I can't believe today was a good play (Games you played today)

King of Posters King of Posters 2000
450

Okay, I stole Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. It’s… terrible? I played for an hour and I can’t see myself playing this gameplay loop for any longer than that. The budgetness of it all is hurting it and I question most of the design decisions.

I don’t even know where to start with criticizing this. It’ s way too dumbed down. There’s not enough “world” to feel like what you’re doing is worth doing. It’s… Well, you should play it @Tulpa. I don’t think you’ll have fun but it’s kind of a What Not To Do showcase for me

I deleted it within 24 hours so I didn’t technically steal it, right, that’s how this works

451

This one’s all about small ships and dogfighting. It is, however, also very boring

I think they tried to get a larger audience with this one and cartoonified it as a result. It feels very much like a budget title and confined because of it. I’d be drawn to a limited in scope space trading game but not like this, not if it’s this shallow

452

What’s the last good space sim of any dimension before Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen? Crimson Skies? What a long dearth

453

it’s less of a sim and more of a space combat game but I like house of the dying sun a whole lot

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454

I dunno if Tachyon is a sim, but its pretty good.

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Yeah those are all “space sims” as far as I’m concerned.

I should try that one. I got Everspace on sale thinking it was an Elitelike only to find out it’s structured exactly like FTL? Which wasn’t at all what I was looking for

456

Independence War II was also pretty good but that was in 2001. Um… X3: Albion Prelude is more sim and less space combat. You can space fight in a multitude of sizes but past the plot it’s more fleet and building an economic empire than individual things in space fighting it out.

457

Yeah that’s the roguelike/lite one, isn’t it

I got that the last time we talked about space sims on sb (probably a year ago or more already) and never tried it out… Guess I should!

458

shin gundam musou has a set of quiz stages, where you’re asked a question, three enemies appear, and you have to beat up the enemy who is the answer to the question.
get three right and you win, get three wrong and you lose.
luckily, these stages are skippable, as i quickly got bored of trial and erroring (since there’s no english option)

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459

Everspace is gorgeous. Its outer-space visual aesthetic hits my soul exactly in its miniscule, lonely, romantic underbelly–until any character other than the ship’s AI speaks and then I roll my eyes 3 times over toward the back of my head and I remember that I’m playing a video game.

I also think the gameplay loop can be pretty satisfying when I’m in the mood for it. But reading the UI is like trying to interpret the contents of a vinyl record by looking at its ridges from 8 feet away.

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460

the pitch for House of the Dying Sun is, “You’re a fighter pilot in Homeworld”, and buddy does that work for me

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461

unfortunately the real answer might just be homeworld oops

462

star citizen isn’t good

but uh, serious answer? FreeSpace 2 custom campaigns. From like 2007 to Elite Dangerous’s release, if you wanted a good space combat sim, you downloaded a mod for FreeSpace 2 and played that, or you just emulated wing commander privateer or even privateer 2 (I still haven’t played privateer 2 but I’ve heard good things about it)

The X series is just dire, though.

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463

save ammo by taking out their legs. after awhile if you have extra knives don’t be afraid to wear them down to finish off zombies in areas that you have to cross over frequently. grenades are very useful for clearing a large area of incapacitated zombies as well.

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It certainly is beautiful, but I wouldn’t say there’s anything lonely about it - each little sector you enter is entirely comprehended, and you’re on a time limit.

That said, I played it a bunch more tonight and it grew on me. I think one of my big problems was that the weapons on the default ship suck ass, the other three (the other one you start with, and the two you buy) are all better and more satisfying to play. I unlocked the little stealth ship last and I like it the best!

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37 posts were split to a new topic: system shock 2 SUCKS… or does it???

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yeah honestly there’s nothing more effective in terms of instilling dread in me than footsteps on a wooden floor and nothing else

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471

That does sound awesome!

So some days ago I heard of this game called Starborne that’s currently in alpha and you can already play. It’s a MMO 4X game. Yeah. Let that sink in. It looked interesting and I will try it out soon but it got me started on this quest where I’m looking at space sims like Everspace and things like that and then there was also the Privateer talk knocking around in my head…

So I tried out Rebel Galaxy Outlaw (RGO) and didn’t like it. And now I bought Elite Dangerous. It’s only 25 Euros and I mostly planned to play it for the 2 trial period and then see where we’re at, hoping I’d get my fill so I can get back to my backlog.

It’s really something. It’s got everything RGO is missing. It’s big and daunting. When you sit in that starter ship and are afraid to break something by hitting a button and then you choose to launch and the ship rocks a bit and the elevator starts to move at an uncomfortably brisk pace… Man, I could feel it all. It was like back when I put on latex cleaning gloves to play Wing Commander 3 as a kid because I wanted to stimulate being a pilot and pilots wear gloves. At least I didn’t put on a pot as a helmet. If I would have had access to my dad’s motorbike helmet though…

Then you’re out of the space station and you just see this gorgeous planet with the even more gorgeous rings… They’re glistening, like gold. Everything’s huge. It’s jaw dropping.

Before that, in one of the tutorials you fiddle around with the different monitors in your ship and the way the UI reacts when you’re cutting power to the shield system and rerouting it to your mining beams is just actual porn. It’s absolutely the way it should be and just feels so right and at the same time you feel dirty for living this silly space pilot fantasy in such extreme, glorious detail.

Back in the game proper and you do all the cool stuff that you do: plot a course, go into faster than light mode, come out of it and approach the space station. I started up auto docking mode because I’m trying to take it easy and what do you know, the game plays the blue Danube waltz as your ship is guided into the station. That’s one of those moments where you don’t know if you should laugh or shed a tear, it’s beautiful. Slowly the music fades and is replaced by space station radio chatter…

Alright, look. I know this game is a huge “grind” and it’s made worse because it’s a simulation and you stare at your screen without doing anything for minutes on end because you’re a space trucker most of the time but damn, it’s got me good. It’s got the feeling down and it’s so enticing to spend forever in this game to experience all the ships and all the sights and so on.

I’m still at the two hour mark, so I can still return it. I just don’t know if I want to. I know that if I’ll keep it I won’t play it for long because I just don’t do that, I’m not that consistent. However, it might still be worth it to play it for a dozen hours and have fun… It’s only 25 Euros, after all.

I should ask @Hache if they want to play with me. Hi!

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476

Seriously though how the fuck did Nintendo get away with these joycons. Why are we letting them do this to us

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478

I beat Aggelos today. It was great, and it had actually good skill challenges! Overall rec

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