Starflight vs Mass Effect

[Faustian Covenant]

I can't remember Starflight 1 all that well but 2 was definitely more about trading/exploration/diplomacy (which usually required trading the appropriate specialty item) than it was about combat. Obviously for a late 80's game the combat was very simplistic and -- as others said -- is mostly just about upgrading your shields and weapons.

While you could play it aggressively the only optimal/required times for combat was against the G'nunk (if I'm recalling that name correctly), the Spemin (once you got the tech to disable their shields or whatever) and the possessed dudes at the end (but you could just run away from most of them). So while combat definitely played a part, most of your time was spent trading and talking (which, again, usually required trading the appropriate item to open the key dialogue branches). [Again that's SF2 -- maybe the first was radically different] So... yeah... it was about trading~ Okay, and exploration, too. It's not a pure trading sim, nor did I call it that. It's a combination of adventure game and trading sim. I suppose you could argue it had RPG elements but that's stretching it in regards to the ship and crew (you picked the obvious race appropriate to the position and just maxed training in that particular skill set). Still, great game(s). I highly recommend them to anyone who hasn't played -- just make sure you get a .gif or some other image of the star map that came with each game for the sake of navigation.

Who said anything about combat? There's combat but it's not all about combat, though combat can be very profitable once you have a decent ship.

There is trading, but it's not about trading and I don't remember trading much of anything. It's entirely optional and as you mentioned there's only a few items worth trading which you have to ferry a collossal distance to get any profit at all, and you only find out where you can sell stuff later in the game where you can already blast ships and take their resources at will. In short it's a complete waste of time.

I wouldn't say it's about diplomacy either. There's some diplomacy I guess but it's basically just like SC in this sense. You meet people, maybe they are friendly maybe not, maybe you do some quest or whatever, but you could hardly say it's all about dimplomacy.

If anything the main activities spent timewise are exploration and mining mining mining. But like most of the really good games of old it was not really about any one activity. It's an RPG/Adventure hybrid if anything, with full features of those genres, not some trading game.

 

[Faustian Covenant]

My dream game would be SF with the ship upgrade system, char advancement, living world and gfx from Space Rangers 2. These combined with combat like I-War and I would probably die in front of my pc because of starvation.

Well you could do much better graphicswise than star rangers.

What is I-war?

 

[Morkar Left]

My dream game would be SF with the ship upgrade system, char advancement, living world and gfx from Space Rangers 2. These combined with combat like I-War and I would probably die in front of my pc because of starvation.

Well you could do much better graphicswise than star rangers.

What is I-war?

I really liked the gfx in SR2 for this type of game. No need for improvements.

I-War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-War_(Independence_War)
- 3D space combat
- Newtonian physics
- ship systems similar in complexity to submarine-sims and the like

 

[Faustian Covenant]

My dream game would be SF with the ship upgrade system, char advancement, living world and gfx from Space Rangers 2. These combined with combat like I-War and I would probably die in front of my pc because of starvation.

Well you could do much better graphicswise than star rangers.

What is I-war?

I really liked the gfx in SR2 for this type of game. No need for improvements.

I-War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-War_(Independence_War)
- 3D space combat
- Newtonian physics
- ship systems similar in complexity to submarine-sims and the like

Thanks. I'd heard of that but didn't realize it had that much to offer. I will check it out when I get more gaming time.

 

[octavius]

My dream game would be SF with the ship upgrade system, char advancement, living world and gfx from Space Rangers 2. These combined with combat like I-War and I would probably die in front of my pc because of starvation.

Well you could do much better graphicswise than star rangers.

What is I-war?

I really liked the gfx in SR2 for this type of game. No need for improvements.

I-War: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-War_(Independence_War)
- 3D space combat
- Newtonian physics
- ship systems similar in complexity to submarine-sims and the like

Hmm...realistic physics ruined Frontier - Elite 2 as a game in my opinion. Space fights were definitely not as much fun in Frontier as in the oroiginal Elite.
How is the combat in I-war?

 

[zeitgeist]

Has anyone played Protostar: War on the Frontier? The screenshots seem rather nice, but according to most reviews it's much shorter and less complex than Starflight 1/2.

 

[skuphundaku]

My dream game would be SF with the ship upgrade system, char advancement, living world and gfx from Space Rangers 2. These combined with combat like I-War and I would probably die in front of my pc because of starvation.

I don't know about SF apart from what I read from that guy's article because it came out some 7 years before I even started to get interested in gaming. Nevertheless, it really sounds awesome and I do love Space Rangers 2 and I-War, so a combination like that, done using the Infinity Universe engine would be incredible.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

My dream game would be SF with the ship upgrade system, char advancement, living world and gfx from Space Rangers 2. These combined with combat like I-War and I would probably die in front of my pc because of starvation.

Well, one of my dream games would be having a full, planetside CRPG system; topdown or iso, with all of the usual RPG bells and whistles. Excellent turn based combat system, exploration, skill system, etc and so on.

Then you take off in your space craft...and have a full, 3D space simulation. Hyperspace travel, trading, exploration, space battles, evil invading races, politics between systems, massive space armadas....think X-2 or 3 level, only better, with a better UI.

Space Rogue was the nearest to this...with nobody ever trying it again.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/space-rogue

As a personal aside, I would have the British Empire in space, with other nations snapping at their heels, attempting to take the top spot. All of this could be part of the main plot.

 

[Morkar Left]

My dream game would be SF with the ship upgrade system, char advancement, living world and gfx from Space Rangers 2. These combined with combat like I-War and I would probably die in front of my pc because of starvation.

