Favourite space sim <<from the past if possible>>
MindFever
Freelancer (friggin awesome MP support) and Tachion. I mean,the story was so
friggin compelling...
Ofcourse X3 Reunion is cool ,but gets kinda boring from time to time...but
it is fucking interesting ! ;) excuse my language ( i ment to say that it is
indeed well done)
But i seriously want another one that has a compelling story.Remember the
days where space-sims had a verry cool dialogue and "atmosphere" ? (heh,in
figurative terms ofcourse).
Indipendence Wars was a prime example.Though i hated the fact that in the
2nd one you were a lame kid ...but okay,it was a great story and the
interface just rocked the world.
I use childish grammar (and ofcourse my grammar is not that good since my
native language is not english) because it brings up memories where
everything was just fine ,you know?
So excuse my word usage ,if you can ... please ? :)
Oh,the bottom list is this: Battlecruiser v.1 ,Battlecruiser Millenium
(dissapointment over promised and not delivered features... fuck you Derek )
Goomich
> Though i hated the fact that
> in the 2nd one you were a lame kid ...
For 4 or 5 first missions...
--
Pozdrawiam Krzysztof Ferenc
krzysztof.f...@interia.eu UIN: 6750153
We are the revolutionaries. We are the usurpers to heavenly thrones.
We are the enemies of the gods.
Memnoch
Starflight 1 and 2 were great fun. I also liked the two Megatraveller games
although I prefered the first one.
Memnoch
>Oh,the bottom list is this: Battlecruiser v.1 ,Battlecruiser Millenium
>(dissapointment over promised and not delivered features... fuck you Derek )
Almost forgot about that one. The other day I was have a tidy up, chucking out
old boxes for equipment that I have no help of selling to anything but a
museum, and what do I find. The manual to Battlecruise V1. Yes, I was one of
those poor bastards that bought this "game". A friend of mine had been banging
on about this for ages saying that it was going to be the best game ever. We
don't speak much now. :-)
Sheldon England
> Starflight 1 and 2 were great fun. I also liked the two Megatraveller games
> although I prefered the first one.
>
There were Megatraveller computer games? :o
- Sheldon
MindFever
"Goomich" <krzysztof.f...@interia.eu> wrote in message
news:Xns9B84C69A1648D...@127.0.0.1...
Oh,that's right... i remember now ;) but it was a bit odd ... But okay, i
shall agree it was a great game
MindFever
"Memnoch" <mem...@nospampleaseimbritish.ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:qsfll49l2ag65tof6...@4ax.com...
Megatraveller ? On what system was that?
Starflight ... hmm,i think i played this one a few times.Was it also on
Amiga?
MindFever
"Memnoch" <mem...@nospampleaseimbritish.ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:p1gll4dbubr58q13d...@4ax.com...
Hahaha ;) oh my god... BC3K manual! hah,i remember giving this piece of crap
game to a friend of myne.He litelarly lost his mind (in the sense he allmost
went crazy because of utter crapness).
The most guileable thing i ever saw was when Derek stated that every fucking
thing he did was everyone else's fault...and that this game will rock after
the first patch.Needless to say it wasn't so ;)
DEREK SMART
DEREK SMART
DEREK SMART
let the chanting begin! :)
p.s.: Anyone has ever tried the new game Galactic Command ECHO SQUAD from
3000AD "productions" ? :) I sure didn't... Oh,the new thing about his GFX
engine.NOW ITS OFFICIAL: he INTENDED the graphics to be outdated for a
more - and i quote - "retro feel" . bwahahaha ;)
Memnoch
Yep.
Megatraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy
Megatraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients
Have a look here:
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/660/MegaTraveller+1+-+The+Zhodani+Conspiracy.html
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/851/MegaTraveller+2+-+Quest+for+the+Ancients.html
Memnoch
I believe so. I should still have my copies laying around somewhere. One of
the things I liked about Starflight was the ability to orbit a planet, then
send down a rover to explore, sometimes finding special artifacts.
MindFever
"Memnoch" <mem...@nospampleaseimbritish.ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:9epml4hbq573e95p2...@4ax.com...
Oh yeah! I think i played a demo once... couldn't find the release in our
country though.Or maybe i waited too long (probably that's the case ...).
