Reply With QuoteDoes anyone happen to have the installers for the Freespace 2 SCP? I've got the GOG version reinstalled but can't find the SCP installers, and all the links around the web are all pointing to the same dead server.
So Rubicon also made its funding goal, and the nice thing is the game will be released for free once it's done. Woohoo!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wickworks/rubicon-0
Does anyone happen to have the installers for the Freespace 2 SCP? I've got the GOG version reinstalled but can't find the SCP installers, and all the links around the web are all pointing to the same dead server.
The installers were taken down for some reason. I'll try to find a link to manual install instructions in the morning.Originally Posted by Malderi
http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index...eeSpace_2_Open
This is actually the method I prefer, because I like always having the latest version of stuff (which the installer doesn't do), and I'm just fucking l33t liek that.
Actually, I found an old install on a backup hard drive and it still runs from that. Thank you, though!
Oh, man, when that combat music hit me again for the first time...
Hey y'all, Gemini Wars is out today. I got to play with a preview build, and I had a great time with it, FYI. :)
OMG, in the last ten days, Gemini Wars and Sins came out, and I have betas of Drox and FTL. Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerist it's a busy time for a space gamer, much moreso than I thought it would be when I started my blog.
Are y'all playing all the new stuff? :)
Oh, also, if y'all remember I did an article about space game manuals, and more than one person mentioned the Omnitrend Universe games. Well, I was lucky to snag the 2nd and 3rd Universe games, complete and boxed, on Ebay this past weekend, so I can't wait to dive into those. I do loves me a good, thick...manual...;)
Hell yes! I was thinking exactly that this weekend while I was sucked into Drox and was playing the Endless Space beta too. Never did get a chance to play the FTL beta or Sins: Rebellion. I don't EVER remember a time with so many GOOD space games at once.
These are GREAT times for space game enthusiasts indeed.
Right? It kinda feels like a new golden age, honestly. I don't recall being this busy with space games since the 90s. Feels gooooood.
I think it's time then for this classic exchange.
You space game guys are so lucky. I don't see any party-based CRPGs coming out!
Tim, look at my list, pre 2011. Space games came out MUUUUCH more infrequently since 1999/2000. We're seeing a huge upsurge just in the last several months.
If you include all the KickStarter projects involving space games, which might not be fair given that some percentage of them may never complete, it's a veritable tsunami of space games.
I'm only counting the KS projects that make it. Even beyond that, there are tons of both big and small space games that have come out in the last several months, from tiny indie games (Interstellar Defense Troops, Stellar Impact) to fairly big releases (Sins, Endless Space).
Hey guys, not news about a game really, but the producer of the original Ascendancy has a new sci-fi novel out, and right now it's only $0.99:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008CIN1VC
As a HUGE Ascendancy fan, I jumped on it. I also learned that Ascendancy is ALSO on the iPad! DAMN THEM FOR MAKING ME WANT ONE EVEN MORE! ;)
Best hope for party-based CRPGs are Kickstarter projects. Wasteland and Shadowrun Returns are AFAIK both party-based. Lesser known (more risky) party-based RPGs include Legends of Eisenwald and the Dead State zombie-fighting RPG.
I'm sure there are more, those are just the ones I know about. I'll be surprised if Wasteland and Shadowrun Returns don't end up releasing at least something since they both have solid industry veterans on their team (and collected a relatively large amount of cash by Kickstarter standards). Legends of Eisenwald and the Dead State I don't know either way, but they looked interesting. Dead State is still open, but it looks like they will almost certainly hit their goal.
Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled Space program. (By the way the thread title showed up on the main Qt3 overview page as "Space Game General" and the rest of the thread title got cut off, and I was all excited because I thought someone was going to try to come up with something like the Star General combined space and ground game, but then I released it was just vBulletin cutting off part of the name.)
I LOVED the original Asencdancy game outside of AI issues.
and that awesome music... might get it on my pad.
That said, did they ever fix the AI issues, or more specifically, is it fixed on the pad?`
I remember loading this game up, starting a game on hardest just to toy around with it, and ending up winning my first game on the hardest setting without knowing what I was doing.
I felt so cheated.
They did patch in a more challenging AI a bit after the original game's release, if I recall correctly.
So all these "space games" coming out, any of them space sims? Just curious. I have nothing against strategy games or rpgs or first person shooters, but those aren't exactly dormant genres like space sims. And Tim is suddenly comparing a very specific genre to a whole category of many games that happened to be set in space? Aside from Brian Rubin, does anyone else really miss "space games" in general? I thought "space games" never really went away, only space sims did? I guess I never gave the matter much thought before. I'd just assumed that games set in space (like Mass Effect 3, Dead Space 2, AI Wars, MOO2 clones, etc) have been coming out steadily this whole time?
