A Sirius Game Review (Windows PC)

Contrary to what the name implies, A Sirius Game is not a very serious game at all. I say the name implies it because serious is spelled “Sirius”! That’s funny right? No, it is not funny at all.  Well, unfortunately, some of the humor in A Sirius Game is just like that. Though the game has its funny moments they don’t happen very often. The best thing I can say about a Sirius Game is that it’s got heart. At least it tried to do something new and interesting, though it falls flat on its face in many aspects.

Gameplay

A Sirius Game describes itself as an action RPG and that can be a bit misleading. When I think of action RPGs, I imagine a game like Diablo, or even Mass Effect 1, and Knights of the Old Republic. A Sirius Game is nothing like those three. If anything, it has much more in common with Sid Meier’s “Pirates!”, which at first seemed like a good thing considering I once sunk 32 hours in 2 days into “Pirates!”. The similarity with comes from how A Sirius Game initially looks (which is to say, it looks just like Pirates!). You play as a ship sailing across a vast ocean encountering other ships doing shiplike things. Some of those ships are “bad” ships which you’ll have to shoot with your cannon balls.

But, while “Pirates!” is a simple “sailing the seven seas and doing what you wish” simulator, A Sirius Game’s specialty is escort missions which ends up being quite disappointing. In A Sirius Game you play as the son of a rich merchant, Sirius, who decides he’s had enough of his father’s bickering over how he prefers to go out drinking and cause mischief. Sirius’ father disowns him and Sirius decides to get rich himself. Right away this has the makings of a cloned “Pirates!” game that focuses more and the darker side of sailing the high seas.  Instead, our titular anti-hero decides to make a living escorting ships and protecting them from pirates. I don’t know why the potential for a more mischievous Pirates!-like game was ignored, but the developer opted for a maritime-escort simulator.

Why an escort simulator? I couldn’t begin to guess. Most people dislike escort missions in their games. I’m mostly indifferent to them, which is why I can say that A Sirius Game’s take on escort missions is novel in one aspect; they’re dynamic as well as story based. As you’re docked at a port or sailing the ocean, you’ll get close to merchant ships.  When you do, most of these ships will offer to pay you in order to successfully guide them towards their destinations. Along with these dynamic escort quests, you’ll also have story quests to undertake. The fact that you can be offered a mission on the side, even if it is an escort mission, by a random NPC helps keep this game from becoming utterly boring and quite short.