This ain’t just “Pocket Legends in Space”, kiddies!
I’ve been playing Spacetime Studio’s Pocket Legends since it launched, and I still recommend it to my friends to this day. Why? It has done nothing but improve over the past year of it’s existence, it’s developers have their ears to the community, it works on EDGE, 3G, and wifi, it looks awesome, it’s fun to play… should I go on? (No, cuz I’m not getting paid to write this mush.) Pocket Legends is the single best MMORPG on any iOS or Android device, period. When I reviewed the game last year, it was a mere shell of what it is now. Don’t believe me? Try it, it’s free. (one the iPad, too) This may sound like a paid endorsement, but I just really love this game, and so does my roommate, girlfriend, brother, sister, and pretty much everyone else who I’ve introduced it to.
But what the hell does this pukey Pocket Legends lovefest have to do with Blackstar? I’ll give you a quick history to explain. Spacetime Studios was hired many years ago to create “Blackstar”, a then-revolutionary MMORPG concept, for the PC. At some point, for various reasons, the project was cancelled. The fine folks at Spacetime were stuck with a full-on MMO engine and nowhere to go. This is where 
Pocket Legends came into the picture. Pocket Legends was built on the original Blackstar skeleton engine, so-to-speak. For the past couple years of development, Spacetime Studios has been able to use Pocket Legends as a testbed of sorts to tune and enhance their beastly engine to what it is today. Blackstar is now taking back it’s game engine, and will be pushing it to it’s limits and beyond.
In speaking with Gary Gattis, CEO of Spacetime, he admits to mistakes made in molding the Pocket Legends game engine to what it is today. For instance, one of the negative aspects of Pocket Legends for me was the grind-heavy structure of most of the missions. When I told him about the time my girlfriend and I spent days on a mission that required the collection of 1,250 items, he laughed and threw his palm to his forehead while exclaiming “I’m sorry!” Gary explained that Blackstar is going to focus on collaborative events in missions to mix things up from the usual “go here and collect this” kinds of quests. One of the missions we played involved defeating an engineer in order to lower shields on turrets to destroy them. Another in-game story event had enemy aliens bursting out of incubator tubes in front of you. This didn’t feel like Pocket Legends, it felt like a PC-quality MMORPG.
The only area I would have liked to see a bit more in is character customization and classes. At launch, it appears there are going to be three standard classes to play from, without much ability to make them look unique from each other. One thing my girlfriend complained about in Pocket Legends was the inability to choose a male or female character, and that still remains to this day. Customization has always come 
more in your armor and weapons than your initial character, but I still wouldn’t mind a bit more variety in character or class options. Not a deal-breaker by any means, but more character options are never a bad thing.
From what I saw and played of Blackstar, Spacetime Studios is not going to stop raising the bar for mobile MMO games. All the fantastic mobile features of Pocket Legends will be in Blackstar with even more on the way. Play with friends on iOS, Droid phones, or tablets? Check. Play using any data connection EDGE or faster? Check. Drool over thousands of weapons and armor sets? Check! Now sprinkle in some multi-level “raid” missions, collaborative in-mission puzzles, and branching storylines. All this taking place in a rich, fully realized sci-fi space universe, and you’ve got Blackstar. Seriously, these guys have been working on this universe for years. From what I was told, the initial launch will take place in, at most, 15% of the currently planned game world.
As with all MMORPGs, Blackstar will be constantly evolving, expanding, and improving as the months progress after launch. Gary mentioned one feature that I’m extremely excited about, but can’t quite mention here. (But seriously… wow.) Blackstar is set for a Q2 (April-June) release. As a special treat, check out a couple pics I took of their concept art wall with my iPhone below, along with new screens and art pieces.
