The gaming industry today is often filled with development delays, some of them permanent. It can take years to craft and produce a successful adventure, and some sadly never see the light of day. Parallax Studio’s DARKSTAR: The Interactive Movie was an ambitious project from the start, and only grew more so as production continued, promising an epic sci-fi cinematic experience with more than 13 hours of FMV footage starring the entire original cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000. After a decade of waiting, however, it was hard to keep believing the game would ever be released. But at long last DARKSTAR has indeed arrived, and now the question is whether it was worth the wait. The answer to that is something of a mixed bag, as there are several key issues that plague the experience, from some shoddy acting to a bafflingly inefficient interface, but the game is every bit as epic in scope as advertised, and behind it all is a remarkably intriguing plot.

Amnesia stories have become cliché at this point, but they’re still a favorite of mine. They set up so many intriguing questions right off the bat. Who is the protagonist? Where is he? How did he get here? It’s a strong way to start off a mysterious tale when even the identity of your character is in doubt. DARKSTAR uses this classic device, as Captain John O’Neil emerges from a cryo chamber on a deserted spacecraft after sleeping for 300 years, with absolutely no clue how he got there. The fun of amnesia stories is discovering the plot yourself, so I won’t give much away here except to say that O’Neil is on a damaged starship called the Westwick, with only the detached, female voice of the ship’s computer to inform him of what’s going on. Predictably, the computer is only able to provide a little information about his predicament.

It quickly becomes clear, however, that John is not alone in this sector of space, orbiting high above an alien planet. Nearby, three other cryo chambers sit: one empty, one with a still-sleeping woman, and one with a corpse that for some reason is missing a hand. Notes and logs reveal that a malevolent enemy spacecraft is circling nearby, and it seems than not all of the crew members of the Westwick may have been allies. Worst of all, soon John discovers what players get a glimpse of in the game’s introduction: Earth has been completely destroyed by an armada of starships from Mars, and still more questions begin to add up. Why has John awakened now? Who killed the man in the cryo chamber and why did he or she cut off a hand? What is the significance of the enigmatic cosmic presence known as Darkstar, and why was the Westwick trying so desperately to reach it? Exploring the ship is the only way John can find these answers.

Exploring is where things start to get a little difficult in DARKSTAR, but not for the right reasons. The first-person interface is simple enough: clicking and dragging the mouse allows John to fully look around at any angle of each predetermined position. When the mouse is over a hotspot, it turns into an arrow icon, otherwise it defaults to a circle. The problem is that the arrow stands for absolutely anything John might do. This runs the gamut from walking in that direction, picking up or using an item, pressing a button, commenting on something, or backing away from that location. Using a single cursor to represent all these actions makes the game confusing to navigate, and leads to frustration more than a few times. I clicked on a body of water at one point, expecting John to comment on some swimming predators I had noticed earlier, but John responded to this command by diving in and dying. Elsewhere, it took forever to find an item in a cabinet because clicking on what I thought was a drawer backed me away from it (I was supposed to click a little bit below the spot I was trying to actually open the drawer). This happens a lot when looking at computer panels. There are often one or two buttons that can be pressed, but figuring out where to push is a frustrating game of trial-and-error, as clicking the wrong place backs you away from the panel so you have to re-approach to try again. Navigating the ship also proved disorienting at times, as John often went in an entirely different direction than I expected him to, given where I had clicked.

In contrast, inventory use is as streamlined as can be. John carries many objects that can be viewed at any time, but all items are used automatically when needed. That being the case, one may ask what challenge the puzzles could possibly hold, but the answer isn’t straightforward. On one hand, DARKSTAR makes it very clear (even in its title) that it thinks of itself more as an interactive movie than a game, only offering puzzles that are easily solved so as not to bog down the story and frustrate players. There are a couple of simple-to-assemble puzzles, some basic anagrams, and one or two other varieties. At one point I found a couple of letter-substitution coded messages that I happily solved, until I later realized that I wasn’t supposed to solve them. I was meant to find a special decoding device that literally solved both of the cryptograms for me instead.

Where DARKSTAR does provide challenge is through its sheer size. This game is huge, and unlocking different sections of the ship requires combing over every location very carefully. Elevators and lifts won’t work until you find a hidden button that activates them; doors won’t unlock until you track down their codes, often concealed in more than one place. And the game can’t be completed until you discover and activate several handprint sensors called “biolocks” to allow you greater control of the ship. It’s a bit of a haphazard way of establishing obstacles, as the ship is so large you may often find the solution before you find the puzzle. Many times I found myself pushing a button with absolutely no idea of what it unlocked or activated until much later.

Of course, exploring every nook and cranny is something you’ll want to do regardless of the puzzles. DARKSTAR’s backstory is told through hidden logs, both video and written, and other notes and scraps of information. The vast majority of these are completely optional, as the game can be completed without finding them at all, but you’ll miss some of the more interesting character moments. Unfortunately, it’s also possible to miss key items or locations and find yourself unable to go back to get them. An example of this happens on a desolate, rocky planet that John eventually explores. There’s a locked door, behind which are several juicy video logs and other interesting tidbits, but if you missed finding the key to this door while you were on the Westwick then you’ll never be able to open it. And in a design decision I haven’t seen since King’s Quest, it’s also possible to miss key items and find yourself unable to complete the game. Miss meeting one character on the Westwick before you leave it and you’ll be trapped on that planet forever. And if you don’t find one of two important objects before you reach the game’s climax, you’ll also be completely stuck. With a game that clocks as many hours as this one does (the developers claim it takes 20, and it’s not far off from that), it can be extremely annoying to reach the end and find only an inescapable death for O’Neil waiting.