PC Gamer Article "The Best Space Games on PC" - ED Makes An Appearance
- Thread starter Cruel_R
- Start date
Me too.
Freelancer 1 and 2 (especially 1) had some cracking storylines to go with top notch dogfighting. The ONLY thing that let them down was the abysmal AI - especially your wingmen who were so fragile and useless, that more often than hot - especially in the final missions - you seemed to always end up on your own.
If only we could have a Freespace 3, with up to date visuals, and some properly written AI... but keep the basic gameplay from FS2...
... that's what Squadron 42 was supposed to be.. but now.. it isn't... (ever).
Freelancer 2 ?
When... Where....I need this...
freelancer, privateer 2 and wing commander prophecy for me, Infact they happen to be my fav of all genres. Time will tell if ED and SC get in amongst them, certainly ED could....
don't forget duke nukem 3d!
a lot of crap on their list, also they missed some classics.
I would add:-
Frontier: Elite II (imo STILL the best Elite game out there and yes, that includes ED)
X:Tension (my fave 'X Series' game and imo way better than X3 or X: , although X2 was very good also)
K240 (awesome game! very addictive and fun!)
EOS (Earth Orbit Stations by EA, one of my all time fave space games, sadly it was HUGELY underrated at the time)
Starflight (one of the greatest space games ever!)
Millenium 2.2 (a superb space game, sending probes out to explore the galaxy was superb)
I would add:-
Frontier: Elite II (imo STILL the best Elite game out there and yes, that includes ED)
X:Tension (my fave 'X Series' game and imo way better than X3 or X: , although X2 was very good also)
K240 (awesome game! very addictive and fun!)
EOS (Earth Orbit Stations by EA, one of my all time fave space games, sadly it was HUGELY underrated at the time)
Starflight (one of the greatest space games ever!)
Millenium 2.2 (a superb space game, sending probes out to explore the galaxy was superb)
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Wolfenstein was the prototype of Doom. They weren't really different games.
The issue with some comments about games like Doom is that you really had to be there at the time to appreciate how completely world-changing the game was.
Mentioning really early games like Maze War is interesting but there was another FP franchise that pre-dated Wolfenstein and Doom:
Mercenary Series:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercenary_(video_game)
Apart from some wire-frame vector graphics car racing "sims" the Mercenary series was my first introduction to FP "shooters". Those games blew mind because they illustrated the possibility of what gaming could be into the future. Then Doom came along and everything changed....
......... and because I've just done this research I have found the Mercenary series has been ported over as playable freeware:
http://mercenarysite.free.fr/mercframes_graphic.htm
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Freelancer...
Have you played it recently? Its a great game now.
I'd definitely add Sword of the Stars 1 on this list. One of the best space 4Xs in existence.
Quite a strange list that one. Including RPGs and FPS that are not properly space games and crap like EvE Valkyrie...
IMO, MIA are:
IMO, MIA are:
- Frontier: Elite II
- Frontier: First Encounters
- I-War (Independence War in the US)
- Edge of Chaos: Independence War 2 (Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos in the US)
- Conflict: FreeSpace – The Great War (Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War in the US)
- Freespace 2
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I did. I liked it! Nothing too deep, just one of those engaging puzzle type of games that had some terrific atmosphere. I especially liked that fact that you had to give command prompt orders to your drones. It makes the game feel more authentic, for lack of a better word, than just pointing and clicking. Would really like to see more modern games go back to typed keyboard commands. My only real critique of the game is that the dev has already put a period on the game and moved on, from what I understand.
The game is solid, but I would have loved some DLC. (I wrote three blog posts on it early in the year when I picked it up during Steam's Christmas sale. I tried to give a good overview of the gameplay.)
I was glad to see Starbound on that list. Never thought I would get so much enjoyment from a pixelated side-scroller! Lots of fun!
Could you elaborate please?
My main reasons for stopping playing were:
All wildlife looked like it was made from 10 body parts just mixed and matched and different sizes.
All planets were identical except the colours.
Almost perfectly geometrically spaced portaloos with aliens in them, on EVERY. SINGLE. PLANET. No cities, no undiscovered planets, no barren worlds.
The only thing to find on planets was wrecks and the hope of an inventory upgrade, farm some materials and move along.
Farming materials was boring as hell and the game was aimless. The ships were all ugly and non customisable.
Combat was diabolical, and the flight model was not a flight model, it was a hovercraft model.
Any of that changed substantially?
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Dude, dude. Stop. Both games pioneered techniques of creating a 3D world at a fast and fluid frame rate within the sever constraints of computer technology at that time. Wolfenstein 3D used ray casting on a flat polygon grid, in which only the surfaces visible to the player were calculated rather than the entire area surrounding the player, with animated 2D sprites for enemies.
The further developed Doom game engine enabled height differences (all rooms in Wolfenstein 3D have the same height), full texture mapping of all surfaces (in Wolfenstein 3D, floors and ceilings are flat colours) and varying light levels and custom palettes (all areas in Wolfenstein 3D are fully lit at the same brightness). The latter contributed to Doom's visual authenticity, atmosphere and gameplay, as the use of darkness to frighten or confuse the player was nearly unheard of in games released prior to Doom; palette modifications were used to enhance effects such as the berserk power-up which tints the player's vision red.
In contrast to the static levels of Wolfenstein 3D, those in Doom are highly dynamic: platforms can lower and rise, floors can rise sequentially to form staircases, and bridges can rise and fall. The immersive environments were enhanced further by the stereo sound system, which made it possible to roughly determine the direction and distance of a sound effect. The player is kept on guard by the grunts and growls of monsters, and receives occasional clues to finding secret areas in the form of sounds of hidden doors opening remotely.
It included other clever visual tricks to make the game run smoothly on a 1993 PC, which in those days had basic VGA graphics cards with not yet a dedicated 3D GPU.
Basically: these games represent computer gaming history just as much as ELITE does, and indeed Elite: Dangerous.
I feel ya, bro. I feel ya.
Absolutely. I remember the Mercenary series well: I played the first two on my trusty Commodore 64. Damocles on my Amiga 500.
(thanks for the link, BTW!)
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Fun fact: the precursor to I-War was a a game called Warhead on the Amiga and Atari ST. Good fun!