Who knows...maybe Derek Smart invented this game too ;) (since he said he
was doing his game since 1989 ,which is laughable )
I know that this newsnet server doesnt talk about normal simulators ,but...
do you remember a very well done air combat sim called PANAVIA TORNADO ?
Seriously,this one was intense and very realistic for that time.It even had
functional MFD displays. cool
Oh,thanks for the links to Megatraveler screens !
Gandalf Parker
news:baq6l.10970$x84.3...@news.siol.net:
> Freelancer (friggin awesome MP support) and Tachion. I mean,the story
> was so friggin compelling...
Space Empires IV (but not Space Empires V). Yeah I know its not really a
sim. More of a 4x. But I liked it.
Out of the box SEIV wasnt much. I think it was 8 races and 50 stars. Feels
like a demo now when I reinstall it and play it without the add-ons. But
with the player mods it became 255 stars and tons of other added features.
I have over 300 races loaded to mine and thats even with me being fairly
picky about what ones I kept.
I still play fairly often. Even in solo mode. Too bad SEV going to 3d
killed so much of the modding efforts.
Gandalf Parker
--
InMyHumbleOpinion SEV is to SEIV as Vista is to WinXP. Yes there are
improvements built in but until enough people start building off of them
there isnt much reason to upgrade.
Nats
The only space games (theyre not simulators) that really interested me were
Elite Frontier and First Encounters. Other good games were X-Wing, Space
Shuttle and Wing Commander. Other than that I havent played anything worth
while for ages.
Must be too old to enjoy those kinds of games these days because I hate the
X games, I hated Tachyon, I didnt really enjoy the Privateer games all that
much either.
Elite is far far above anything else though by a mile - in fact its
practically the only game that I have ever played for literally months on
its own non-stop (other than EF2000, TAW and Falcon 4). I havent played any
games half as much as these four games which probably combined take up 80%
or more of my whole 20 years worth of game playing time! I am so glad there
are not any games around now of this quality as I really would have started
to regret my gameplaying addiction by now if it had continued. Now I play
practically nothing.
Sheldon England
> Sheldon England wrote:
>
>
>> There were Megatraveller computer games? :o
>>
>
> Yep.
>
> Megatraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy
> Megatraveller 2: Quest for the Ancients
>
> Have a look here:
>
> http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/660/MegaTraveller+1+-+The+Zhodani+Conspiracy.html
> http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/851/MegaTraveller+2+-+Quest+for+the+Ancients.html
>
How could I have missed these? I loved the pencil and paper
Megatraveller. Played it for years and years.
Thank you very much. I am obliged.
- Sheldon
Memnoch
I never played the P&P games but I have looked over the various source
materials and it looks like it was a fun game.
MindFever
"Nats" <nst...@homecall.co.uk> wrote in message
news:495b8...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
Oh yes,Wing Commander was quite memorable...i remember playing it with 6
disks (or 5) on Amiga 500+.What an engaging story it was!
And i loved the fact that you could change your aircraft (every single one
of them had a different cockpit).but i don't remember how much of the choice
you realy had.
Hehe, I have fond memories of the Wing Commander Officer's Mess ;) (trying
to move my score higher and higher)
Elite,well i haven't actualy played this when it came out...i played it on
on P166MMX ,but i liked it.Too bad it didnt run well (crashed alot).
It was interesting though... Elite had the possibility to travel arround to
other planets ,right?
I remember i found out that you could also land on planets.I was like
"OMFG!" :)
EF 2000 was great.I remember the SILVER cd with that big-ass manual ;) was
fun and the atmosphere was authentic. I dont remember if i ever saw the most
pretty above-the-clouds flights on any other simulator. The moonling was
just so amazing ,you could feel "right there" when you played it...and yet
you knew that danger was near.
It was creepy actualy. who agrees with me ? :)
Karl Frank
> Oh yes,Wing Commander was quite memorable...i remember playing it with 6
> disks (or 5) on Amiga 500+.What an engaging story it was!
> And i loved the fact that you could change your aircraft (every single
> one of them had a different cockpit).but i don't remember how much of
> the choice you realy had.
>
> Hehe, I have fond memories of the Wing Commander Officer's Mess ;)
> (trying to move my score higher and higher)
You might want to try Secret Ops (the sequel to Wing Commander Prophecy)
which is free to download now (you can get the episodes legally from
www.wcnews.com) or one of the mods for it (Unknown Enemy, Standoff) then.
