Can anyone recommend some sci-fi themed games?

[Zhuangzi]

Yep, I played Deutros using a Atari ST emulator (don't think there was ever a pc version). I preferred the prequel, Millennium 2.0 which takes me way back to 1988 or so and being 7 years of age.

Had a quick look at some youtube clips for Distant Worlds and it looks pretty poor to me. Graphics are about Star Control 2 level, but I'll forgive SC2 given that it is one of the best games ever and was released in 1992 or thereabouts. :wink:

 

[Destroid]

Yep, I played Deutros using a Atari ST emulator (don't think there was ever a pc version). I preferred the prequel, Millennium 2.0 which takes me way back to 1988 or so and being 7 years of age.

Had a quick look at some youtube clips for Distant Worlds and it looks pretty poor to me. Graphics are about Star Control 2 level, but I'll forgive SC2 given that it is one of the best games ever and was released in 1992 or thereabouts. :wink:

Deuteros and Millenium worth playing now? What sort of level of complexity do they hold?



Distant Worlds looks pretty horrendous visually... will read up what higher game has to say on the game.


EDIT: Mentioning Reunion again because its cool. And has the best intro ever.

 

[puke]

wierd. i either hear TBS grognards assuming that DW is a twitchy clickfest filled with eyecandy, or i hear RTS fans decrying its uglyness.

its actually a pretty good game, and the advantage of those 2d sprites is that are completely user customizeable by anybody with the ability to use paint.

I dont know how well Millenium stands up now, but I loved it on the ST as a teenager. its depth was mainly in its resource gathering, if you wanted to build certain things, you would have to colonize a planet or moon that had them and then ship them to where they were needed. the resource list included most of the periodic table.

I had no idea it had a sequel, might have to check it out. also, some hacks seem to have written a remake of the original:
http://glitch01.wordpress.com/2006/08/2 ... completed/

 

[Zhuangzi]

Yep, I played Deutros using a Atari ST emulator (don't think there was ever a pc version). I preferred the prequel, Millennium 2.0 which takes me way back to 1988 or so and being 7 years of age.

Had a quick look at some youtube clips for Distant Worlds and it looks pretty poor to me. Graphics are about Star Control 2 level, but I'll forgive SC2 given that it is one of the best games ever and was released in 1992 or thereabouts. :wink:

Deuteros and Millenium worth playing now? What sort of level of complexity do they hold?



Distant Worlds looks pretty horrendous visually... will read up what higher game has to say on the game.


EDIT: Mentioning Reunion again because its cool. And has the best intro ever.

Yeah I played Millennium about 2-3 years ago and I had a good time with it. The only thing that is really primitive is the fighter combat, which is retarded. But the exploration and base building is just as fun now as it was then. I've heard that Deuteros is a better game but I wasn't able to get into it. I played for 4-5 hours using the ST emulator but I don't think I got into the meat of the game.

EDIT: just downloaded that remake and I have to say that it is inferior to the original in every way. The sounds are poor, graphics actually worse than original and even the font is hard on the eye. So if you want to try this, d/l the original from any abandonware site and play with dosbox.

I'd say that the complexity is fine. I guess you could say that it's somewhat small scale but there's plenty to be doing. The only thing that counts against Millennium is that there's not much replayability. The game never changes which is a bit sad (like Star Control 2).

 

[felicity]

Sword of the Stars is a good 'modern' sci-fi 4x. Very well designed tech trees. Unique races. Light micro. A lot of control over ship design. Interesting random events. The battle is real time with pause done right.

 

[mondblut]

So far, the games that I've got on the "to play" list courtesy of posts here are: Dominions 3; Nexus: The Jupiter Incident; Space Empires 4 and 5; Homeworld 1 and 2.

Dominions 3 is fantasy, you silly person.

Get yourself Emperor of the Fading Suns.

