Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Melkor on February 16, 2009, 05:00:56 pm
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Are Freespace 1 & 2 the only good space simulation PC games?
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Are Freespace 1 & 2 the only good space simulation PC games?
Yup. :D
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Are Freespace 1 & 2 the only good space simulation PC games?
They are not the only good ones, but they're certainly a worthy candidate for the best.
Other ones that could be considered excellent include the Wings Commander series and the X-wing vs. Tie fighter series.
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Are Freespace 1 & 2 the only good space simulation PC games?
They are not the only good ones, but they're certainly a worthy candidate for the best.
Other ones that could be considered excellent include the Wings Commander series and the X-wing vs. Tie fighter series.
TIE Fighter in particular.
Some people also really enjoyed Tachyon: The Fringe and Starlancer, and in more recent years, Freelancer achieved some moderate popularity, though none of them are as good as FS2.
Independence War was a cult hit, as I understand it, but I haven't had the luck to play it.
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Thanks, I might buy it sometime
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Freespace rules.
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Rankings:
1) Freespace. Forever, it is the pinnacle, the best ever. At least until (if) FS3 ever becomes reality. You never know how long it may or may not take.
2) X-Wing/TIE Fighter. I love the cockpits on this one, as well as the combat system. I think this one first introduced the energy management system.
3) Wing Commander. Haven't played, but heard good things about it.
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Starshatter is a pretty decent space sim, though it can get a little repetitive
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Starlancer was okay, I heard one of the Wing Commander guys made it. Plus it has an unusual storyline and backstory (namely we were signing a treaty with the Russians/Arabs and they backstabbed us, us being the NATO and the Japanese), plus the smallest warzone ever in a space sim, our Solar System. Good thing space is so damn big.
Freelancer is NOT a space sim like how Freespace is a space sim. Its like Privateer 1 or 2 in a third-person view with a lot less freedom. As an arcade-style game, its good. As a full space sim, no.
Also, TIE Fighter is excellent. Its pretty much why I'm eagerly awaiting Fate of the Galaxy.
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1. FreeSpace 2 SCP
2. Homeplanet Gold
3. Freelancer
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FreeSpace is certainly the best, but other good ones include the Tie Fighter series, Starlancer and Freelancer as people above have mentioned already.
To be honest, with all this going on, I have no idea why the space sim genre died out.
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Tachyon is free roam to a degree, had Bruce Campbell, some over the top characters, and the best flight model.
However I hear that Novalogic/their online distribution sites has really chewed it up and spat it out with the downloadable
version. Might look for a retail copy like on ebay or something else. The downloadable can be fixed as I've had to do it
with some people... see FringeSpace.org
Xwing/Tie series is a great start for anyone. Xwing vs. Tie Fighter. Balance of Power expansion. X Wing Alliance was the peak
pretty much.
GameTap has a few games on there that deal with flight, including Tach.
Not sure what their status is or how well they've been upkept though.
RPG + flight combat = ACE Online or Air Rivals depending on which part of the globe you're in.
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Freespace beats all others.... lol
I liked Freelancer, but it's not the combat shooter that Freespace is.
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What Star Wars fan would I be if I didn't mention the entire X-Wing series ?
X-Wing (the first game in the series, pretty hard even for experienced people, no reloading missions, but still, really fun and satisfactory),
TIE Fighter (you can fly as an Imperial pilot, ain't that enough ? :D Besides, a good campaign and very fun to play),
X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter (the first game in the series to feature multiplayer, besides not much different from the two above),
X-Wing Alliance (nice plot, the Battle of Endor, lots of improvements over previous titles)
Wing Commander is like one of the first space-sims in the way we understand it, but it can be a bit problematic to run on modern hardware and OS.
Tachyon and Starlancer aren't really that great, but I'd give them a shot. Starlancer was quite nice last time I played it.
Freelancer - I really really liked the plot, even though it's more of an arcade shooter than space-sim, and the trading system plainly sucks.
And yet, Freespace (especially Freespace Open) can't be beaten by any of those. No other game has managed to make so perfect capship battles, so great atmosphere of danger (especially FS1). This is the only position where you actually feel that it's not a bunch of ships firing some single shots, but a freaking chaos, when you try to get a lock while flaks explode all around and enemies sit on your six.
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Never played any of the Star Wars themed space-sims, though I am a SW fan. =/
Wing Commander is older than me. XD
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If you like empire-building games, hate your mouse, love your keyboard, and enjoy reading economic spreadsheets, you might want to try the X-games. I've only played X2 so far, but the combat is respectable (if resolved by ramming way too much,) you can build stations, buy wingmen to protect them, and eventually buy your own fully-customizable battleship.
Be warned that the X-games are not for the impatient. It'll take you hours to get an actual fighter which isn't a scout craft and won't explode if a combat vessel sneezes on it.
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If you like empire-building games, hate your mouse, love your keyboard, and enjoy reading economic spreadsheets, you might want to try the X-games. I've only played X2 so far, but the combat is respectable (if resolved by ramming way too much,) you can build stations, buy wingmen to protect them, and eventually buy your own fully-customizable battleship.
Be warned that the X-games are not for the impatient. It'll take you hours to get an actual fighter which isn't a scout craft and won't explode if a combat vessel sneezes on it.
If strategy games, I have to mention Homeworld 1 and 2.
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Homeworld 2 is a thing of beauty. A breathtakingly pretty RTS game. I found the gameplay flawed sadly and very frustrating. The storyline also was complete nonsense. In spite of this it was worth investing time just to admire the glorious battle scenes.
