Looking for Space Sim recommendations

[Aesculapius]

Hey Everyone!

I am a huge fan of the classic space sim games. The Wing Commander series, Privateer, and Freespace 2 are some of my favorites. With MMORPGs and shooters becoming so popular, it seems as if the whole space sim genre has taken a serious back seat making new games harder to find.


I am looking for any recommendations for more recent sims that people have...preferably those that have a good story that drives the game.

A couple that I have found that had few if any reviews:

X3 - release last fall, some have said that the story was weak/minimal

Evochron - somewhat of an indie game without many reviews

Thanks!

[krayzkrok]

http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=50494 (http://www.quartertothree.com/game-talk/showthread.php?t=50494&highlight=evochron)

That's a good thread for Evochron Legends, although it's much more of an open-ended Elite-style sim and doesn't deliver on the story if that's what you want. However, it's the best space sim (in terms of mechanics, feel and atmosphere) that I've played for a long time and there's a small but dedicated multiplayer community around it. The demo will give you a taste (stay in the tutorial mode for infinite time). Its only real flaw is the poor tutorial and steep learning curve, but it's partly intentional (discover it for yourself approach).

[spelk]

(I'll summarise, with comments, rather than link to my list)..

From what I can gather, the current lie of the land is as follows, in no particular order...

X3: Terran Conflict

Very slow and quite interface heavy.

Evochron: Renegades & Evochron Legends

I have to marvel at what has been done with Evochron Renegades, its a fully fledged space combat/trading sim all crammed into a 30Mb install. I haven't got much history with the StarWraith 3D games at all, so the world presented stands as it is, and its convincing enough, the combat is fluid, the craft are customisable to a degree no other game has in terms of presentation, even if they are a little on the blocky and stubby side (you can tweak the size and shape of the parts you add to the ship). All this and more, economy, missions, and planetfall landings.. its very impressive.. Whether it will hold you, graphically speaking its a good few years behind, but content wise its a bargain and it delivers. Looking forward to seeing what can be done with the forthcoming Evochron Legends. For me, I think this perhaps would be the closest to Elite that we've had. If I had a thing for Elite, that is.

Starshatter

This is a well put together game, that I've bought but only really scratched the surface of. Its quite a complex flyer, with graphics that will pass, although the initial fighters come across as aeroplanes rather than space vehicles. It apparently scales up to large Battlecruisers, but I've not been able to get past the rigorous early missions. Perhaps more time needs to be invested here.. Definitely a labour of love, and very moddable.

Spaceforce: Rogue Universe

Not a bad effort, looks good, flys smooth, however theres no tutorial as such, story is thrown at you in fits and starts, and you will spend a lot of time in space not knowing what you're meant to do next. Getting to the key config, requires 3 or 4 menu selections, and then you'll be guessing what it is the quest wants you to do anyway.. pressing all buttons and hoping is a very poor way to make progress.

EVE Online

A subs based MMO, not exactly seat of the pants combat with twitch controls, more orbit enemy and turn on your gatling railgun. With the new graphics update it does look suitably impressive, although weapons are still tacked on and often look out of place, particularly with the smaller ships. EVE promises much, but it takes a lot of effort to deliver, the RPG side of the game is very tenuous, although during character creation it is hyped up a bit too much. Missions are often, fly here, kill these, go back and get the money. Or theres Mining. Which can become an extremely tedious way to earn money. Without the added adrenline rush of the twitch controls its hard to recommend this game in this batch.. but I put it in here because it is one of the few space combat games that gets the "look" and scale right. With every new expansion I ride the tachyon beam back to the game in the hope it has something extra to give the player, but usually theres no noticeable difference from what has come before.

Dark Star One

Another bright star amongst a number of dull efforts. Dark Star One, is easy to get into, the tutorial is helpful, the visuals are suitably stunning and the combat plays smooth. I was impressed by this game, because of its ability to embrace the story and mix it in with the missions and get you upgrading your ship as soon as possible. The ship itself has an organic component to it, which requires you to collect artifacts often hidden away inside of mined out asteroids. Theres something inherently cool about having to navigate your ship in twisty winding tunnels inside a huge asteroid. One of the few installs that just seems to gel together and make the game flow into interesting territory, rather than you have to mine it out with a web-based laser.

