It is not that i dont like Sins, because i think its Great and really really enjoy it, but wanted to look at some others, just for the sake of variety. I was hoping people could list the ones they like and why and it would give me some that maybe i havent heard of before to take a look at.
Thank you,
-Teal
Still playing: Homeworld, homeworld2, Starshatter: the gathering storm, angels fall first (I hope), babylon5 i;ve found her
older: xwing, tie fighter, xwing alliance, wing commander,
Space Rangers 2 is insanely amazing.
P.S. http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/spacerangers2dominators?q=space%20rangers
Starscape, Id like to try starshatter myself but its hella expensive.
Id second space rangers.
I forgot to add nexus: the jupiter incident. This ones a classic.
Freespace I and II, there old but easily my favorite space games
Supreme commander, its not exactly a space game but its fun
the Quake games, again not space but fun.
The Decent series was pretty fun also, but if your gona play that one, you need the cheats, those make it extra fun.
I had a lot of fun with Sword of the Stars. I played it regularly until I discovered Sins. Its one of the best turn based 4x games I have ever played. It lags behind others in the way of diplomacy, but I tend to like the the cuts and streamlining it took over games like Galatic Civ, Moo2 and Space Empires IV. Plus I like saying "Tarka". Tarka Tarka Tarka.
Freelancer can be found in budget bins for $9, and is surprisingly good. There are mods for that game that put up persistant universes that you can explore, I have had a lot of fun with that as well.
descent and descent freespace are both really good space games.
I disagree with Zieben, you don't need cheats for descent, especially not the freespace games. It gets boring fast if you cheat
Strategy : Master of Orion I and II and Homeworld Cataclysm (didn't like Homeworld 2 too much)
Flightsimulators : Wing Commander 1 and Tiefighter with the 2 mission packs. Privateer 1 and 2 are pretty good too, if you want to take a look at a bit more modern games there is also Starlancer and Freespace2.
I'll second Nexus, a great game. Just finished it again recently. Fully customisable ships with strong tactics. You can boost power to various systems and target individual weapons or components on enemy ships with proper weapon line of sight. Downside is a linear storyline, no free-roaming as was originally planned.
Also, Haegemonia / Hegemonia : Legions of Iron is another realtime 4x game, came out in '02 or '03 I think. Very similar to Sins in that respect, it's like realtime Master of Orion or GalCiv2. The graphics are still great today, and it still has the best explosions I've seen in a game. Also has brilliant spying and espionage. And all tied together with a strong storyline.
And if you have a bit of patience, the X series are the mother of all sandbox games. Latest is X3: Terran Conflict, which is a bit more accessible than previous versions. You start off very small and can end up owning huge fleets and factories. You can earn money by trading, piracy, policing or missions for various factions and races, which include transporting, assassinations, escorts etc.
i know you dont need them and i understand how it could be boring with them but i think that some of them are fun to have, like the invisible one, cuz then you can just screw around with the enimies and theyll be totaly clueless
There's one word that do it for me; "Homeworld" - the cinematic feeling in that game makes me get huge shivers down my spine. The black/white cutscenes... everything is just so right. That and Cataclysm deserve to be played at least 10 times through.
Freespace and Freespace 2 are also classics, damn good actually, with innovative and definately lasting gameplay.
The X-Wing/TIE Fighter series, if you have a computer that can handle them (486 ftw ^^) are also sweet.
I must also add Freelancer to the list, as it's an easy game to get into, with a not too hard and not too easy difficulty level. That while still being quite darn big and just taking up a small portion of your precious HDD space makes it a really nice game.
And not to forget; Sins of a Solar Empire! ^^
I was thinking of getting nexus but I heard from multiple places that it crashes a lot. Since it is no longer being patched what kind of state is the game in now?
Yes, Homeworld: Cataclysm was the best of the series for me.
Regarding Nexus, I just finished playing it again on my Vista 32-bit system (GTX 260, 3GB RAM, AMD Dual-core 5200+), and it was completely stable, no crashes or errors at all (1.01 patch installed).
I don't think i need to repeat Homeworld...
If your looking for variety, Mass Effect is an excellent space opera RPG game...