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Homeworld 2 is a thing of beauty. A breathtakingly pretty RTS game. I found the gameplay flawed sadly and very frustrating. The storyline also was complete nonsense. In spite of this it was worth investing time just to admire the glorious battle scenes.
Yup. HW1 was much better. The problem with HW2 is that (since you're carrying your fleet over) you might have to replay an earlier mission in order to have a CHANCE of completing the present one - to raise your fleet.
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There is also X3: Reunion, which is the best Elite-Style game i've ever played. Especially when you apply the patches :P. it has an nice modding community (Roguey's mod rules ;) ), good economy system, breathtaking graphics, and bsg style flight physics. It also has massive system requirements, by the way...
(THere is also Vega strike, worth checking out ;) ).
On Homeworld... Don't really like that game. I've played Off-World Resource Base, and that was a good game, Homeworld was just to hard to control for me when I played it.
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Er, the fleet mechanic has been part of Homeworld since the beginning.
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The problem with HW2 is that (since you're carrying your fleet over)
HW1 didn't carry your fleet over? (never played it)
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The way I see it:
1. FreeSpace Open
2. FreeSpace 2
3. FreeSpace: The Great War
4. FreeSpace: Silent Threat
5. FreeSpace Alpha
6. Wang Ko-Mander or whatever it's called
(nah, J/K haven't even played any other space sims)
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The problem with HW2 is that (since you're carrying your fleet over)
HW1 didn't carry your fleet over? (never played it)
You DO, but, if I remember well, we were able to win it without being forced to replay earlier missions.
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The problem with HW2 is that (since you're carrying your fleet over)
HW1 didn't carry your fleet over? (never played it)
You DO, but, if I remember well, we were able to win it without being forced to replay earlier missions.
I remember Homeworld. Trust me, you had to replay them sometimes. In HW2, it's actually worse for you if you keep your fleet up in early missions; the enemy cap depends on how many ships you start a level with.
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I've only played Sins of a Solar Empire, which is extremely good! You can waste hours on it without knowing a minute has passed. :nod:
HW2's demo confused me, it's kinda hard on beginners.
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Homeworld was art. I don't think I've ever played a finer game (I'd even rank it up there with Freespace.)
Homeworld 2 was gorgeous, but still wasn't nearly as good as its predecessor.
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I have to say that HW1>HW2. HW1 just had the atmosphere and story behind it, not just shiny graphics and battle scenes like HW2 does. Yes, HW2's story sucked ass and balls, at the same time. It sucked. Most un-Homeworld story ever. Cataclysm had a better story than HW2.
I heard that HW1 got its source-code released BTW. Is that true? Any links if it is?
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Yes, HW2's story sucked ass and balls, at the same time. It sucked. Most un-Homeworld story ever. Cataclysm had a better story than HW2.
I have to disagree with you there. HW2 was a pretty good game. The biggest flaws with it was the difficulty and the way the enemy's forces were based upon yours at the end of the previous mission. Past that, the story inconsistencies were far fewer than most games of the era, and game play is fun with a little tinkering, which I'm sure no MODder is opposed to. Sure, it's not up to what HW1 was, but by no means is it a terrible game.
Also, I'd like to point out that I have never personally encountered trouble with the difficulty level in HW2.
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Cataclysm had a better story than HW2.
Story yes, Gameplay, no.
Skirmish games were basically a "build-your-siege-cannon-as-soon-as-possible-and-fire-it-to-annihilate-your-enemies-without-ever-bothering-to-build-a-decent-fleet" gameplay style...
The only great feature of HW:Cataclysm was the ability to control spacecraft and fly them using a joystick.
There are some great cataclysm mods though, had one a while back that had war moons that fired a death-star-like beam and did massive damage. (and no siege cannon on the mothership)
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Rankings:
1) At least until (if) FS3 ever becomes reality. You never know how long it may or may not take.
Wow, he said the magic words and no one beat him.
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Rankings:
1) At least until (if) FS3 ever becomes reality. You never know how long it may or may not take.
Wow, he said the magic words and no one beat him.
Probably because deep in their hearts everyone agrres with him.
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Cataclysm had a better story than HW2.
The only great feature of HW:Cataclysm was the ability to control spacecraft and fly them using a joystick.
I know there is pilot view, but could you really actually take control of it with a joystick?
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Cataclysm had a better story than HW2.
The only great feature of HW:Cataclysm was the ability to control spacecraft and fly them using a joystick.
I know there is pilot view, but could you really actually take control of it with a joystick?
I don't think so. That would've broken multiplayer something fierce.
The worst part about Cataclysm was that one technology -- tracking plasma rounds. Those made strike craft even more useless in the lategame.
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Somebody wasn't using missile-spam correctly.
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Okay, I got sucked into this discussion, purely because:
I loved Homeworld. A game that collaborates with Yes to make a 9 minute final credit music track gets my hat tip.
I felt Barking Dog had created a better control system in Cataclysm, and I happened to play that first if I remember correctly, so I had to go backwards a bit when playing Homeworld.
Homeworld 2 was pretty shoddy, I didn't feel immersed at all, and, in my mind at least, the game had a lot to live up to with it's predecessor.
When I got to mission three (I think) and couldn't capture the enemy ship using the...whatever the name of the ship is you use to capture enemy ships, the game lost all interest.
I do still hope for a HW3.
RE: Whoever mentioned X3: Reunion, is it better to play X3: Terran Conflict, I hear that it's interface basically included all the good mods that were made to 'fix' Reunion?
X10
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Normally the know deep in their hearts, all-the-while flaming lol.
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Here (http://forum.canardpc.com/showpost.php?p=109836&postcount=1) a list I made in a french forum.
the list is very huge.