 

[desocupado]

Sword of the Stars is a good 'modern' sci-fi 4x. Very well designed tech trees. Unique races. Light micro. A lot of control over ship design. Interesting random events. The battle is real time with pause done right.

This. Excellent game. Shame multiplayer is next to impossible, since a match takes lots of hours. I can only play this game when the uni is in recess, since I would spend days playing it.

 

[RaXz]

Try Startopia, three of the makers of that game were Bullfrog employees. It's a bit like Theme Hospital/Dungeon keeper in space.

 

[Gragt]

Try Startopia, three of the makers of that game were Bullfrog employees. It's a bit like Theme Hospital/Dungeon keeper in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

 

[vazquez595654]

If one was going to play just one 4x game, which would be the one to play?

I believe that I may hate the genre. The Civilization series is the only one I have managed to enjoy. Even still, when I start to create a lot of cities it becomes a pain to manage them all. I know they have auto management, but that really takes me out of the game. And then I think, what is the point of playing if the computer is playing for me. Might as well do something else. Yeah, I really don't understand how people enjoy them. It's like a real-life management job simulated on the computer.

 

[Quilty]

It's sci-fi, but not 4X: Freespace 2. All the space action I'll ever need in one wonderful game.

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

It's sci-fi, but not 4X: Freespace 2. All the space action I'll ever need in one wonderful game.

Get the Open Source Project and be happy for a looooong time.

So far, the games that I've got on the "to play" list courtesy of posts here are: Dominions 3; Nexus: The Jupiter Incident; Space Empires 4 and 5; Homeworld 1 and 2.

Dominions 3 is fantasy, you silly person.

Get yourself Emperor of the Fading Suns.

Speaking of Dominions 3, did our game die?

 

[Quilty]

It's sci-fi, but not 4X: Freespace 2. All the space action I'll ever need in one wonderful game.

Get the Open Source Project and be happy for a looooong time.

So far, the games that I've got on the "to play" list courtesy of posts here are: Dominions 3; Nexus: The Jupiter Incident; Space Empires 4 and 5; Homeworld 1 and 2.

Dominions 3 is fantasy, you silly person.

Get yourself Emperor of the Fading Suns.

Speaking of Dominions 3, did our game die?

The Open source thing is lovely, and some of the campaigns that come with it are quality stuff as well.

I've seen Emperor of the Fading Suns on the Underdogs once a long time ago and then completely forgot about it. I'll have to look into it, seems like an interesting game. I hope it's not difficult to set up on WinXp or DosBox.

 

[Disconnected]

eXlore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate.

Armada 2526 is a recent MoO2-like, I gather. Haven't tried it yet, but it might be good.

Edit: meh.. didn't see the second page of the thread.

 

[DraQ]

It's sci-fi, but not 4X: Freespace 2. All the space action I'll ever need in one wonderful game.

You have opened the Pandora Box, sonny.

(no, not this one)

If we are talking non 4X, and non strategy sci-fi games set in spaaaace, then not playing Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier: First Encounters (with JJFFE or D3DFFE) is grounds for immediately getting kicked out of the airlock, sans suit.

I will now talk about them a lot, berating people incapable of appreciating their Newtonian awesomeness, full scale systems with simulated gravity and orbital movement, seamless planetary landings, and unrivalled scope for being inexcusable limpdicks, graphicswhores and retards in the process.

Hope you're happy about that.

eXlore

Ex-lore? Sounds like Oblivion. (Durrr.)

 

[JarlFrank]

eXlore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate.

Armada 2526 is a recent MoO2-like, I gather. Haven't tried it yet, but it might be good.

It's kinda meh. Planet management is okay, but not as good as MoO2 or even Space Empires V, and battles are very disappointing considering a Total War guy worked on the game.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier: First Encounters

Draq, I'm beginning to believe that you are a fanboi. Btw,anything new from the frontier development forums? Anything new on Elite 4 or The Outsider?

