Can someone make a Star Control "clone"? Pretty please? Few folks have made space adventure games that don't overly emphasise one aspect of play above all the others. I don't want a flight sim. I don't want a shoot'em-up space game. I want an adventure game, a variety of game play, a good story, great replay, and some real heart. I want to be able to land on planets and explore. I want to have to hunt for resources to continue my exploration. I want to meet new aliens, forge aliances, fight battles, and discover new and exotic things. Heck, feel free to throw in some RPG elements as well. I want to encounter strange anomolies. You'll get bonus points for randomly generating dynamic space that is truely limitless. Heck, I'd love a game that focuses on generations of families on a ship (Yes, I've been watching Towards the Terra).
Oh I second this. I heard that SD tried to get rights to star control but I could be way off. I would love to have a game very similiar to SC2. That is one of my favorite games of all time.
Yes, SC2 rocked! That game even appeals to non-gamers... I have a friend who still loves it and doesn't play games, outside of this one.
Although he only liked the combat aspect. The combat was great fun - not too difficult but required skill to get better at. Every ship had strengths and weaknesses...
And really, you don't have to call it Star Control. You can call it My Kitchen Sink for all I care, but please, we need more games like Star Control.
I add a second to the second for the motion for an "all around" adventure game, that does all those things you mentioned!! I would play it, and love it!!
-Teal
and yes as an aside, i think you are right, there are so many games that are more of one thing than anything else. A nice all around would be wonderful!!
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20998
Enjoy it.
when I was a kid I use to play Starflight. I remember playing for our and hours exploring space and mapping planets for colonization. Mining for endurium.
I loved that game. Wish they could make another one like that!!!
I mean no disrespect to SD, but a Star Control sequel should be handled by Toys for Bob.
I played Starflight on the Atari ST (Much better than the IBM version I later met. How the hell did we lose to Microsoft again? Oh, yeah, utterly imcompetent management - grrrr) and it was certainly one of the great games - thousands of unique planets on a 3 1/2 inch disk - it's one of the games that got me interested in procedurally generated content. And with a great plot too.
The heck with a MOO III conversion for GC II - We need to port the Starflight Universe to GC II!!! - {G}.
Jonnan
Try Space Rangers 2 if you haven't already. It's not the same, but is a fun game for a bit.
I've been chasing the dragon since SC2. I played Star Flight, and loved it. Star Flight 2, and loved it more. Star Control 2 was a worthy sprirtual heir to those games. The Moo (1&2) series was amazing, and GalCiv2 is the only game that comes close to feeling in the same class as the games I mentioned before.
But I really want a spriritual successor to either StarFlight or Star Control. So far, the only thing I've found that somewhat satisfies this craving is to replay SC2 (The Ur Quan masters version) every couple of years.
SC2 is one of my favorite games of all time. One of the things I liked is that you could train your piloting skills so that with any ship you could learn to defeat any other ships.
With honorable mentions to some of my other favorites:
Eternal Dagger
Wizard's Crown
NetHack
Wrath of Denethenor
Ultima I & II
Trade Wars (on WWIV BBS)
Omega
Microprose Pirates (original EGA version)
Since nobody has mentioned it so far I'd like to point out The Ur-Quan Masters, a port of the original Star Control 2 to modern OS's (see there)
It was mentionned in Reply # 9
Ur Quan Masters was a bloody addictive game... one of the best sci fi's ever.
Try Mass Effect 2 if you haven't yet. It's not a flight sim or a space shoot-em-up (the action elements in the game are mainly 3rd person shooter style with a few other things thrown in). It's definitely an adventure with an amazing story and a heart. I dare say it made me almost choke up a couple times (I'm no wuss! shut up! ) You can travel the Milky Way in your upgradeable ship and explore many areas that usually have 2-5 solar systems that in turn have 1-6 planets or other objects that you can explore. Doing so may result in simply finding resources to upgrade you, your squad, and your ship, or you may be sent there on a mission or even find hidden missions.