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The only other space sim i've ever played besides the FS series is... uhm... none, actually. I mostly play strategy games.
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Cataclysm had a better story than HW2.
The only great feature of HW:Cataclysm was the ability to control spacecraft and fly them using a joystick.
I know there is pilot view, but could you really actually take control of it with a joystick?
It was possible to manually control craft. Remember that fighters did not come as wings until HW2. You could take a single fighter and manually control it while in pilot view.
http://www.allgame.com/cg/agg.dll?p=agg&sql=1:23711~T2
this page lists all controls in Cataclysm. While it does not expressly give controls for the joystick, it lists Joystick/Gamepad as supported peripherals.
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I'm really not convinced. Did you ever actually do it yourself?
There was pilot mode. There wasn't manual control of ships.
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Joystick/Gamepad compatibility might just mean you can use them like a mouse, to you know, select stuff.
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Davros never misses an oportunity to pimp the mighty I-War (slight pause to allow readers to hail its greatness)
now enjoy one of the greatest game intro's ever all 14 minutes of it
http://media.putfile.com/IWar
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Mmm...Tie Fighter is good. I was just playing it a few hours ago (pointless, rambling backstory: I really only do my Pharoah --> Tie Fighter --> Fs2 Open cycle nowadays, all other games are unneccessary).
What an experience, I tells ya. Shooting up an X-Wing that just splashed one of your adorable TIE wingmen ("THIS IS FOR BETA 4, YOU JERK!!"), only to have the debris glance off the side of your fighter and kill you. And there's something to be said for manually ordering your wingmen to take evasive action ("IT'S A Z-95!! SHIFT E SHIFT E TURN TURN GAAAAHHH!!"). My little cloud of gnats is so precious to me...I do my best to keep them all alive by keeping the herd together. So...yeah...uh, attacking capital ships without shields is interesting. It's like ballet...of death. I love it. This game seriously goes downhill when you get the shielded TIE/ADV in Battle 5...takes all the fun away.
TIE Fighter is brilliant but I still prefer Fs2 to TIE Fighter. With SCP enhancements/mediaVPs Fs2 is the best looking game evah and it runs silky smooth whereas TIE Fighter rolls over and dies with my 3D hardware even with the compatibility fix. More importantly I hate the god damned interface in TIE Fighter. Where's my lead indicator? And the Star Wars concept/universe/whatever sucks. It's the ****ing Empire. We have all the resources. Why are our ships inferior to these damnable hippies?
Someone attach a ryder for more TIE Advanced to Emperor Palpatine's next "alienate people by being pointlessly evil" bill, FFS.
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[threadjack]
The 'hippies' are better because the TIE fighters are meant to be mass produced, and easily slaughtered, to not be actually one sided in fights. Your lead indicator is a crutch. And Palpatine's "alienate people by being pointlessly evil" bill is.... (no argument).
[/threadjack]
I like to play some the X-Wing/TIE Fighter games because the capital ships are a pain in the @$$ to kill. There is no such thing as just strafing a cruiser with tempests a couple times. The ships have big, bad shields, and the guns almost ALL one hit your puny fighter.
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There is a WIP Star Wars conversion for FsO called Fate of the Galaxy if you're interested.
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:bump:
Mind if I bring this back? I find it really interesting :D
I for one just finished playing X-Wing alliance. Damn, that's one helluva game. If not for the gameplay, which on it's own is spot-on, if a little repetitive at times. I mean, come on; Every TIE you fight is a one hit kill if you use dual lasers, unless you fight the pain in the ass TIE Advanced fighters. Now those are a challenge if the difficulty is set high enough and they have concussion missiles. Fight more than 2 and you'll be hearing the BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP missile warning constantly. I guarantee it. It's annoying, but in the way that just makes them more satisfying to kill. The cap ships were a huge pain, seeing as how incredibly fragile your shields are in XWA and the fact that you actually have to divert power from your engines to recharge both your shields and your lasers.
One thing I truly did love about XWA though was the story. More specifically, how the story was conveyed; the game makes a damn good job of reminding you that you're just a family boy (with damn good flying skills matching that of Alpha 1) who joined the alliance for the sake of it and the protection of his family. Everything from the trophies in your room to your droid constantly telling you to "GET MOVING!" when you're about to be late to briefing just solidified it for me. I loved it.
I wanted to get into wing commander, but I've only managed to get 1 and 2 on a DOS emulator. It was definitely worth it though, as the games (especially WC2) have the biggest emotional weight on them I've ever seen from an old early 90s DOS game. Everything from the plot to the fantastic writing is what did this. I wish I could play the rest of the series. I saw the movie, too; that was decent. At least better than some of the other movies based on games I've seen. *Cough*streetfighterIVmovie*cough*
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Man I just loved XWA. I remember hopping in the sim and doing a ffa tie fighter match in the asteroid field. No shields, and many pairs of laser bolts flying around. Oh, and the best thing: long campaign! something like ~50 missions IIRC.
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7 battles of like 5-7 missions each? Yeah, it was really long. I played that game back when I was like 6 years old...always in the simulator just blowing everything up.
And the multiplayer was a blast. I don't know about you, but I really miss MSN Game zone. and can you believe that hte multiplayer still thrives to this day? They still have www.darkjedi.org up, and the Rebel Alliance clan is even still active - I joined that way back when I was 9 years old! (stupidity and inevitably bad flying skills associated with that age aside)
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U'mm I would go with Starshatter for an honorable mention at least!
Not only because it is a fighter game (cap ships also). But because that community has assisted me TONS!
;7
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Also highly recommended: Allegiance (http://www.freeallegiance.org/).