Void War

An overly colourful arcadey indie offering that just didn't gel with me at all. I think it was the powerups in space, and the very amateur graphics. I can see some effort has been put in there, and the game is aimed at an arcade audience, who want FPS but in space, but it just didn't strike a chord with me.

Vega Strike

This is a freeware labour of love, and as such it might ignite some peoples laser assemblies, but it just turned me cold.. even the installation routine had me squirming at the lack of polish.. I suppose I'm not appreciating the cross platform freeware aspect of the game, but you know, I'm looking for something that will kindle the spark to make me play it, not necessarily ride the free lunch train to modsville.

Babylon 5: I've found her

Now then, I was very impressed at this freeware offering, basically a modded version of Freespace 2, with Babylon 5 models and storyline to boot. Interesting things were happening as soon as I was onboard a Fury, and there was a tutorial to coax you into the cockpit early on. Worth the effort if you have a passing interest in B5, or of you like your storied combat to have a space opera theme.

Beyond the Red Line

Another modded demo using the Freespace 2 engine to deliver a Battlestar Galactica (the recent show) hit, and I was even more impressed with this, voice acting was well done, and you were sucked into the atmosphere of it all, the graphics and models were superb and the viper Mark VII's looked and handled like they do on the show. As one of the nuggets sekonded to the Pegasus, you're taken through training and on into a couple of missions in this demo, and I must say, I'd look forward to this becoming a full fledged effort in the future.

Galactic Command: Echo Squad

Theres just something about the whole 3000AD setup that see iteration upon iteration of space combat shooters that just don't seem to be put together very well. Gaudy presentation, awkward fonts and key configs, little story.. and yet theres a whole boatload of them, one after the other, and they all seem to be painted with the same unattractive brush. I've dipped into one or two iterations of this franchise and I've always been sorely disappointed every time. And mostly at bargain prices.

Vendetta Online

Now I did play this a long time ago, and its an online game with free account and paid accounts, I can remember the graphics being slightly out of date, and at the time, I was thinking that perhaps they're not going to be able to compete with EVE Online at all.. but its obviously a niche game for fans.

Allegience

Some online shooter that Microsoft have a hand in, I couldn't get it to install properly. The screenshots looked ok, I suppose. When I couldn't install it though, my patience ran out and I stuck it in the airlock and opened the door.

Tarr Chronicles & Dark Horizon

I played this a long while back now, and my memories of it are very vague, but again the controls hurdle of SpaceForce comes to mind. Perhaps another visit is in order, one day. DH, again another beauty I just couldn't get to work. My quest had waned enough for me to ditch games that required extensive helpdesk support to play.

Star Wolves

Another odd ball here, because its not really twitch cockpit stuff as such, but I've written a review of it many moons ago so I thought I'd include it here.

Star Assault

Amateur bewildering effort as I recall.


In development..

Heresy War

Probably my favourite out of the whole collection, its got instant playability, its got the visuals it deserves, with promise of more when the game fleshes out to a final release. Its action and story and it plays smooth and natural. I'll be keeping my eye on this with baited breath.

Infinity Universe

Black Prophecy

Jumpgate Evolution

[FoRmaT]

REPORTED!

[spelk]

Oh dear, have I done something fundamentally wrong? I meant to give an extensive list of space combat sims I've been looking at over the lasrt few months.. and as a gamer who has a keen interest in these things I found the SSC to be a good place to start. I thought pointing members to my list and review would be ok, rather than copy the text here.

Apologies if I've overstepped the mark. I'm not affiliated with SSC in any way.. just found it a good place to go for info.

[Hunty]

I think he's just teasing about linking to your own blog mate. I wouldn't take too much notice anyway. Don't fret - they're on topic and seem like the sort of detailed insight the OP might be interested in.

[marxeil]

Never mind.

[FoRmaT]

I think he's just teasing about linking to your own blog mate. I wouldn't take too much notice anyway. Don't fret - they're on topic and seem like the sort of detailed insight the OP might be interested in.

Yeah, just teasing. The links are actually interesting.

[spelk]

Yeah, just teasing. The links are actually interesting.

Ah ok.. /em blush

Heres the link to the list, with links to the individual game sites if you're interested in any of them.
http://www.ukgamer.co.uk/2009/05/space-combat-sims.html

[Aesculapius]

I think he's just teasing about linking to your own blog mate. I wouldn't take too much notice anyway. Don't fret - they're on topic and seem like the sort of detailed insight the OP might be interested in.