Nexus: The Jupiter incident is an excellent game its on steam i think
theres a game called Genesis Rising, if they patched the hell out of it, and you can get several people playing it (the campaign is annoying... no, it is 100% annoying). If you can find a game where you can make enemy ships explode in blood.
ALso, theres a game called... X3:Terran Conflict that i got last October on steam. its a really good space sim, but beware of the learning cure worse than EVE online...
Darkstar One is another that gets mentioned frequently. I liked the demo when it first came out but the starforce scared me off. Now its on Steam and even GoG.com. Anyone played it?
Darkstar One uses T.A.G.E.S., not Starforce Just FYI.
It's decent, but Freelancer is much better in every aspect, and they're really similar. (Plus the DS1 story is quite ridiculous tbh ^^)
I'm fairly certain it used Starforce back near launch day but I could be wrong. Or maybe it was only on the original release and not the north american port. Tages is pretty recent in comparison.
You learn where the crashes are and you avoid them. In short, the crashes are caused by loading an in mission saved game. So as long as you play the mission well from the begining, the crashes don't occur.
Any X-wing/tie fighter game... the space based star wars games of the old days were awesome.. I so wish they would come out with a new one that held to that style...
Dont forget Star War: Empire at War and Forces of Corruption. On the computer i have now the graphics blow you away. Also, Nexus has to be one of the greatest Space RTS games ever. I play semi-regularly and never get tired of it.
Eve Online and GalCiv 2 go without saying. The others are really old or not in the same league
These all sound very very interesting, the HW series i have and yes they are Excellent!! Some of the others are new to me, the Master of Orion, i have heard of but havent played, and the Genesis and Nexus titles i looked up after you mentioned them, they look different than Sins, and that is both a plus and a minus, haha, i like the difference, but dont know yet how they will play, but thank you for mentioning them.
FreeLancer is another new one, and the GalCiv series i understand is also very excellent!! And on Stardock to boot, so that is a plus, easy to get and try.
Some of the others i havent had a chance to look at yet, the Hegmonia titles, but the YouTube videos look very promising, and Mass Effect sounds neat, but i dont know if my machine is powerful enough, im running a dual core 1.8 intel with 3g ram and a 256 Nvidia 7100 video card, so my machine is reallyl just middle road for games, if more than enough for the internet and local apps.
Eve i have tried, but yes, the trial was very cool graphics, but the learning curve was very steep, i couldnt figure out what to do, i know i sound stupid, sorry, but it was more than the casual game that makes Sins so very marvelous, so much is already controlled by the ai that it is almost cinematic, like playing a space battles movie!! Haha, i hope i havent offended anyone with my comment, but i love Sins for that, it is easy and what i would call accessible! At least for my casual style.
I dont mind long or involved games, but i usually only have about an hour to play a day, and maybe an hour for email and the like before having to get back to the real world, i like a lot of people probably have too many committments there. Anyway, i wanted to say thank you to everyone for their wonderful input and suggestions and ideas and say i will look forward to trying some of these and i will get back to you and let you know what happens.
Take care and keep gaming and keep modding!! Forever!!! Haha,
In the EU version it's TAGES (plus some custom triggers) at least The NA version should be the same, while the Russian version most likely had Starforce. The TAGES version had some interesting copy protection measures as I recall. (I work in the industry, so don't come blaming me for piracy ^^)
Anyhoo, one other game that must (please) not be forgotten is Elite, one of the darn best games ever!
The one I want to make!!! And I've been dreaming of it since five years ago...I'm only 18 so it's not in any stages of development other than the early stages
One thing with Haegemonia is that it doesn't work properly on Vista, usually crashing with a sound error after a little while. A great shame, as it's one of my favourite space games. I'm playing it on my EEEPC with XP installed, but it would be nice to play at full res on my desktop. I can dual-boot into XP though, which I'll do when I haven't got downloads going.
Teal, it will run perfectly on your system (if you have XP), the requirements aren't very high but the graphics are still great (as good as, if not better than Sins, in my opinion). You can purchase it from Gamersgate for 14.99:
http://www.gamersgate.com/?page=product&what=view&sku=DD-HLOI
After a short search, I haven't been able to find it anywhere else. Make sure to update to 1.09, if you decide to get it.
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