ME2 has some very interesting alien races. You can recruit team members and the aliens are very well represented there... only about half those you can recruit are humans. RPG elements are there in spades too, lots of dialog, morality choices that matter, and character development. Every team member has their own set of skills. I only wish it was limitless, that would be cool, but as it stands it's a 60 hour game if you do everything. Then you can New Game+ on Insane difficulty and go the other morality track for fun!
I'd like to see SC2 prequel sequel combo being made. It would be nice to be able to interact with the races previously wiped out by the Ur Quan / Kzer Ah. (Either in their doctrinal SC2 war or under orders from the Dnyarri when the brown Ur Quan were conquered).
Perhaps the machinations of the Orz in the present day could cause a defect in the Quasi space portal spanner so that each exit from Quasi space is in a different time period of the Galaxy.
This way you could have the time of the Precursors, the Dnyarry conquest, Star Control I, (near) Star Control II and perhaps some possible times one where you succeed your main mission, one where you failed. In the near Star Control II time, you might have a chance to warn the Arilou of that time period of the experiments the Androsynth plan to do leading to some Androzynth survivors. Saving perhaps the race that warned the Druuge in order to get their help in some way.
Each time period could have its mission. The Precursor could need something done for example. In exchange, they give the player a key piece of technology that will help the Taalo make the device which makes one resistant to the Dnyarri. The mission in the Dnyarri time period could be crucial to some event that must happen in the SC1 or SC2 time period etc.
A submission could be to get help from the Taalo in order to recruit the original brown pre-Dnyarri Ur Quan to steal some weapon technology from the Ur Quan and/or Kzer Ah.
The Pkunk said that the Ilwrath were perfect beings in their previous incarnations. One of those times could have that incarnation of the Ilwrath. Perhaps see an earlier incarnation of the Druuge before they were corrupted by one of the artifacts they have in their home world in SC2.
Along the way the Captain could get volunteers of each race that got wiped out (and/or other past race) and restore their civilization in the future by creating colonies for them. Maybe see how the Maelnum react when they encounter the race that previously tried to cheat them come back from extinction.
In the SCI time period (or earlier in the Dnyarri time period), the player could attempt to find out what artifacts were destroyed from Earth by the Ur Quan when Earth was conquered and why. In the Dnyarri time period perhaps the race that became the early Arilou and Maelnum did experiment in splicing the dna of the defeated Dnyarri to Human dna and their own leading to the creation of the mind controling Syreen race. (The Maelnum after all probably collect biological data for a customer (probably Arilou) who tamper with human dna).
The cloaked race that the Maelnum kept mentionning in the SC2 could be instrumental in solving the Orz quest.
Problem is most classic IPs are held by big publishers, and big publishers don't like to make games that aren't multiplatform these days. As much as I'd love to see a remake of games like Star Control 2 or Syndicate or something, I also know it's for the best they DO NOT get made while under the license of a big publisher. Remember when X-Com the FPS got announced? Yeah.
The thing is, Star Control II's design is fine for consoles - combat is arcadey, as is movement and resource gathering. It was essentially played with the arrow keys and 2 action buttons. In fact, when it came out, it was released on console platforms of the day (3DO for sure, but I think others also). So, multiplatform? No problem.
Btw, it's awesome to see this thread - Star Control II is my favorite game of all time, even above MoM, X-Com, Tie Fighter, and Spellcraft:Aspects of Valor. Always good to see it get some love
Heard that stardock purchased the rights to Star Control. Hope to see a Star Con II sequel/prequel soon.
The most important aspect of games like SC is faction characterization, lore and storytelling. I would say that those are exactly the areas where Stardock games do not excel.
I think that comic writers such as Sergion Aragones (creater of Groo) could be consulted to come with funny stories / dialogues for the game.
That's what I thought I heard too. First they like star control 1 not 2. They want a game more like one. They bought it. They are selling star control while building a new game.
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