Hatta wrote:Why are you reluctant to go back and play some older games? You'd be surprised at how well some of these titles hold up.
I've become cynical towards certain older games. Spacesims were less of a showcase of technology than flightsims but their graphics were always touted as one of their strong selling points.
Anyone tried Star Trek Legacy? I'm thinking of hunting a bargain bin copy if I'm not too late already.
I vaguely remember some missions being really hard. Anyone here also played this one?
There was also something old I played but it wasn't quite a space sim - I'll post another thread perhaps. If anyone played it and remembers the name let me know. It was in virtual reality (you know, getting inside a computer) and mostly inside a trench. The gameplay actively encouraged you to stay down (in fact you picked up speed by touching the floor of the trench, and there was a time limit I think so you needed to hug the floor a lot).
Ivo wrote:There was also something old I played but it wasn't quite a space sim - I'll post another thread perhaps. If anyone played it and remembers the name let me know. It was in virtual reality (you know, getting inside a computer) and mostly inside a trench. The gameplay actively encouraged you to stay down (in fact you picked up speed by touching the floor of the trench, and there was a time limit I think so you needed to hug the floor a lot).
This is a genre I find hard to break into. I have some of the classics, but never have the time/patience to learn all of the controls enough to really get into the games. Back when I was younger and had more free time though, I really liked the X-Wing and Tie Fighter space sim games.
The good thing about the 'arcadey' spacesims is that you can map most of the controls to a modern gamepad and leave the keyboard for the least rudimentary of functions. Freelancer is best played by the mouse (!) and I didn't even to configure my joystick for that game.
Pulsar_t wrote:The good thing about the 'arcadey' spacesims is that you can map most of the controls to a modern gamepad and leave the keyboard for the least rudimentary of functions. Freelancer is best played by the mouse (!) and I didn't even to configure my joystick for that game.
I'm not sure if you can play Freelancer with a joystick, even.
The "trench" game I played was considerably more recent than those. It was CD-Rom even, I think.
Pulsar_t wrote:Do you mean outer space trenches or WWI style ones? Give us more details!
I can post this in another thread, but it was Virtual Reality and the trench was mostly just linear in a perspective similar to the colour screenshot (Buck Rogers I guess). But in more color and with early 3D graphics and stuff. The trench wasn't so deep though. In order to go faster you needed to keep pressing down when you were already at the lowest altitude. You couldn't fly much higher above the trench itself and it was mostly "on rails".
IIRC you played some hacker or cyber-police either against corporations or against cyber-criminals. The end level bosses were typically styled as armed "walls" at the end of the trench I think. I wish I remembered more.
EDIT: I think you also overheated if you were constantly "rubbing" against the floor, but you needed to do it in order to go fast or lose to the time limit. So there was some balance needed.
I used to love this genre. The first game that I really played was Wing Commander II - which was pretty cool, and then X-Wing, which was even better! Played the original wire frame star wars on Atari ST back in the day, which was pretty cool, but didn't stand up to the march of technology. I played a few non star wars space sims as well, but the last space sim I really 'got' was X-wing Alliance on PC - Great story, great combat, and awesome final level that really raised the bar. I'm sure it would hold up well to todays games, graphics may seem a bit dated, but the controls and power assignment mechanic was awesome, and they the targeting computer was just about as good as they get - you could choose between nearest enemy, between groups of enemies, enemy nearest objective, objectives, newest enemy etc. You were just in control - it was awesome, I've still not played a game which has felt so immersion. Go it sooked up with a 3D joystick with hat switch and 8 buttons, one of which was assigned to Shift, so I had all of the important controls close to hand. Sadly the joystick has now broken (the 'twist' 3rd axis went to shit). I've NEVER played a good space sim on a console...
Pulsar_t wrote:Do you mean outer space trenches or WWI style ones? Give us more details!
I can post this in another thread, but it was Virtual Reality and the trench was mostly just linear in a perspective similar to the colour screenshot (Buck Rogers I guess). But in more color and with early 3D graphics and stuff. The trench wasn't so deep though. In order to go faster you needed to keep pressing down when you were already at the lowest altitude. You couldn't fly much higher above the trench itself and it was mostly "on rails".
IIRC you played some hacker or cyber-police either against corporations or against cyber-criminals. The end level bosses were typically styled as armed "walls" at the end of the trench I think. I wish I remembered more.
EDIT: I think you also overheated if you were constantly "rubbing" against the floor, but you needed to do it in order to go fast or lose to the time limit. So there was some balance needed.
Ivo.
I don't think its this one, but may give ideas for others. DARKER would use lights on the ground. The closer to them you get the faster you fly. A real pain when your "Light" fuel gets low and the next light tower so far away.