MindFever
"Karl Frank" <ka...@karl.frank.name> wrote in message
news:495de2b3$0$2295$91ce...@newsreader02.highway.telekom.at...
Yes,i've heard about it... hmm,i'll do that ASAP.Thanks man !
Joe Granto
complexity and such. For sheer "wow, that was awesome" factor, there
is Freespace 2. Getting targeted by beam weapons that first time was,
er, awesome. Getting hit sucked.
Stuffed Crust
> Freelancer (friggin awesome MP support) and Tachion. I mean,the story was so
> friggin compelling...
For me, Privateer, hands-down. It was perfect in every way. I still have
it on my hard disk. (Yay, DOSbox!)
The closest anything's come to recapturing that feel was Freelancer.. but it
sort of lacked...soul? Adding a dynamic economy, more variety in the
auto-generated missions, and in-flight voice sets for each house would have
made quite a difference. (It also feels like they cut stuff out to make it
fit on one CD...)
Tachyon was decent (My, that's a... big gun!), but also seemed to be missing
something that kept it from becoming a truly great game. The same went for
Privateer 2. Too much emphasis on the FMV, but the space combat was
squirrely.
More recently, Darkstar One was a good attempt, but it placed too much
emphasis on the story too and there wasn't really much to do once the story
was complete. The game mechanics were also dumbed down too far; there was
never any real challenge and too much hand-holding. (Tachyon was quite good
on that front)
TIE Fighter was in a league of its own; I think that was the most totally
awesome space sim ever. Deep, complex, and difficult.
> Indipendence Wars was a prime example.Though i hated the fact that in the
> 2nd one you were a lame kid ...but okay,it was a great story and the
> interface just rocked the world.
I picked up the 1st I-War game not too long ago, but it has problems
running on modern systems (too much memory, ironically..)
- Solomon
--
Solomon Peachy pizza at shaftnet dot org
Melbourne, FL ^^ (mail/jabber/gtalk) ^^
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
MindFever
"Stuffed Crust" <pi...@spam.fucktheusers.org> wrote in message
news:gju0s1$6gh$1...@news.motzarella.org...
I must congratulate you ... you encapsulated my exact thoughts about
Freelancer and Tachion ... Freelancer indeed lacked that "thing".Sure,you
felt that something was happening, the freedom and everything else. But it
lacked a certain prespective of reality.Heh,sounds funny to talk about
reality in a sci-fi game,but if you catch my drift you know what I actually
mean.Yes,i would love to see more diverse missions. Love the fact that you
could TARGET a specific hardware on an enemy vessel and just blow it to
peaces in a way you like ;)
Tachion on the other hand made you feel that there is more to the game,it
was the story and the drive. But lacked that thing that Freelancer had
(freedom,exploration etc. ). It would be extremely awesome if Freelancer 2
would come out some day. The thing i loved the most was the MP support...i
mean,you could make a persistent world server with a limited amount of
bandwidth.How cool is that?
I-war 2 ... yes,this game had the WOW factor and you felt realy involved
playing it.Too bad i never finished playing it (deleted my savegames,stupid
me).I think i'll make a "marathon" again and try to finish it ;)
Good review btw ;)
Cheers
Tomi G.
Qui audet,vincit (is that right?)
Memnoch
>I-war 2 ... yes,this game had the WOW factor and you felt realy involved
>playing it.Too bad i never finished playing it (deleted my savegames,stupid
>me).I think i'll make a "marathon" again and try to finish it ;)
The last mission in I-War 2 almost drove me nuts. Combat in that game was fun,
probably the best I have ever played I expect.
Regarding Darkstar One, I loved the ability to customise your ship in a
variety of ways. I think I went with all hull giving you a dreadnought with
turrets everywhere. It didn't turn too fast but didn't need to.
MindFever
"Memnoch" <mem...@nospampleaseimbritish.ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:t9m5m4htel70tar28...@4ax.com...
Hmmm, Darkstar One ... dammit, this game sounds so extremely familiar. I
think i got an email from them a few months ago. Is DS One a MMO game or is
it single-player only? I probably confused this with another game ;)
Don't tell me the ending of the I-war 2 ... i warn you :)))
Memnoch
Its a single player game. A bit weak on story but the combat is fun.