Yes, thank you for the list! I am glad that there are some many options available. My searching was coming up short. Time for me to get busy! :)

[Skipper]

Spelk that's a very fine writeup on many of the games. I now want to check several of them out. Thanks for that.

[Janster]

No there is more than this..

http://www.darkspace.net/

This i played a while, I think its hurting from lack of players, but it was kinda good and fun.

Its sub based tho.

Starsonata is another one again, but its le suck in graphics department.

[Damien Neil]

Oh dear, have I done something fundamentally wrong?

"REPORTED!" is a Qt3 meme that translates to, "I am not funny."

[Tim James]

Wow, I've only heard of 6 or 7 of those. Are Dark Star One and Heresy War really that good or mostly for the space sim geeks? I still need to make it through X3, Starshatter, and maybe grab Evochron since it has TrackIR support.

[Alan Au]

"REPORTED!" is a Qt3 meme that translates to, "I am not funny."
REPORTED

- Alan

[Janster]

I tried Evochron, it kinda sucks, but some like it.

The Darkspace one is not bad, but not worth a subscription, they should really look into going micro-mmo or something.

[spelk]

Heresy Wars is still in development but there is a taster demo available thats worth a look-see. Demo is on the Media page.
http://www.heresywar.com/media.html

Evochron Legends (http://www.ukgamer.co.uk/2009/05/evochron-legends.html) turned up and sucked me in much more than previous Evochron incarnations (Renegades).. I think its the scope of the game that has me hooked onto it, a single guy developer with a footprint of about 150Mb creates something that takes on the likes of the other Elite wanna-bes. Plus you'll find the Evochron community very welcoming, and there is such a close contact with the dev, and he takes his community's suggestions and when appropriate applies them to the game's evolution. Since release Legends has become so much more refined and better, and the seamless integration with multiplayer creates a very dynamic battling arena. You can run a private server and have your friends connect up and go battling, trading, exploring together. The newtonian physics really do add a level not often seen, but it does mean that it takes a little while to become proficient in piloting your evochron craft. Ship customisation is also another highlight, because you take stock pieces of equipment, but can shape them in all 3 directions, and position them where you want, so you can come up with some quite unique builds on top of the standard hull designs. The graphics in Legends are much better than Renegades, but they are still not top end, however you can customise almost everything in the game if you so wish, from cockpits, HUDs and ship models through the planet models and even the stars and nebulae themselves. The story is more of a series of quests, that doesn't really lead you through the game, so much as present tough exploration challenges. The game is really more sandpit and enjoy yourself.

Check out some of the MOD's for the cockpit and HUD (http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewthread.php?tid=3219&page=1) here.. I was involved (in a minor way) in the shaping of the BSG Raptor HUD at one point. I'm not normally a modder as such, but I enjoyed having a bash at it, and the dev made it quite easy to plug in your own HUD elements.

I should say that the game Arvoch Conflict (http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/arvoch/index.htm), is an older iteration of a pure mission based game that the developer created, similar flight mechanics, and often similar modding abilities. So if you're more a mission based flyer than a sandpit explorer, trying the somewhat more graphically dated Arvoch Conflict might serve as a better intro to the Starwraith stuff. But as it stands, Evochron Legends is where the current evolution of the game and the vision is.

[Tim James]

Did he ever tweak the huge pillar graphics in the cockpit? :)

[spelk]

Yeah you can turn those off, or mod them if you want - as well as the cockpit reflections.

[FoRmaT]

Do you mean those metal struts of the canopies? Yes, looking at the screenshots they struck me as being pretty massive.

[Vesper]

spelk, do you know which games on your list support Force Feedback? Being able to dust off my MS Sidewinder ForceFeedback 2 goes a long way toward making me want to try a game.

[spelk]

Sorry Vesper I don't know which games support FF, I guess the only way to find out would be go to the games websites, and see if its listed in the features section.

[Jon_Danger]

Freelancer.

[spelk]

Darkstar One can be sourced on GOG.com for $9.99
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/darkstar_one

[Aesculapius]

I just picked up Darkstar One the other night and it is QUITE enjoyable. Decent story and great gameplay.