Free (as in full source released by Microsoft), all multiplayer, team oriented, space sim + RTS. I have yet to see anything with such satisfying multiplayer action (at least in the sim domain... TF2 and L4D come close :)).
There's nothing quite like:
- Thirty player-controlled ships furiously dogfighting to get control of a sector of space.
- Trying to sneak a half-dozen stealth bombers into position around an enemy base, followed by the frantic, heart-pounding 30-second run as you close simultaneously and prepare to uncloak and fire. One enemy scout ship appearing in the wrong place could alert the enemy and ruin the whole thing.
- Getting on a huge bomber run: one player flying the bomber, two more manning his turrets, and another dozen ships flying escort and/or repairing the bomber as it closes in to fire. (Being on the other side, scrambling to take out the defensive ships so that the bomber is vulnerable before it can release its warheads, is just as much fun!)
- Hunting miners in a stealth fighter, sneaking around and waiting for the enemy defenders to get careless and give you an opening...then you swoop down out of nowhere, open up with missiles and guns, and make whoever was tasked with defending the miner feel about two inches tall. :D
- The last, desperate defense of your final base. All hope of victory is lost, the enemy is sending increasingly determined and increasingly advanced bombers and capital ships at you, and all there is to do is to show them that you won't go down without a fight. REMEMBER THE ALAMO! :)
Other features I enjoy are an extremely effective semi-newtonian flight model, a very satisfying stealth/sensor system, and the strong emphasis on teamwork.
It's definitely not for everyone, but there's nothing else quite like it. Definitely worth a shot if you haven't tried it. Alas, not nearly as pretty as FS2_Open though, and absolutely no single player (the pathetic training missions don't really count). Also, the learning curve is pretty high (easy to learn how to fly and dogfight, hard to learn all of the tactics and strategies that everyone else expects you to know).
When I want single-player space sim awesomeness, I play Freespace. When I want multiplayer, I play Alleg.
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The only space sims I can think of are StarLancer, Freelancer and DarkStar One.
By the way, shouldn't this be in the Gaming Discussion board?
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HardWar is interesting in a X type way, flying "moths" around a Mars like planet (if not Mars, I can't quite remember). Recently got X-wing Alliance, but only played a few missions on so far, good but...... I don't really know, maybe I've been spoiled by graphics of FSO. Also got Tarr Chronicles recently, looks really nice which is why I was interested in the first place, but I find myself disappointed with the gameplay. I can't see the enemy for the eye-candy! Seriously, they're practically camouflaged in the background nebula until there are on you then they're gone again!
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I loved Hardwar.
I believe it was set on Titan, a moon of Saturn, but I could be wrong.
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I loved Hardwar.
I believe it was set on Titan, a moon of Saturn, but I could be wrong.
Same here. You're correct - it is set on Saturn's moon, Titan. :nod:
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I have been a life-long fan of Descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_(computer_game)). I first played Descent in 1997, a couple years after it was released in 1995; I saw Descent 2, which was released in 1996. I got Descent 2 for Christmas (I wanted my own copy even tho my bro had it) in 1999/2000. I joined the Descent community in 2005 shortly after I bought Descent 3 when I discovered that there still is/was a community after D3 was released in 1999, even though PXO went down in 2002 or 2004.
Shortly after discovering Descent 3, I came upon Freespace. I was fascinated by the story, the technology, graphics, and how amazing it all is/was. I played the OEM campaign all the way about 4 to 6 times, because I enjoyed it that much. Then I found out about Freespace 2 and I was just on fire. As soon as I could, I got hold of what was then a CVS build of 3.6.9 and the 3.6.8 zeta mediaVPs.
Descent is a classic in its own right, and it has a special place for me, just like Freespace 2.
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How the hell could I forget Descent?! *facepalm*
I adored that game, ever since I first played the "Destination Saturn" Demo when I was 3 years old. Back then I only got the first level, but I played the hell out of it. I didn't get the full descent games (1 through 3) until only 3 years ago, when, to my incredible surpise, I learned that it was also made by (then outrage entertainment) Volition! :D
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Descent is indeed awesome and has a special place in my heart, but it's not exactly a space sim. :)
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I actually never tried them :drevil:, my initiation was FS1 and I haven't stopped delving into modding since...
Before that I only modded rpg's. (BG1/2)
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This has kind of drifted, so to Gaming it goes.
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I considered Homeworld 2 incredibly easy... ...no idea why so many people were complaining about it.
Still a cool game.
Anyway, while the X-Wing Series is good and the Freespace Series is awesome, WingCommander still is my favorite. It depends on what you want.
WC kicks everybody's ass with it's story and dogfight gameplay.
X-Wing Games always lacked a exciting story and usually suffered from bad design choices in some parts (often in the mission department) but have the StarWars factor and have pretty good dogfights too.
Freespace is the grahical powerhouse and impresses with it's huge capship battles and detailed weaponary and resulting tactical choices. Saddly, the fighter AI is pretty stupid YOU ALL KNOW THAT! Story is definitley better than the X-Wing Series.
My Personal ranking:
1. WC
2. FS
3. X-Wing (actually Tie-Fighter but what the hell)
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How the hell could I forget Descent?!
Because Descent is a first-person shooter. :rolleyes:
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I still love it more than Freespace. :P
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WC kicks everybody's ass with it's story and dogfight gameplay.
:wakka: :wakka: :wakka:
Stop! You're killing me!
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I absolutely loved Independence War 2. Great story and a ton of combat depth. Different ships have different weak points, requiring you to actually read the encyclopedia included in the game to figure out how to kill them. (Yes, it actually has an encyclopedia in game. There's that much to it.)
