I am a bit disappointed that there is not a thread about this game already, though I'm not surprised. Star Control 2 seems to be very poorly known if you were not the right age for it, which is a shame because I honestly believe is it one of the greatest games of all time. The good news is, you can experience the game for yourself to decide. Star Control 2 has gone freeware and can be downloaded here:
It was released in 1992 on PC, but I was introduced to it from a neighborhood friend who owned the ill fated 3DO console, which had a port of Star Control 2 which added in full voice acting and some added video thanks to the CD tech 3DO used.
This game was my Elite, and it obviously owes some of its heritage to the 1984 classic. I instantly fell in love with the scope of this game, the starting from the most humble ship and building up to a huge battle fleet. But unlike Elite, you take an active role in the world and alter the fate of billions of lives.
If you want to know more before you try, let me spin you the tale.
Star Control 2's backstory starts off similar to Elite's. A nuclear war devastated Earth, but led to a uniting of the world's nations into collective purpose to avoid the horrors of the past and begin to push outward to the stars. But in this galaxy, mankind is not alone. In 2112, contact is made with the Chenjesu, an advanced silicon based race. This leads in a few years to the Alliance of Free stars, with a total of 6 member races. But as the Alliance was beginning to form, a massive enemy arrived in this region of space, the Ur-Quan.
Highly Xenophobic, refusing to even speak directly to other species, instead using genetically engineered 'talking pets' to relay their words, they make their intention clear. All species they encounter have a simple choice, to become enslaved and be a battle thrall for the Ur-Quan, or be forever imprisoned on your home-world via a massive slave-shield.
Many races were conquered by the Ur-Quan and agreed to be their battle thralls for one reason or another, and the Alliance found themselves facing off against 7 other races. Just then, another race arrived, ready to aid the Alliance, the strange Arilu race which looked vaguely similar to ancient Earth depictions of 'greys.' And so there was a massive war to try to secure the freedom of mankind and it's allies.
And that's the story of Star Control 1
Here is how you're introduced to Star Control 2 (taken from the freeware version which has some different opening logos)
[video=youtube;TYGulZZNPGY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYGulZZNPGY[/video]
And so you begin the game without even knowing how the war ended, travelling in the skeleton of an advanced Precursor vessel, vulnerable and weak, but with the potential to become an incredibly powerful ship. Not wishing to spoil things, I'll simply say that you do discover that threats still exist in the galaxy, and you may be the only one that can stop it with enough time.
So what does the game have to offer? Well let's look first at gameplay, and combat. Let me show you Super Melee, perhaps the best 2D space combat of all time. The game maintasins the newtonian principle of conserved momentum, but curves the space of the battlefield, so if you fly far enough away, you end up on the opposite side of the screen. The fights focus on intense 1 on 1 fights. The view of the battle keeps both ships in view and zooms in when the ships are close together and zooms out when they are far apart, a fact that plays into the strategy and counter strategy of some of the ships. Every alien race has their own unique ship with a primary weapon and special ability. These special abilities vary from repairing the ship to mind controlling the enemy ship's crew to...recharging the ship's batteries (The Pkunk are a very peaceful race and it takes effort to be hostile, so their special ability is to insult their enemy, thereby psychically charging their weapon capacitors. But on the plus side, when they blow up they have a 50% chance to re-spawn as you'll see if you watch the video below.) There is a loose rock paper scissors principle when choosing what ship to use against other ships, but skill at flying can trump these principles. A video of super melee between two human players is below.
[video=youtube;o7_rm_l7WvI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7_rm_l7WvI[/video]
You also get to travel around the galaxy collecting resources on a variety of worlds which will have different kinds of minerals which you use to make fuel, build ships, and upgrade your precursor vessel. Some worlds have wildlife which is also valuable to collect as it can be traded to a strange race that will sell you new technologies in exchange for the biological data.
And there are the aliens. I have never seen a game with more colorful, interesting and varied alien races, who all have fascinating histories and quirks. Talking to most races is a delight, and talking to some races is utter torture. You have to learn what certain races want and how to befriend them, or choose to ignore them and blow them up at any point. To give you an example, below is the introduction you get to the Orz, a strange race that appear in what you believed to be the territory of a different race from during the war, and whose language is too complex or perhaps too different to properly translate.
[video=youtube;JCr9VdfMghM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCr9VdfMghM[/video]
I'm just scratching the surface. You really should play the game for yourself. Then things like this below will make sense to you :
[video=youtube;7ViqcJkYMEQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ViqcJkYMEQ[/video]
Other features:
talk to gas giant creatures
have intimate liasons with a blue woman
defraud a race of slave traders
manipulate the religion of 2 different species
gain the allegiance of an alien race by destroying tons of their ships
learn about Frungy, the Sport of Kings
restore an alien race on the brink of extinction
cause a civil war between space pterodactyls
and much much more
It was released in 1992 on PC, but I was introduced to it from a neighborhood friend who owned the ill fated 3DO console, which had a port of Star Control 2 which added in full voice acting and some added video thanks to the CD tech 3DO used.