Definitely worth a look and I found it superior to Freelancer.
>Don't tell me the ending of the I-war 2 ... i warn you :)))
I wouldn't do that. You are in for a hell of a ride!
MindFever
"Memnoch" <mem...@nospampleaseimbritish.ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:pnv6m4tv1uh0dl8jg...@4ax.com...
Ahh...its another game then. I'll definitely check it out ,thanks for the
tip ;)
> I wouldn't do that. You are in for a hell of a ride!
ah yes,i should feel at home ... lol :D seriously though,i like being
tossed into hell in games ...and yet it must give you a sense of purpose.I
hope that I-war 2 gives you exactly that.
board...@gmail.com
physics, it isn't fun.
Bret Ripley
> Playing Terminus online and IWar2. If you don't have Newtonian
> physics, it isn't fun.
I dunno. I have Newtonian physics in RL, and it can be annoying at times.
Bret
DarkOne
> On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:53:08 -0800 (PST), boardnd...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Playing Terminus online and IWar2. If you don't have Newtonian
> > physics, it isn't fun.
>
> I dunno. I have Newtonian physics in RL, and it can be annoying at times.
>
> Bret
I really enjoyed WC3,4,5,WCSO, Tachyon and Freelancer and Freespace 2.
Those games are what hooked me forever as a space sim junkie. The
cutscenes in the WC games really hooked you into the games and Bruce
Campbell's voice acting in Tachyon was great. Oh and Starlancer was an
excellent game as well. On my space sim website http://www.spacesimcentral.com
I have a download area as well. You can get Wing Commander Secret Ops
and there is also a keygen there to to get your key.
Have fun and hope to talk space sims with you there.
-D1-
noman
> The one that REALY blew my mind were:
>
> Freelancer (friggin awesome MP support) and Tachion. I mean,the story
> was so friggin compelling...
>
[snip]
My favourite ones are Wing Commander 1 and 2, Tie Fighter, Freespace 2
and Independence War 1 and 2.
In fact, I just installed Wing Commander 1 (Kilarthi Saga version) on a
Vista x64 PC. It runs surprisingly well in Win95 compatibility mode.
--
Noman
Jonah Falcon
Angus Manwaring
>MindFever wrote:
>> The one that REALY blew my mind were:
>>
>> Freelancer (friggin awesome MP support) and Tachion. I mean,the story
>> was so friggin compelling...
>>
>[snip]
>My favourite ones are Wing Commander 1 and 2, Tie Fighter, Freespace 2
>and Independence War 1 and 2.
I'm an Amiga guy, soon to get a pc, but I've played I-War and thought it
was great.
On the Amiga, Warhead is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece, and a game I
really liked from the mid nineties was Star Crusader.
All the best,
Angus Manwaring. (for e-mail remove ANTISPEM)
I need your memories for the Amiga Games Database: A collection of Amiga
Game reviews by Amiga players http://www.angusm.demon.co.uk/AGDB/AGDB.html
Graham Thurlwell
<angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk> wrote:
<snip>
> I'm an Amiga guy, soon to get a pc, but I've played I-War and thought it
> was great.
BBC from the start, and then Acorn/RISC OS, but I still don't know how
I managed to miss out on I-War. As a veteran of the Frontier games and
Black Angel it should have been right up my street and yet I never
bought it.
> On the Amiga, Warhead is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece, and a game I
> really liked from the mid nineties was Star Crusader.
I really should find the bits and rebuild my A600.
Great to hear from you, by the way. I was recently going over my links
pages and was shocked by how many of the people of the old 'Elite
Scene' seem to have gone their separate ways.
--
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.
nos...@jades.org /is/ a real email address!
Angus Manwaring
><snip>
>> I'm an Amiga guy, soon to get a pc, but I've played I-War and thought it
>> was great.
>BBC from the start, and then Acorn/RISC OS, but I still don't know how
>I managed to miss out on I-War. As a veteran of the Frontier games and
>Black Angel it should have been right up my street and yet I never
>bought it.
You should put this right, Graham, my old mucker. :)
You still see the budget release of IW2 Edge of Chaos knocking about
sometimes. From what I played of the game I was very impressed, also
Hardwar, which kind of Elitey but set on a moon with a mining facility.