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got the first. Never got it running properly. And a game that forces me to quit when failing a mission is just
AAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH :hopping: :hopping: :hopping: :no:
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There is also X3: Reunion, which is the best Elite-Style game i've ever played. Especially when you apply the patches :P. it has an nice modding community (Roguey's mod rules ;) ), good economy system, breathtaking graphics, and bsg style flight physics. It also has massive system requirements, by the way...
(THere is also Vega strike, worth checking out ;) ).
On Homeworld... Don't really like that game. I've played Off-World Resource Base, and that was a good game, Homeworld was just to hard to control for me when I played it.
X3 offers a decently large universe to explore and a lot of trading and building (build your own space stations and complexes) kind of gameplay, altough with a rather shallow economic simulation at the core.
Combat gameplay however is just outright bad when compared to an actual space combat game like Freespace or Tie-Fighter and the Missions in the game are even worse, so bad, they are hilarious in their own twisted way.
The combat AI is also so exploitable that there really isn't any challenge at all in the game once you figured the basics. Enemy ships will follow you everywhere (i.e. choose a fast ship - laugh at huge fleets of ships chasing you) can easily be seperated and killed one by one... or outright annihilated by missile salvos (which you can mass produce and mass fire which eliminates pretty much any challenge at al.... the dedicated missile ships in x3 terran conflict for instance will wipe out an entire sector of fighters and capital ships and all you have to do is periodically tap the missile launch button which sends autohoming smart IFF swarm missiles at everything that moves. Swap between anti fighter and cap ship killer missiles as needed lol). Fighter combat is bad... with the AI simply being unable to cope with slow weapon projectiles, fast ship speeds and the small amount of inertia the game applies to maneuvering. (Can observe enemy fighters trying to hit each other unsuccessfully for minutes/hours at a time sometimes,... bit better in X3:terran conflict nowadays, but thats only because they gave all the Xenons instant hit weapons... but they again can be exploited by the player because they have such a short range ;) ). Capital ship combat is outright hilarious. The player can "strafe/dodge" at full speed and easily evade most slow capital ship projectiles.... enemy capital ships, do not dodge... pretty much a sitting duck hunt lol. And worst of all... while the game allows you to assmble actual fleets of ships and teases you with the prospect from the moment you start playing..... the AI simply can not handle fleets at all. Not pretty. If you deply multiple capital ships then most your casualities will likely be from friendly fire ;) lol. "Fleet combat" is simply not a playable feature (unless you enjoy watching your own fleet blow itself up anyways - a single enemy scout fighter passing inbetween your formation will have all your ships happily unleash full broadsides at each other ;) )
So yeah, you can propably tell by all my explanations, that i have played a lot of X3. I did. I wanted to get my capital ship and my factory and all that and you know what? once i was there i was simply disgusted because there really was nothing you could do with all of it. Combat gameplay being simply broken and not a single mission that would compare favorably even to what a newbie fredder could accomplish... well actually, not a single mission worth playing at all actually. No. I'm not kidding. Missions really are that bad in the X games.
In Summaryy: While X3 and the newest incarnation are a phenomenon worth checking out that offers a kind of gameplay that is kind of unique (it's quite different from good old elite as well with the option to build your own stations etc.), the combat aspect and especially the missions are simply so outright stupid that it doesn't even qualify to be named as an alternative to something like Freespace or Tie- Fighter where gameplay is all about combat and often combat in huge epic battle environments (both aspects that are simply horribly broken or nonexistant (in the case of good/epic missions) in X3).
Still, the open ended gameplay, freedom of choice, beatiful ships and potential for building your own empire kept me busy for quite a while.
In any case... people who actually "like" X3... certainly don't do it because of the combat or missions in that game. Either that, or they haven't played a real spacesim like FS2 or Tie-Fighter yet in their life.
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The very first X was good. Really good. And afterwards the developers just produced cool looking crap.
Even more saddly, they are based in Germany, a country known for great game developer studios.
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The very first X was good. Really good. And afterwards the developers just produced cool looking crap.
Even more saddly, they are based in Germany, a country known for great game developer studios.
Yeah the first X really was groundbreaking, but even then the combat and missions were rather lackluster compared to "real" combat spacesims of the time.
As the X-Series went along they built on the strenght of the game by offering even more openended gameplay with more possibility (and also more graphical bling), but at the same time the games weaknesses, nameley combat and lackluster missions have not just gotten worse, but really gotten out of hand sadly. The latest edition X3: Terran conflict attempts to fix some of the most grave combat issues by offering new (instant hit) player weapons and equipping lots of standard enemy ships with instant hit weapons as well, but it's really just a bandaid fix that doesn't adress the real problem and doesn't make combat and the way AI performs in combat any less pathetic either.
Currently FS2 Open really is the only "recent" combat space-sim worth the name. The only titles that really "could" compare are all much older and are sadly really showing their age as well.
I-War comes to mind, especially the first one. X-Wing and especially Tie Fighter of course as well. Wing Commander (3 and 4 especially) had inferior (to Tie-Fighter, Freespace anyways) - but still solid - combat and mission design, but excelled in story presentation like no other game so far.
The original Schleichfahrt/Archimedean Dynasty (prequel to Aquanox, but quite a bit better than the sequel) propably deserves a honorary mention as an "Underwater" "Sim" that pretty much played like a space sim with futuristic "fighter like" submarines and an ocean floor (instead of space). Aquanox had both, awesome story and decent mission design/combat and also epic combat scenarios - with capital ships duking it out - that were only really surpassed by Freespace and Tie-Fighter to my knowledge.