 

[DraQ]

Frontier: Elite 2 and Frontier: First Encounters

Draq, I'm beginning to believe that you are a fanboi.

Well, it's not like there is a whole genre of proper spacesims out there.

If there was I would be somewhat more picky and critical towards individual games, but given that proper spasim is even more an elusive beast than a good RPG, I think I can be excused for being somewhat rabid in my recommendations.

Btw,anything new from the frontier development forums? Anything new on Elite 4 or The Outsider?

I haven't been there for quite some time. I guess it's about time to drop by again.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

It's a bog standard RTS, but Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun is pretty cool. Outstanding art and music, great atmosphere, fun missions, and some really cool units (Disruptor Tanks FTW!). Oh, and the cutscenes are outstanding.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Star Wars: Empire at War. This game is worth playing even if only for the magnificent space battles. Land invasions can get a little bit tedious in the long run, though.

 

[TheCowburner]

Total Annihilation. Great game, you won't be disappointed.

 

[dragonfk]

Star Wars: Empire at War. This game is worth playing even if only for the magnificent space battles. Land invasions can get a little bit tedious in the long run, though.

Really? I've heard that it's rather bland.

 

[Destroid]

Seemed like a shitty nextgen version of Star Wars: Rebellion to me.

Rebellion is awesome.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Star Wars: Empire at War. This game is worth playing even if only for the magnificent space battles. Land invasions can get a little bit tedious in the long run, though.

Really? I've heard that it's rather bland.

Well, people might say it's bland because of the land assaults, which indeed, leave a lot to be desired, and you can't just use auto-battle to be done with it in 5 seconds because the AI is so dumb, you may actually lose 5 AT-ATs to one squad of rebel infantry...

But the space battles are Fucking Awesome. Fleets need to be pretty varied, due to the rock-paper-scissors nature of ships (bombers are the best to take out various large ships like cruisers and frigates, but they die fast to corvettes, which in turn die fast to frigates etc), and there's nothing as epic as defending one of your planets that's just been ambushed by a superbig rebel fleet, and all you have there to defend is like 2 star destroyers and a space station (depending on how advanced the space stations are, the more guns they have, and more reinforcements they can call in). Plus, the large ships have 'weak points' that you can attack, so often instead of wasting time to completely destroy an enemy star destroyed, you can just blow up its hangar (so it can't shit fighters anymore) and turbolasers, and all it can do is float around doing nothing.

Seemed like a shitty nextgen version of Star Wars: Rebellion to me.

Completely different games.

 

[Nex]

Star Wars: Empire at War. This game is worth playing even if only for the magnificent space battles. Land invasions can get a little bit tedious in the long run, though.

Really? I've heard that it's rather bland.

Well, people might say it's bland because of the land assaults, which indeed, leave a lot to be desired, and you can't just use auto-battle to be done with it in 5 seconds because the AI is so dumb, you may actually lose 5 AT-ATs to one squad of rebel infantry...

But the space battles are Fucking Awesome. Fleets need to be pretty varied, due to the rock-paper-scissors nature of ships (bombers are the best to take out various large ships like cruisers and frigates, but they die fast to corvettes, which in turn die fast to frigates etc), and there's nothing as epic as defending one of your planets that's just been ambushed by a superbig rebel fleet, and all you have there to defend is like 2 star destroyers and a space station (depending on how advanced the space stations are, the more guns they have, and more reinforcements they can call in). Plus, the large ships have 'weak points' that you can attack, so often instead of wasting time to completely destroy an enemy star destroyed, you can just blow up its hangar (so it can't shit fighters anymore) and turbolasers, and all it can do is float around doing nothing.

Seemed like a shitty nextgen version of Star Wars: Rebellion to me.

Completely different games.

Make sure to get lots of mod packs for the space battles to really heat up. They add loads of ships, maybe 3x the amount in the vanilla game.

And yeah, ignore land battles.

Edit: Expanded Galaxy mod is a good one, can't remember the rest, just look it up.