Very cool game.
>> On the Amiga, Warhead is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece, and a game I
>> really liked from the mid nineties was Star Crusader.
>I really should find the bits and rebuild my A600.
No argument here. :)
I'm looking at several space games with a view to purchasing one or two,
but they all seem to have pros and cons, included are:
Freespace 1 & 2
Freelancer
The various X games
and I'm still looking,
>Great to hear from you, by the way. I was recently going over my links
>pages and was shocked by how many of the people of the old 'Elite
>Scene' seem to have gone their separate ways.
I've just recently bumped into another former alt.fan.elite regular, Colin
Wilson, who has been very helpful with pc advice.
What's the status of your FFE project Graham?
Henry
<angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On the Amiga, Warhead is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece
Never tried the original Warhead; a game on the PC that claimed to be
"inspired"
by it was the dire Mantis X57000 which I've moaned about before: 1st
person fighter
combat but with Newtonian physics. Just flying about was quite fun but
combat
didn't really work (and some of the worst cut scene scripts/acting
ever).
> and a game I really liked from the mid nineties was Star Crusader.
IIRC that appeared on the PC a bit before Privateer came out. I played
through it,
but I never found it as involving as the Wing Commander or X-Wing
series.
The aspect of these games that I find the most fun are the challenges
of
getting and staying on the enemy's tail, and of aiming at and leading
a
target by eye (rather than depend on the various predictive aids that
appeared
in later games). With the pitch/roll control scheme that X-Wing and
Star Crusader used, I was only able to track targets along the
vertical, but
the landscape format displays and cockpit art along the top and
bottom
of the screen tended to mean that if I got too close on someone's tail
I'd end up trying to track something that I couldn't actually see. At
least in
X-Wing the aiming reticle changes colour as a guide; my recollection
of
combat in Star Crusader is that it involved far too much pulling hard
on the
stick and blasting away blindly whilst trying to get a blob centred on
some
crosshairs in a small display in the corner of the screen.
Wing Commander of course finessed this problem by using pitch/yaw
controls and setting up most of the encounters on a "horizontal"
plane.
My nominations for unfairly ignored games are Backlash (in which
you're
the tail gunner) and Star Rangers (simple combat, but with competent
wingmen and the beginnings of a strategic thing from having to jump
around the map without knowing what's going on). Both are quite short
and no real plot though.
Then there's Darker, which isn't really a space sim and more a
category
of it's own...
Hth
Henry
Angus Manwaring
>On 21 Aug, 21:12, "Angus Manwaring"
><angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> On the Amiga, Warhead is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece
>Never tried the original Warhead; a game on the PC that claimed to be
>"inspired"
>by it was the dire Mantis X57000 which I've moaned about before: 1st
>person fighter
>combat but with Newtonian physics. Just flying about was quite fun but
>combat
>didn't really work (and some of the worst cut scene scripts/acting
>ever).
Sounds like one to avoid - but I mean, you might laugh at Warhead if you
didn't take into account the context of being essentially a one man
project, that could fit on to one floppy disk - from around 1989, I think.
>> and a game I really liked from the mid nineties was Star Crusader.
>IIRC that appeared on the PC a bit before Privateer came out. I played
>through it,
>but I never found it as involving as the Wing Commander or X-Wing
>series.
Well on the Amiga, Star Crusader used basic polygons and Wing Commander
used scaled sprites, which just didn't really cut it for me, but I
completed the CD32 version and thought it was actually pretty darn good.
>The aspect of these games that I find the most fun are the challenges
>of
>getting and staying on the enemy's tail,
You and me both! :)
> and of aiming at and leading
>a
>target by eye (rather than depend on the various predictive aids that
>appeared
>in later games). With the pitch/roll control scheme that X-Wing and
>Star Crusader used, I was only able to track targets along the
>vertical, but
>the landscape format displays and cockpit art along the top and
>bottom
>of the screen tended to mean that if I got too close on someone's tail
>I'd end up trying to track something that I couldn't actually see. At
>least in
>X-Wing the aiming reticle changes colour as a guide; my recollection
>of
>combat in Star Crusader is that it involved far too much pulling hard
>on the
>stick and blasting away blindly whilst trying to get a blob centred on
>some
>crosshairs in a small display in the corner of the screen.