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Well, I am a huge Aquanox fan. Those original German versions are awesome.
Detailed, complex world. Cool characters. Crazy action.
Sadly, every one of the three games has it's own flaw:
Schleichfahrt (=Archimedian Dynasty for the International market): PCs were not really ready for these kind of games. Glitches, AI problems (ever noticed that any vessel can just fly/swim through hills? but you) and the "flying" model wasn't all that great too. Bad Soundtrack too.
Aquanox1 was gorgeous but suffered from lots of bad design choices (like the "invisible sky wall" :mad:). Many of those were patched out but a few, like the horrible menu system remained. Again, silly soundtrack.
Aquanox2 had even better graphics (still looks good today) but inherited some flaws of the first one, no surprise since it was actually planned as an addon. The whole "comic" effects were fixed too and we finally had a good music choice. The downside were some plotholes (no matter how fascinating it was) and a few horrible missions.
I heared the english voice acting (in all three) was bad, therefore don't get it if you can't speak German.
Recent Space Sims were Tarr Chronicles and Dark Horizon, both crap. Can't even compete with FS2 mediavps on a graphical level. Worth of note is Freelancer. I disliked combat (that wasn't flying, it was driving) but Starlancer fanboys should enjoy it.
My hopes rest on
http://www.moddb.com/games/naumachia-space-warfare
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I'd love to see a modern (good) sim that really went all-out with the whole "underwater fighters and capships" thing. There's just so much potential! Sounds like Aquanox was trying, but never fully realized its potential. I don't think ANY game has full realized the "underwater combat sim" potential.
So, who wants to do an FS2 mod set underwater? You won't even need to change the physics! :D Or heck, most of the ships even... especially Vasudan...
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Well, I am a huge Aquanox fan. Those original German versions are awesome.
Detailed, complex world. Cool characters. Crazy action.
Sadly, every one of the three games has it's own flaw:
Schleichfahrt (=Archimedian Dynasty for the International market): PCs were not really ready for these kind of games. Glitches, AI problems (ever noticed that any vessel can just fly/swim through hills? but you) and the "flying" model wasn't all that great too. Bad Soundtrack too.
Aquanox1 was gorgeous but suffered from lots of bad design choices (like the "invisible sky wall" :mad:). Many of those were patched out but a few, like the horrible menu system remained. Again, silly soundtrack.
Aquanox2 had even better graphics (still looks good today) but inherited some flaws of the first one, no surprise since it was actually planned as an addon. The whole "comic" effects were fixed too and we finally had a good music choice. The downside were some plotholes (no matter how fascinating it was) and a few horrible missions.
Mh well i played the german version and i can just say i was blown away by it at the time. Got rave reviews in all the gaming mags at the time too and well deserved too.
The "fly/swimming" model was certainly "different" than the flying model in a spacesim, but it never struck me as any kind of "drawback".
On the other hand, combat, mission design and story in general were absolutely top notch and makes it one of the few games that i still remember fondly after all the years even now.
Aquanox on the other hand i perceived as a step backward (giant squid fish thingy now ? yeah :yawn:)... and Aquanox 2 basically was a different game alltogether.
The excellence of storytelling and suspense of the original Schleichfahrt was never reached by the later titles, imho anyways.
As far as bugs are concerned, i didn't notice any ;) anyways, different times... but PCs were definitely way more than ready for games of that kind at the time. We are talking post X-Wing already mind you ... and i played I-War (1) in the same year which reached several levels of awesomeness never known before (and not after either). Especially the elaborate mission design and branching storyline (that actually allowed you to switch sides, permanently, in the middle of a sabotaged peace conference, where everyone suddenly started shooting at each other harr... or crash land your full sized corvette on a carrier built for small fighters, while everyone on your bridge (and on the carrier) was going "nooo noo nonono aaaaaaarghhh!" (lol) (complete with vid sequence shearing all kinds of things off your ship) in order to escape an ambush because your jump engines were down... or using your (disarmed) ship itself as a weapon by ramming the evil presidents cruiser in the final mission while escaping with your bridge/escape module (which also struck the cruiser if you weren't too careful.. I-War actually featured newtonian physics to a large and prominent extent heh)).
Out of all the space games i played... I-War still sticks in the mind as the one with the absolutely craziest mission design that made you think on the fly and often do very unconventional things that went way past the expected dogfighting gameplay. (Being captured by pirates who started throwing your crew out, whose bodies you could see floating past the windows of your bridge while you were arguing with their leader, was another favorite lol).
Matter of fact... looking back... you could argue that PCs of the time were a platform in it's prime that gifted us with games that tried bold things that you really can not find anymore at all in today's mass market adjusted gaming market... not unless you look for indie games/ mods anyways. Well maybe that's inaccurate. PC as a platform are more powerful nowadays by several orders of magnitude, what has gotten worse is the gaming market.... one could argue it isn't in it's prime anymore or at least it's several magnitudes less daring and innovative than it had been previously, no matter what platform you actually look at.
Back in the day you still had a huge amount of developpers actually enthusiastically making games that they themselves wanted to play.
Nowadays that is the exception,... with the majority of games being the result of a market study, the gazillionst to the letter clone of a proven concept (the suits don't like risks or chances), or a sequel to a glorious game of the past (with the sequel usually being less complex with inferior gameplay due to market considerations).
