Oolite Bulletins

I quite liked a game called "Space Rogue" on the Amiga. Was 3d spaceflight within a system or sector, a 2d map for the long-distance stuff, and an isometric top-down adventure thing once docked or landed.

A more modern series which has some nice touches is the X series, although I find the sector approach to be a bit lame.

drew wrote:

Darkbee wrote:

Killer Wolf wrote:

WIng Commander III....Rachel Coriolis....phwaarrr.

Are you requesting permission to dock, sir?

Nail, hammer, on head, impact.

I'd forgotten about 3d starstrike. That was excellent.

Anyone remember Code Name Mat 1 and 2 on the humble speccie? Rose tinted remembrance seems to give them a whiff of excellence.

Not quite a space sim, but the RTS Battlezone occupied for a long while, as did the Homeworld series. Still play them sometimes.

Cheers,

Drew.

I didn't put Homeworld, because it didn't quite fit into the "spacesim" discussion, it being more a 3D C&C style game, but I did truly love that game, I distinctly remember having a tear in my eye when, earlier on, you jump back to your own system, only to find everybody has been wiped out, with that amazing piece of orchestration playing in the background.

Mac user, therefore my history is the same as Disembodied's: Escape Velocity.

But I only ever had Escape Velocity: Override and Escape Velocity: Nova. I only played the original game in its re-incarnation as an add-on to EV:N.

another_commander wrote:

sunlover72 wrote:

Not sure if its a dodgy topic, but... do you think there will ever be an elite 4

No.

Sad to say I agree. I fear it will never happen. Whilst there is a core of dedicated Elite gamers out there, we are not a big enough market for a game like that to survive commercially. We've already got EVE Online, and that is *not* Elite.

The 'Elite' demographic is already to old and too diverse to satisfy.

The future belongs to the Wii, Xbox and PS3 and their successors in the living room and on the mobile.

Cheers,

Drew.

Well...
my first space sim was Elite on C-64 of course. But I've played much of this kind games.
C-64:
Elite
Moonfall
Tau Ceti III

Amiga:
Elite
Frontier Elite II
Federation Of Free Traders
Wing Commander CD32

PC:
Frontier First Encounters
X-Wing
Babylon V: I've Found Her
Hardwar: The Future is Greedy
Wing Commander
Privateer
Freespace (only for tests)
I-War & I-War II (only for tests)
X-Gold
Oolite
Pioneer

Now I'm playing only 2 games X-Wing for Win 95 (with custom missions) and Oolite. I havent much time for playing other games. But maybe in the future...

At least somebody else has heard of/played FOFT! (I was beginning to think I was the only one!)

Micha wrote:

I quite liked a game called "Space Rogue" on the Amiga. Was 3d spaceflight within a system or sector, a 2d map for the long-distance stuff, and an isometric top-down adventure thing once docked or landed.

I still love Space Rogue on my C64. Filled vector graphics at playable speed on that hardware, truly amazing!

As a matter of fact, I love that game so much that I re-created the ships for Oolite: http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Far_Arm_Ships and plan to re-create those star systems too (Far Arm star cluster already "reserved" in the vector maps ClymAngus & co. have made, in G7)

DaddyHoggy wrote:

At least somebody else has heard of/played FOFT! (I was beginning to think I was the only one!)

i used to play it a load. had potential but there was a little trading bug that was supposed to be clever AI but meant you could "cheat" your way to riches : the prices of stock altered dynamically depending on trades. i found you could buy a load of, eg, gold and the game you increase the price due to your demand. then you'd sell it all at a profit, and the game would drop the price, so you'd buy it all again, etc etc etc. i made thousands upon thousands while docked and i felt it took something away from the game. aside from that it was canny, but was, if we're honest, just Eilite changed enough to avoid lawsuits.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

I didn't put Homeworld, because it didn't quite fit into the "spacesim" discussion, it being more a 3D C&C style game, but I did truly love that game, I distinctly remember having a tear in my eye when, earlier on, you jump back to your own system, only to find everybody has been wiped out, with that amazing piece of orchestration playing in the background.

That was one of most atmospheric points of whole HW series. Being the last of whole race, it certainly gave a sense of desperation.

I've played all three HW games, and I think the first was the best. Both Cataclysm and HW2 couldn't match the original's atmosphere, and they seemed too easy, since you had, for the large part of campaign, plenty of resources...

Anyway, back on topic. Except for Oolite, I played only F:FE (good atmosphere, but bugs and quite boring combat got annoying quickly), X-Wing and TIE-Fighter (those two original DOS games, not X-W vs. TF). Oh, and Vegastrike for a while...

Starflight (1&2, as well as Protostar) were the first space games where I started to lose entire nights of sleep. LOL

Elite, of course (one of the DOS versions). Asteroids was one I tried but was never really good at.

Wing Commander was the first space game I ever bought a joystick for.

I played a lot of others over the years, but those would be the ones I remember most fondly.

Current space games are Oolite, VegaStrike and sometimes Pioneer.

I would heartily recommend all of them, past and present.

Am I liable to get beaten up and my body dumped in a dredger destined for an uncharted system if I mention turn-based-strategy games? ***mild off-topic alert***

Rebel Star, LaserSquad and X-com: Enemy Unknown, although not space sims, all clearly they fit in the "boys with their Space toys" category (and girls too, but it just doesn't rhyme ). I think they might be worth mentioning as generating interest in all things Space, as Elite did. I probably should mention Masters of Orion too... the greatest game I've never played!

and while I'm here, does Starglider 2 count as a sim? Maybe arcade/simulation. I never played the original but the sequel was pretty good.

I'm getting way off topic aren't I.

I still own the original Starglider - I guess it's "spacey" because of the Novella that came with it - but it's firmly set in a planet's atmosphere...

Yes, the same situation is with Rescue On Fractalus

Darkbee wrote:

if I mention turn-based-strategy games?

A turn-based strategy game of interstellar conflict… an old board game from the seventies comes to mind. We used to play 4000 AD for hours and hours… and still not get a result, sometimes. It even had a 3D element to it… a thoroughly engrossing game for its day, and amazingly, I still have the game in the cupboard, intact with all its pieces.

Well I was thinking more, on the computer, but that too...