Not here... there was a predictive aiming reticle, that worked pretty well
- for my money Star Crusader was one of the best dogfighters, maybe the
best on the Amiga, I speak of a fan of The Hunters with Robert Mitchum!
:)
The thing to remember was not to be too gung-ho in the initial head to
head of any engagement as this was likey to lead to a collision fatal to
both parties.
>My nominations for unfairly ignored games are Backlash (in which
>you're
>the tail gunner) and Star Rangers (simple combat, but with competent
>wingmen and the beginnings of a strategic thing from having to jump
>around the map without knowing what's going on). Both are quite short
>and no real plot though.
>Then there's Darker, which isn't really a space sim and more a
>category
>of it's own...
Thanks Henry, I'll keep an eye out for these. If anyone's interested, the
Amiga games mentioned are reviewed on my wensite below - along with a few
others.
Cheers.
Henry
Let's see if I have better luck with Google's formatting this time.
On 3 Sep, 21:24, "Angus Manwaring"
<angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 02-Sep-09 22:24:14, Henry said
>
> >On 21 Aug, 21:12, "Angus Manwaring"
> ><angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >> On the Amiga, Warhead is a bit of a forgotten masterpiece
> >Never tried the original Warhead; a game on the PC that claimed to be
> >"inspired"
> >by it was the dire Mantis X57000 which I've moaned about before: 1st
> >person fighter
> >combat but with Newtonian physics. Just flying about was quite fun but
> >combat
> >didn't really work (and some of the worst cut scene scripts/acting
> >ever).
>
> Sounds like one to avoid - but I mean, you might laugh at Warhead if you
> didn't take into account the context of being essentially a one man
> project, that could fit on to one floppy disk - from around 1989, I think.
Mantis only mentioned being "inspired by Warhead" in the manual - I
don't know if there was any formal connection. Mantis was an early 90s
10-floppy epic with digitised video cutscenes, so a budget that could
have stretched to actors and actual scriptwriter rather than a
typewriter and two monkeys...
> >> and a game I really liked from the mid nineties was Star Crusader.
> >IIRC that appeared on the PC a bit before Privateer came out. I played
> >through it,
> >but I never found it as involving as the Wing Commander or X-Wing
> >series.
>
> Well on the Amiga, Star Crusader used basic polygons and Wing Commander
> used scaled sprites, which just didn't really cut it for me, but I
> completed the CD32 version and thought it was actually pretty darn good.
That was true on the PC too. I agree it's a bit disconconcerting when
a carrier instantaneously jumps through 45 degrees, but it's not as
though you need to line yourself up to land on it - I never found it a
gameplay issue. (The later WC engines seemed a bit more fluid, too.)
The graphics were quite good but Star Crusader never seemed entirely
finished... for example there was a hex-based map of the play area
that you could use to send the rest of your squadron on patrol or
attack missions - but success or failure at this didn't appear to
affect the flow of the game at all.
> >... my recollection of
> >combat in Star Crusader is that it involved far too much pulling hard
> >on the
> >stick and blasting away blindly whilst trying to get a blob centred on
> >some
> >crosshairs in a small display in the corner of the screen.
>
> Not here... there was a predictive aiming reticle, that worked pretty well
> - for my money Star Crusader was one of the best dogfighters, maybe the
> best on the Amiga,
Possibly my brain-cells going a bit after all these years then.
Unless they finished the game off whilst "porting" it to the Amiga or
some such stunt.
I definitely recall the occasional stealth missions, and I'm pretty
sure the predictive aiming had to be done through a small display at
the bottom left. You'll know if I get bored this weekend - I'll dig it
out and check the manual.
Hth
Henry
Angus Manwaring
>Hi
>Mantis only mentioned being "inspired by Warhead" in the manual - I
>don't know if there was any formal connection. Mantis was an early 90s
>10-floppy epic with digitised video cutscenes, so a budget that could
>have stretched to actors and actual scriptwriter rather than a
>typewriter and two monkeys...
Two?! We used to dream of having two monkeys. :)
>> Well on the Amiga, Star Crusader used basic polygons and Wing Commander
>> used scaled sprites, which just didn't really cut it for me, but I
>> completed the CD32 version and thought it was actually pretty darn good.