Heck... back in the day we had spacesims like WC3/WC4 that blew a few millions at life-acted cutscenes, where's that today? (and nope the paltry CnC3/Red Alert cutscenes do not even begin to compare to what was done in WC3/WC4 back in the day:p)
We got better graphics today... but as far as gameplay, gameplay complexity, storylines in general and even story presentation goes (thinking WC3/4 for presentation), the commercial gaming market has been on a downhill slope for a long time sadly. Not even in the storydriven RPG genre is a glimmer of light: The games that Bioware releases nowadays do not even begin to compare to the awesomeness that was Baldurs Gate 2 or Planescape:Torment back in the day. Mass Effect ? Seriously... not even in the same ballpark anymore :/.
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Mass Effect is very cinematic.
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Worth of note is Freelancer. I disliked combat (that wasn't flying, it was driving) but Starlancer fanboys should enjoy it.
I'm so pissed that game wasn't truly completed (I downright refuse to believe it was). If I loved it so damn much (For it to be the best game I ever played next to Half-Life 2 in second an Freespace 2 in first) in the state it shipped, I can only gawk at what it could of achieved if it was polished, perfected and worked on with real passion. I don't really care if it wasn't a space sim; lack of real space sim flying is a small price to pay, in my opinion, for what Freelancer achieved.
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Worth of note is Freelancer. I disliked combat (that wasn't flying, it was driving) but Starlancer fanboys should enjoy it.
I'm so pissed that game wasn't truly completed (I downright refuse to believe it was). If I loved it so damn much (For it to be the best game I ever played next to Half-Life 2 in second an Freespace 2 in first) in the state it shipped, I can only gawk at what it could of achieved if it was polished, perfected and worked on with real passion. I don't really care if it wasn't a space sim; lack of real space sim flying is a small price to pay, in my opinion, for what Freelancer achieved.
It looks more like they stripped down the features to make i t more playable actually.
Try the Discovery mod if you want more variety. Though the flying in that can be very tedious.
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How the hell could I forget Descent?!
Because Descent is a first-person shooter. :rolleyes:
Descent may be an FPS, but FS can be argued to be such, too. It all depends on how you look at it. Descent was meant to have full freedom of movement and maneuverability.
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Worth of note is Freelancer. I disliked combat (that wasn't flying, it was driving) but Starlancer fanboys should enjoy it.
I'm so pissed that game wasn't truly completed (I downright refuse to believe it was). If I loved it so damn much (For it to be the best game I ever played next to Half-Life 2 in second an Freespace 2 in first) in the state it shipped, I can only gawk at what it could of achieved if it was polished, perfected and worked on with real passion. I don't really care if it wasn't a space sim; lack of real space sim flying is a small price to pay, in my opinion, for what Freelancer achieved.
It looks more like they stripped down the features to make i t more playable actually.
Try the Discovery mod if you want more variety. Though the flying in that can be very tedious.
I did. I loved it. That's why Freelancer is so good. :D
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I did. I loved it. That's why Freelancer is so good. :D
x2. Freelancer is good, but I like FS and Descent better. :D
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Wow, I remember playing O.R.B. The only thing I didn't like was the relatively low pop cap (you could only have maybe four cruiser sized ships at a time, and that was with nothing else).
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I played ORB after Homeworld.
It was...a step down, unfortunately.
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O.R.B. had a great story, decent gameplay, but it was...silly, in some respects. The limiting resource cap made the missions something of a puzzle. I never completed the Malus campaign. I did, once, complete the Aleus one, after hours, nay, days of repeating the final level.
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It was a really unforgiving game. Which was compounded by the fact that it was incredibly slow.
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exactly. Horrible and boring.
Play Homeworld folks. Play the sequel. Play Nexus: Jupiter Inccident. Play Haegemonia. Play Sins of a Solar Empire.
Play Master of Orion. But stay away from ORB. Crap (no offense intended NGTM).
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:nervous:
I was entertained by ORB. Played the first campaign through twice and the second once. It was slow and a bit difficult at times. But I focused on the best capital ship available at given time, no fighter support. Those beams on caps took care of fighters rather well.
Sins of a Solar Empire I couldn't get into, I ditched it. Hegemonia was great, as was Nexus. Oh god, I'd love a sequel to Nexus or even a similar game. A tactical fleet simulation just makes my skin crawl with excitement.
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For some reason I hated Hegemonia. Could never find anything. Nexus: The Jupiter Incident I think takes the cake for best Space Sim story (aside from some parts of FreeSpace). It also had pretty awesome battles, once you got shields (and the guns that go through shields). Master of Orion I think is the god of turn based space sim (I LOVED the second one), but the third one didn't take off the same way. Haven't played Sins, but I have a friend who has it, I'll try to get over there sometime soon.
Once again, my problem with O.R.B. was the pop cap.
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Sins is...playable. I'm not terribly into multiplayer (haven't since Grand Theft Starship...uh, Homeworld) so the game's appeal is mainly lost on me. GalCiv 2 and expansions did it better, but have a horrible habit of crashing out in terror of high-activity large-galaxy maps.
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I absolutely loved Nexus. I should get a copy off Steam -- my old box is missing a CD.
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Nexus is available through STEAM too :confused: Whoa.
Yeah, there was that sequel planned but it got canceled. So far, Nexus stands a THE de facto best Space RTS Game. Comparing Homeworld 2 and Nexus isn't exactly fair since Nexus is still a different Genre but hell, Nexus is still the better of the two.
Homeworld2 and Nexus represent the pinnacle of Space RTS Gameplay so far.
Another sleeper hit is Star Wolves by the way, Mixing Fleet Simulation with RPG elements. Sequel wasn't that great but still playable.
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Sins is...playable. I'm not terribly into multiplayer (haven't since Grand Theft Starship...uh, Homeworld) so the game's appeal is mainly lost on me.
