and in game music convey the fact that not much of budget was spent on either. The generic orchestral score tries it best to portray the majesty of you're surroundings and does a fairly decent job of it until about 5 hours into the game. Fortunately, it's not obnoxious so by this time, you don't really even hear it anymore. The sound effects for weapons fire are equally generic. All beam weapons sound exactly the same; as do all bolt and missle weapons. It would have been nice to, at least, have had different sounds for the different race's individual weapons but, what are you gonna do. Explosions, on the other hand, sound pretty damned good (especially if you've got a decent set of speakers). I run a 5.1 surround system and let me tell ya; when an enemy ship goes nova, it's a joy to behear. There is also a curious warning claxon that sounds when a ship is about to go up. I can under stand hearing this when my own ship is about to blow; but, how exactly would I hear it when some other poor sucker tanks? Oh well. At least it lets me know that, incase the ship that I'm currently targeting offscreen with my rearfiring weapons just bit it, it's time to slow down, turn around and collect the swag he left behind. Easy money (well, most of the time anyway).
Overall, Star Fury is a wonderfully addictive game that will, if given the chance, take a huge bite out of you're free time.
Sorry this review ran on for so long but, since there is no "official" review, I felt I had to at least try to give this game it's props. Not being a proffesional writer, I can only hope I sort of succeded.