>That was true on the PC too. I agree it's a bit disconconcerting when
>a carrier instantaneously jumps through 45 degrees, but it's not as
>though you need to line yourself up to land on it - I never found it a
>gameplay issue. (The later WC engines seemed a bit more fluid, too.)
No, not gameplay - I just happen to "believe" in polygons more - eben if
they are as basic as the ones in the Amiga version. I know a lot of folk
preferred the sprite effect.
>The graphics were quite good but Star Crusader never seemed entirely
>finished... for example there was a hex-based map of the play area
>that you could use to send the rest of your squadron on patrol or
>attack missions - but success or failure at this didn't appear to
>affect the flow of the game at all.
Yes - it was certainly not without its imperfections. It did have at least
one brabch in the plot though where you decided if you were going to join
the underdogs and fight the Empire though - which was quite cool.
>>
>> Not here... there was a predictive aiming reticle, that worked pretty well
>> - for my money Star Crusader was one of the best dogfighters, maybe the
>> best on the Amiga,
>Possibly my brain-cells going a bit after all these years then.
>Unless they finished the game off whilst "porting" it to the Amiga or
>some such stunt.
That would be a first. :)
I remember you could choose the configuration of the 3 multi function
display screens at the base of the display, and there were quite a few
funcyions to choose from. One was supposed to show a small polygon
rendition of your target, at it correct aspect relative to you. This never
seemed to work properly on my Amiga, so I didn't use it. Perhaps what your
describing was associated with that screen.
Actually in order to get the game working at a decent framerate I had to
use John Girvin's patch, as well as copying the fastexec.library into ram
- I think. After that if flew in comparison.
Mind you, you hear people complaining about 30 fps these days, and I
suspect they would describe it as "unplayable". :)
>I definitely recall the occasional stealth missions, and I'm pretty
>sure the predictive aiming had to be done through a small display at
>the bottom left. You'll know if I get bored this weekend - I'll dig it
>out and check the manual.
Yes, I remember the stealth stuff, very cool. Suddently it was like you
were playing Microprose's Silent service again - and you had a special bit
of kit (a cloak?) with its own display.
Graham Thurlwell
<angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 28-Aug-09 21:10:43, Graham Thurlwell said
>>On the 21 Aug 2009, "Angus Manwaring"
>><angus@angusm_ANTISPEM_.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>><snip>
>>> I'm an Amiga guy, soon to get a pc, but I've played I-War and thought it
>>> was great.
>>BBC from the start, and then Acorn/RISC OS, but I still don't know how
>>I managed to miss out on I-War. As a veteran of the Frontier games and
>>Black Angel it should have been right up my street and yet I never
>>bought it.
> You should put this right, Graham, my old mucker. :)
Yeah, I probably should.
> You still see the budget release of IW2 Edge of Chaos knocking about
> sometimes. From what I played of the game I was very impressed
Wasn't it more freeform than I-War 1? I played the demo of the first
one but never got round to getting either of them.
> also Hardwar, which kind of Elitey but set on a moon with a mining facility.
> Very cool game.
Yeah, I've got that one. Amazing game, the whole moth concept was
unique together with having a day/night cycle that actually meant
something. Trading system and the way all of the AI ships got on with
their own agenda was fantastic.
<snip>
> I'm looking at several space games with a view to purchasing one or two,
> but they all seem to have pros and cons, included are:
> Freespace 1 & 2
Never played either of these, although I vaquely recall them being
well thought of by quite a few players.
> Freelancer
Was that the Microsoft one? Never played it.
> The various X games
I enjoyed X1 and its expansion pack X-Tension immensely but never got
round to getting the sequels due to a combination of not having the
system specs at the time and intermittent PC problems (now fixed).
> and I'm still looking,
Elite 4's in development, but that's not going to be out any time
soon. No rush really, and they can't afford another repeat of what
happened with FFE.
>>Great to hear from you, by the way. I was recently going over my links
>>pages and was shocked by how many of the people of the old 'Elite
>>Scene' seem to have gone their separate ways.
> I've just recently bumped into another former alt.fan.elite regular, Colin
> Wilson, who has been very helpful with pc advice.