I never play online. Ever. And I still really liked sins. It doesn't really have anything paticularly special to offer, but I found the whole spectacle really engaging. The space battles look like crap, though, if you have two massive fleets going at it. Neither of the ships move and they sit there lobbing lasers at each other while the frame rate gets raped.
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yeah but Sins isn't actually setting it's focus on the Space Battles. In fact, those are simple and don't require attention, the AI is programed in such a way that once engaged, a fleet can handle itself pretty good.
That is a necessity for a 4X RTS ;7
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What about Tachyon: The Fringe?
Am I the only person in the world who has bought that game?
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I have Sins. Its okay. Like Vidmaster said, tactics are meaningless in Sins due to its scale. Of course, it does have several mods in the works for it. There is a Star Trek TC which has some of the team from the HW TC, a Star Wars TC (made by EvilleJedi, guy behind Warlords for HW2), there is The Last Stand by a guy known as ManSh00ter which aims to be an unofficial expansion for Sins, and there is 7 Deadly Sins, which can only be described as Sins's Inferno. I really can't describe 7 Deadly Sins properly as its size defies description.
And if 4X games are being mentioned in all of this, Sword of the Stars and its two expansions need to be included. It has excellent gameplay, incredibly diverse factions (they even have different methods of FTL travel), and it has some of the best real-time space combat with Newtonian physics and real-time projectile tracking. And the dev team for Sword of the Stars worked on HW, HW:C. and the original Ground Control.
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They did? What studio was it? If so, they've got a magic touch.
And yeah, I really enjoyed Tachyon.
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Tachyon had it's good point and it's bad points. The ability to wander around systems was utterly pointless, and there wasn't much variety in terms of weapons.
On the other hand, it had that Sistine chapel mission, which is worth the $20 I paid way back when by itself.
And Sins....well, I just don't have much faith in Stardock. Galciv was OK, but a little monotonous and didn't even feel like an improvement over the ages old Master of Orion 2.
Sins itself decided to horribly destroy any hope I had when my first game was a straight line galaxy with only 1 path through, and pirates dead at the center - pirates, who because of the way
the game functions, became the most powerful empire in living history. I couldn't win or lose, because neither side could make it through the battle of endor fleet the pirates had just hanging out.
O.R.B. ..... talk about bad design. The later missions you can bring a super-battleship through. A super-battleship which eats up your entire pop-cap so you can't even build constructor units to get more pop-cap. Wonderful.
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What about Tachyon: The Fringe?
Am I the only person in the world who has bought that game?
no I bought it too...
and loved it
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What about Tachyon: The Fringe?
Am I the only person in the world who has bought that game?
I liked Tachyon but I never completed it. You might want to check out Fringespace (http://fringespace.org/) though. They're the forgotten TC.
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Yeah, there was that sequel planned but it got canceled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC4y2T0-skM
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Does Terminal Velocity count?
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They did? What studio was it? If so, they've got a magic touch.
And yeah, I really enjoyed Tachyon.
Kerberos productions.
If you do get SOTS (and expansions) do try out my big mod for it - I re-did the human race from ground up. I think I made over 100 models for that mod alone. ;7
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=6945
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Everyone should try out this game.
http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evochronlegends/index.htm (http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evochronlegends/index.htm)
Very awesome game, it's like elite+ if I dare to say so.
Best part is that it's a one man devolopment and that this guy listens to his customers and brings out patches with a lot of improvements almost every 14 days or so. :pimp:
Everyone who likes elite or x3, freelancer etc should download the demo which is a whopping 50mb :eek2:
http://www.starwraith.com/evochron_legends.exe (http://www.starwraith.com/evochron_legends.exe)
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What about Tachyon: The Fringe?
Am I the only person in the world who has bought that game?
No, there are actually two: You and me ;)
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I visited that website showed earlier for Tachyon
People actually play online?
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Yes there's more than a handful of players. We had a tournament back in October.
Lately it's only been a couple people playing, but you can get 10 folks in a game if there's some advance notice.
We've got European players, south African players, US players, Canadians, even some Koreans I think.
Single player is a cakewalk due to the stupid AI, multiplayer is where you play if you're going to fight seriously :D
People that have played since beta... still play Tachyon today.
Fringespace is quiet and we don't promote hardly at all, tis why we're the "forgotten TC."
A lot of our staff is without jobs and have families to feed, so that's weighing heavily on us as well right now.
But hey if all of ya that have copies of Tach, want to rumble online, I'm sure we can set something up.
There's usually a couple people I can get a hold of by IM that might play.
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That would actually be really kickass
I've always wanted to play multiplayer on it... but last time I tried it was quite empty like the void of space I was playing in.
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Ok well to quote myself...
Tachyon Service Bay 1.0b:
http://www.fringespace.org/index.php?name=Downloads&req=viewsdownload&sid=3
The No Fog, No Sun, No Lightning patches listed there are compatible with the main fix and mod set.
Update August 2008: You will also need to download and apply
the TSB Update 1 patch for TSB now to restore the ability to host
games. Novalogic moved the servers in August and this required
I make a update for TSB.
Please take the time to read the ReadMe.
You need that in order to get online since they moved the servers a couple times.
If you've got errors - read this:
http://www.fringespace.org/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=142
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Yeah, there was that sequel planned but it got canceled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC4y2T0-skM
Yeah, the infamous tech demo :) But watch it on a different page, this version seems to stutter.
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You've posted these details once, please don't put it all over the board, or you'll be assumed to be a bot, thanks.
Flipside.
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I know this is years old but I almost cried when I saw the initial post. "Only good space sims"?? :confused: Truly this is a brave new world.