Darkstar One is a space trading game that manages to be fun and engaging despite being relatively simple and repetitive. You fly around, you use the straightforward economy system to make money, you take side missions for money, you kill pirates for money, you follow the main plotline, and you improve your ship. It's all par for the course for the genre, doesn't sound like it'd be something to hold your attention for the 20 odd hours it takes to finish, but it's just got the right balance of activities and polish of interface to make it work.
The graphics are pretty good, though hard to judge given our limited experience with how flying around shooting lasers in space would really look. There's nice touches like your cockpit reflecting in the windscreen, and your perspective shifting as inertial forces push you around in your seat.
Combat is simple, just point generally at the enemy, and the guns do the rest to assure accurate hits. It's not nearly as demanding as some other space combat games where the enemies zip around and demand precise aiming to score hits. All in all combat tends to be pretty easy, and more about managing shields and weapon energy supply than really doing any profound dogfighting or marksmanship. Keeping the ship updated with the right gear is also important. The weapons are all some variation of “laser gun” with the option to take missiles as well. However, since the missile launchers take up a weapon slot, and aren't generally as effective as the “laser guns” I rarely used them, except to periodically switch one on (you can switch your weapons in flight), and fire some big missiles at capital ships.
The voice acting is not the best, and the main character is a major offender in this respect, some of his line are a bit painful to listen to. Given the rather light, goofy tone of the game, though, it seems pretty appropriate.
All in all a fun game to play and addictive, though it did leave me pining for the old Wing Commander games. It'd really be great to see those come back and make a showing on today's hardware. They had a blend of tactics, reflexes, and weapon selection/conservation, that made the combat a lot of fun and a great challenge. Combat is rarely difficult in DarkStar One, and becomes less so as your ship improves.