Yeah, his name's familiar.
> What's the status of your FFE project Graham?
I'm working on an update for my FFE site, having got back into the
game recently - I had stopped playing for quite a while due to having
a lot of other games I wanted to play more and losing my Dubya save
due to having to reformat my XP machine (recovery wouldn't work).
Another factor for resuming work is it gives me something productive
to do with my little A9home (http://www.thea9.info) that I got last
year.
Probably have something new put up in the next week or so, including
updated Guide and Trade pages (which I've been working on today)
updates to a couple of ship reviews, complete Equipment Reviews and
maybe a couple of other bits and bobs.
--
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.
nos...@jades.org is currently broken, please reply on group!
Angus
nos...@jades.org says...
> >>> I'm an Amiga guy, soon to get a pc, but I've played I-War and
thought it
> >>> was great.
pc now here and in use. :(
>
>
> > You still see the budget release of IW2 Edge of Chaos knocking about
> > sometimes. From what I played of the game I was very impressed
>
> Wasn't it more freeform than I-War 1? I played the demo of the first
> one but never got round to getting either of them.
>
Well, I've not played I-War 1, but certainly in the second, you seemed
to get a good indication of which way the plot was going and how to
follow it, but you were (I think) fairly free to do your own thing.
Its been a while though, and I didn't play the game in great depth.
> > also Hardwar, which kind of Elitey but set on a moon with a mining facility.
> > Very cool game.
>
> Yeah, I've got that one. Amazing game, the whole moth concept was
> unique together with having a day/night cycle that actually meant
> something. Trading system and the way all of the AI ships got on with
> their own agenda was fantastic.
Yes, and I even thought the video footage was well done - the guy who
ran the hardware place, and was slowly going down with radiation
sickness was great.
I still miss him. :)
>
> > The various X games
>
> I enjoyed X1 and its expansion pack X-Tension immensely but never got
> round to getting the sequels due to a combination of not having the
> system specs at the time and intermittent PC problems (now fixed).
I hear a lot of conflicting stuff about the X games - I recently saw a
very funny US TV review of X3 on Youtube, worth a look if you can find
it.
> Elite 4's in development, but that's not going to be out any time
> soon. No rush really, and they can't afford another repeat of what
> happened with FFE.
I'm still waitiing for the promised Amiga version!!
I suspect, I'll have been forced to buy another computer before that
game is seem.
I just hope my spacestation is still in it.
> > What's the status of your FFE project Graham?
>
> I'm working on an update for my FFE site, having got back into the
> game recently - I had stopped playing for quite a while due to having
> a lot of other games I wanted to play more and losing my Dubya save
> due to having to reformat my XP machine (recovery wouldn't work).
>
I'm hearing that Acronis Perfect Image (?) is supposed to be good for
that.
> Another factor for resuming work is it gives me something productive
> to do with my little A9home (http://www.thea9.info) that I got last
> year.
>
> Probably have something new put up in the next week or so, including
> updated Guide and Trade pages (which I've been working on today)
> updates to a couple of ship reviews, complete Equipment Reviews and
> maybe a couple of other bits and bobs.
Sound good, please keep us posted.
Nats
"Angus" <angus@_ANTISPEM_angusm.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:MPG.252725f64...@news.demon.co.uk...
Has to be Frontier Elite for me not too closely followed by X-Wing and Wing
Commander. I also quite liked Space Shuttle and First Encounters. Privateer
wasnt bad but it lost some of the Wing Commander magic for me. Hardwar was
ok but was more futuristic than space themed. Nothing cvame close to
Frontier for me though, I played that game for years constantly - Ive never
done the same since with any game.
Angus
nst...@homecall.co.uk says...
>
>
> Has to be Frontier Elite for me not too closely followed by X-Wing and Wing
> Commander. I also quite liked Space Shuttle and First Encounters. Privateer
> wasnt bad but it lost some of the Wing Commander magic for me. Hardwar was
> ok but was more futuristic than space themed. Nothing cvame close to
> Frontier for me though, I played that game for years constantly - Ive never
> done the same since with any game.
I liked Frontier a lot, but I wasn't passionate about the combat.
Generally, I think it was a tad to realistic in its approach and not
quite fantastic enough to make you feel like a real space hero.
Undoubtedly a terrific game though.