And also this thread makes my head hurt for another reason: all these names for "space games" are soooooooo generic, I can never keep track of which game is which.
If you need it pm me. That is by far some of my favorite space music of all time.
In my mind, at least, there's a difference between "Sci-Fi" games and "Space" games.
Games like Mass Effect 3, Dead Space 2 and so on are merely "Sci-Fi" games because they use space as a mere backdrop. Those games could just as easily take place entirely on a planet and they'd likely not be much different. They take place in the future, sure, but space is just there to add to the "futureness" of it and nothing more.
"Space" games, on the other hand, have to deal with the expanse, danger, wonder and awe of space as an active and vital part of the game. This means the game has you experience space not merely as a backdrop, but as something the player has to deal with, whether it's the distances of space in a space sim, or dealing with other aliens and cultures in a space-based strategy game.
Interestingly enough, more space games were released between 2000 and 2009 compared between 1990 and 1999, the difference is the size of the audience and the scope of the developers involved. in the 90s, space gaming was big, and it was everywhere. Not only did you have the big boys like Wing Commander and the X-Wing games, but everything in-between from larger and more established companies.
In the aughts, things switched to where indie and eastern European picked up the slack left behind by the large American and British publishers, and honestly, the genre suffered as a result, especially from the perspective of depth of the games involved. Whereas before 2000, we had trading games, combat sims, top-down shooters and much more. After 2000, many of the games made by indies or Europeans, sadly I have to admit this, just weren't that deep or good. Therefore something indeed was lost, for many years. Heck, before I built my list on my blog, I barely a lot of the games after 2000 even existed, mostly because the bulk of them are simple games like shooters and the like. Heck, if a space game whore like ME didn't know these games existed, how did anyone else.
So yes, we have felt a dearth of space gaming over the last several years, and let me tell you I'm not the only one who misses good, deep, meaningful space gaming if the traffic and comments on my blog are any indication.
Sorry if I sound defensive, but god dammit, someone has to defend this shit from folks that don't fully get just how dire things felt from a space game fan's perspective. I dunno about others, but I'm tired of feeling like being thrown a bone of some games that happen to be set in space but really don't offer anything more should just be accepted.
It was just a joke, but to be fair that came up in a thread about space games in general.
Seriously though, it's good for the hobby. I'm sure CRPGs and all my other favorites will come around again too.
Yeah, I'm not being all that serious either. But Brian's definition of space games and their generality is always baffling to me. I truly don't understand what makes a space game vs a scifi game in his mind.
Even by that definition, I'd still count Mass Effect 3 and Dead Space as space games before I'd count Sins of a Solar Empire or Moo2. The strategy games can just have their themes switched around and suddenly you're in a historical setting like Civilization. But in Dead Space and Mass Effect, you're actually dealing with the expanse, danger, wonder and awe of space as an active and vital part of the game. There's a real danger of being blown off the ship in a zero grav environment in many parts of dead space as you go on space walks or go through broken portions of the ship exposed to space. You can't get that in a historic or fantasy setting. Also, you're dealing with aliens and their cultures a LOT more in the Mass Effect series than you are in space-based strategy games.
I dunno, I've only played a bit of ME, but when I look at those games you mentioned, DS and ME, my spacegamedar doesn't go off. I don't get the excitement of seeing a space game. I don't get the desire to own the game because it's a space game. To me, they look like action adventure games that use space as a backdrop, but that's it.
Maybe, to me, space games have to impart a feeling of expanse, a feeling of exploration, and a feeling that I'm actually living and acting in space. Those games just don't give me that feel. It's kinda hard to describe, I guess.
The thing I like about Brian's website is that, despite the fact that we both love sci-fi games, we play completely different types of games. I have extremely limited sim experience, really nothing played since TIE Fighter, and I never really play 4x games at all. Mass Effect and Dead Space games, though, I played the hell out of. So Brian's info has value to me as a window into gaming experiences that I'm probably not going to have firsthand. That's really the only meaningful distinction for me, but it does have value.
I agree more with Brian than you, while your points are valid I find Brian's more appealing as to how I see Space games.
However for me I think of Space games as more things like Freespace, Independence War so Flight Simulators in space, however I also know this isn't the only valid description of a Space game.
I suppose when I play the game does it feel like i'm in space, some do that and others don't. I mean ME3 was really on planets not in space as such, that fly your ship round bit was total shite, now make it a flight simulation bit in space and sure for me it would feel more like an in space setting, hence it feels more Sci Fi than space.
Dead Space might be the only action game in the 21st century where the fact that you are in space matters. (Shooting open the windows, sucking out the necromorphs, and then shooting the seal before you get sucked out yourself was awesome).
Kinda agree with Brian too, however I don't think Mass effects hurts the space scene, I think it's a boooooon
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