I don't know about SF apart from what I read from that guy's article because it came out some 7 years before I even started to get interested in gaming. Nevertheless, it really sounds awesome and I do love Space Rangers 2 and I-War, so a combination like that, done using the Infinity Universe engine would be incredible.

It's explorationheavy. Just try it. You can't go wrong with SF or SF2.

Infinity universe engine is unknown to me.

Well, one of my dream games would be having a full, planetside CRPG system; topdown or iso, with all of the usual RPG bells and whistles. Excellent turn based combat system, exploration, skill system, etc and so on.

Then you take off in your space craft...and have a full, 3D space simulation. Hyperspace travel, trading, exploration, space battles, evil invading races, politics between systems, massive space armadas....think X-2 or 3 level, only better, with a better UI.

Space Rogue was the nearest to this...with nobody ever trying it again.

I can second that. But I wouldn't even need a full 3D space if it's crew-based. Topdown would just be fine for me and switching to 3D for combat, only. And only combat. It would have the advantage of not distracting from the exploration gameplay and interaction with different planets, ships and cultures and remain easy to design. But anyway we can only hope and dream, it seems

 

[Trash]

http://groups.google.com/group/starflighttlc

Just because the link in the original article doesn't work (at least it doesn't for me). Wow. Had no idea they were making something like this. Yet, i wonder what they mean by this:

"The original gameplay has been largely preserved while updating the gameplay to meet the expectations of modern gamers."

Here's a two thousand word essay on the subject:

This. I really got excited for a moment about someone making a Starflight remake untill I saw that horridly shitty screenshot. It's like seeing someone take out the family album and then take a piss on it.

 

[skuphundaku]

It's explorationheavy. Just try it. You can't go wrong with SF or SF2.

They're on my TODO list now.

Infinity universe engine is unknown to me.

Infinity started as an indie project that had the goal of doing something in the vein of Elite, but with modern graphics. It had a whole community built around it, really good stuff, very promising. After a while, the guy who started it hooked up with another guy which was a former Epic Games employee, and, it seems that, like always, whatever touches or is touched by Epic even just a bit turns to s***. The whole thing was turned commercial, the game turned into a MMO that has the feel of being just a showcase for the engine. It's pretty sad from my point of view. Here's a quote from their site: "We are currently looking to build strategic partnerships with companies we can grow with. The I-Novae Engine has tremendous potential and we are particularly excited about its application across multiple industries such as film, medical visualization (think micro instead of macro), serious games/simulations, and geospatial visualization." A lot of words for saying "I sold out."

Take a look at the videos they have on their site: http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php . The part with the ship seamlessly entering the atmosphere of a planet is quite impressive.

 

[Lunac]

Just finished a three hour session of StarFlight 2 for Genesis. Fuken awesome! A bit more arcade-y than the DOS version, but I think that has to do more with the fact that Genesis as a platform was more capable than your average off-the-shelf PC back then so the devs took the advantage when porting.

As for SF series vs ME series? I haven't played any of the ME games, but I think the comparison is ludicrous. What I have seen from screenshots and scanning through few random reviews, as well as employing some common sense, it seems games in the ME series are nothing but a standard story-driven console shooter shit with your standard cinematic overload, storytelling aimed straight at the teen crowd (Witcher for the libertarians?), with ever so tiny elements of other-than-FPS genres just to make a bit different than every other shooter pretending to be a RPG (F3 I'm looking at you.).

Ludicrous comparison in every sense. For chrissake, check out the movie reviews on that site, as well some of the other game reviews. There are 4-5 stars ratings (out of 5) for every piece of shit Hollywood produced in the last 3 years as well 9-10 ratings (out of 10) for every piece of shit that came out for xbox. Man is obviously delusional, probably suffering from final stages of syphilis after chugging one too many gay cocks of other STD ridden xbox consoletards!


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[circ]

WHAT THE NIGNOG IS THIS FUCKING SHIT?

There is no comparison at all.

Except they both take place in space.

Ok. Let's review anyway.

Both take place in space. Both ships have a crew, but in Starflight your crew actually matters. C&C BioWare!
You land on random planets in both and drive around in a buggy. Except in Starflight running around exploring does more than give you achievements. In Mass Effect you talk to people but it doesn't do anything, you're on a railroad story anyway. In Starflight you talk to aliens and try to find an alien jujumagumbo, or was that Starflight II? I forget. There's no shootans involved.

Bottom line, Starflight is a game, ME is a joke.

 

[Dionysus]

When I first heard of ME, I was hoping for something like a contemporary Starflight. But you just can't have decent exploration with that amount of handholding and level scaling. And Bioware really wants to make interactive movies, so it's not surprising that they stumbled so badly when doing the exploration component. They scaled that back a lot in ME2, and I enjoyed that game much more.

I still think that they could have pulled it off if they had made a game with two main quests. One would be linear and cutscene heavy, whereas the other would need to be pieced together from clues, quests, and items scattered throughout the game universe. But it really would be akin to gluing two different games together.

 

[The Dude]

This has the closest feel to the original SF series: http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/

The RNG is maybe even more devilish than in any other roguelike I played though. Sometimes having only crazy hard planets close by, getting shit starting equipment and no trader in the first space station makes for moments. Even better if you're surrounded by a nebula!

My dream game would be SF with the ship upgrade system, char advancement, living world and gfx from Space Rangers 2. These combined with combat like I-War and I would probably die in front of my pc because of starvation.

Pretty close to mine, only switch I-war combat with Nexus combat and scale.

I'm keeping an eye on this (Yeah, I shelled out. ): http://fractalsoftworks.com/ Not sure how much rpg the final game will be, but the tactical combat is fun and sometimes punishingly hard.