This game was my Elite, and it obviously owes some of its heritage to the 1984 classic. I instantly fell in love with the scope of this game, the starting from the most humble ship and building up to a huge battle fleet. But unlike Elite, you take an active role in the world and alter the fate of billions of lives.
If you want to know more before you try, let me spin you the tale.
Star Control 2's backstory starts off similar to Elite's. A nuclear war devastated Earth, but led to a uniting of the world's nations into collective purpose to avoid the horrors of the past and begin to push outward to the stars. But in this galaxy, mankind is not alone. In 2112, contact is made with the Chenjesu, an advanced silicon based race. This leads in a few years to the Alliance of Free stars, with a total of 6 member races. But as the Alliance was beginning to form, a massive enemy arrived in this region of space, the Ur-Quan.
Highly Xenophobic, refusing to even speak directly to other species, instead using genetically engineered 'talking pets' to relay their words, they make their intention clear. All species they encounter have a simple choice, to become enslaved and be a battle thrall for the Ur-Quan, or be forever imprisoned on your home-world via a massive slave-shield.
Many races were conquered by the Ur-Quan and agreed to be their battle thralls for one reason or another, and the Alliance found themselves facing off against 7 other races. Just then, another race arrived, ready to aid the Alliance, the strange Arilu race which looked vaguely similar to ancient Earth depictions of 'greys.' And so there was a massive war to try to secure the freedom of mankind and it's allies.
And that's the story of Star Control 1
Here is how you're introduced to Star Control 2 (taken from the freeware version which has some different opening logos)
[video=youtube;TYGulZZNPGY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYGulZZNPGY[/video]
And so you begin the game without even knowing how the war ended, travelling in the skeleton of an advanced Precursor vessel, vulnerable and weak, but with the potential to become an incredibly powerful ship. Not wishing to spoil things, I'll simply say that you do discover that threats still exist in the galaxy, and you may be the only one that can stop it with enough time.
So what does the game have to offer? Well let's look first at gameplay, and combat. Let me show you Super Melee, perhaps the best 2D space combat of all time. The game maintasins the newtonian principle of conserved momentum, but curves the space of the battlefield, so if you fly far enough away, you end up on the opposite side of the screen. The fights focus on intense 1 on 1 fights. The view of the battle keeps both ships in view and zooms in when the ships are close together and zooms out when they are far apart, a fact that plays into the strategy and counter strategy of some of the ships. Every alien race has their own unique ship with a primary weapon and special ability. These special abilities vary from repairing the ship to mind controlling the enemy ship's crew to...recharging the ship's batteries (The Pkunk are a very peaceful race and it takes effort to be hostile, so their special ability is to insult their enemy, thereby psychically charging their weapon capacitors. But on the plus side, when they blow up they have a 50% chance to re-spawn as you'll see if you watch the video below.) There is a loose rock paper scissors principle when choosing what ship to use against other ships, but skill at flying can trump these principles. A video of super melee between two human players is below.
[video=youtube;o7_rm_l7WvI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7_rm_l7WvI[/video]
You also get to travel around the galaxy collecting resources on a variety of worlds which will have different kinds of minerals which you use to make fuel, build ships, and upgrade your precursor vessel. Some worlds have wildlife which is also valuable to collect as it can be traded to a strange race that will sell you new technologies in exchange for the biological data.
And there are the aliens. I have never seen a game with more colorful, interesting and varied alien races, who all have fascinating histories and quirks. Talking to most races is a delight, and talking to some races is utter torture. You have to learn what certain races want and how to befriend them, or choose to ignore them and blow them up at any point. To give you an example, below is the introduction you get to the Orz, a strange race that appear in what you believed to be the territory of a different race from during the war, and whose language is too complex or perhaps too different to properly translate.
[video=youtube;JCr9VdfMghM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCr9VdfMghM[/video]
I'm just scratching the surface. You really should play the game for yourself. Then things like this below will make sense to you :
[video=youtube;7ViqcJkYMEQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ViqcJkYMEQ[/video]
Other features:
talk to gas giant creatures
have intimate liasons with a blue woman
defraud a race of slave traders
manipulate the religion of 2 different species
gain the allegiance of an alien race by destroying tons of their ships
learn about Frungy, the Sport of Kings
restore an alien race on the brink of extinction
cause a civil war between space pterodactyls
and much much more
. I have started a few of my runthroughs by doing quick get-in get-out landings where I land on these super hot planets, grab a purple and then take back off. It can lead to quite a haul.