I need a good deep space game

Spiffor · February 15, 2004, 11:05

Well, having played the offline version of Allegiance, I have been wanting to put my claws on a good deep space game. One involving the immersive piloting of fighter and such. And with beautiful spacescape if possible.

I have loved Frontier: Elite II back in the day, but I can hardly play it again, as the controls suck to much.

I enjoyed Freelancer greatly for as long as it lasted, but I found it sad the world was so static after the campaign. Once everything had been discovered, once the best ship got equipped with the best weapons, there was no point in playing Freelancer anymore.

I loved X-Wing vs. Tie-Fighter and X-Wing alliance very much, and I'm actually considering installing them again.

Battleship 3000 AD looked very interesting, but no banana: it will simply refuse to work under WinXP

Are there any good, and possibly beautiful, deep space games out there? Which deep-space games did you prefer?

Skanky Burns · February 15, 2004, 11:06

MoO3.

General Ludd · February 15, 2004, 11:20

There's Jumpgate, if you don't mind paying a subscription. (or for ten days free)

Agathon · February 15, 2004, 11:46

Imperium Galactum

Adagio · February 15, 2004, 12:39

I've heard X2 should be a very deep space game... haven't tried it though, since I'm not interested in Space games...

Spiffor · February 15, 2004, 13:06

I didn't hear about X2 before ADG's post, but it seems absolutely great!

I'm downloading the demo now, and I think I'l buy the game when it comes in France, in two weeks

Jamski · February 15, 2004, 13:25

Wing Commander Privateer was the greatest space game I ever played.

-Jam

Spiffor · February 15, 2004, 14:25

Just looked at X2's demo from fileplanet. Looks sweet, and very complete. It does run slow on my system with default settings, but it can run well at lower settings. Too bad the demo can't give a feel of the control, as it showws small bits of the game without letting the player play

MattH · February 15, 2004, 15:01

Watch out for X2. I got a copy and it was nearly unplayable. First of all, the graphics requirements are high. I set those down which improved things- not much of a problem.

What wrecked this game for me is the BUGS. If you don't de-select "inverse mouse" every single time on startup, you're out of luck. The tutorials were as far as I got in actual gameplay. They would randomly freeze and the music would start skipping. This requires a full system reboot (the game doesn't play nice with alt-tab like SC4, CIV, etc). I thought this might be a CD-problem so I did the obvious... no luck.

In one of the scenarios (building/buying/selling factory), I followed the instructions to a T. I wondered, then, why the scenario wasn't continuing with the next lesson. I managed to navigate semi-randomly to my factories datasheet (3/4 menus in). I turns out that the factory was producing something like 1 unit every 3 minutes... and I needed 300 to continue.

Yes, I did download the patch. It fixed nothing. I am so incredibly dissapointed with this game. With what little I got out of the tutorials that work is seems like it could be massive, involved, interesting game of the type I've always wanted to play (space Morrowind?).

MattH · February 15, 2004, 15:03

P.S. Their patch system is terrible... you have to register on the online site to download the patch. WTF do they think that will solve?

Spiffor · February 15, 2004, 16:17

Ugh.

Well, about the sys requirements, I've just noticed with the demo it runs fine on my computer on 640*480, even with all the little eye-candy on, so this part won't be a problem to me.

About the tutorial: well, I've read in Gamespot it sucks very badly. But I'm ready to get the whole learning curve by myself if it means experimenting a dynamic game of this kind.

What worries me are the controls. I have a joystick and I like to use it, but I don't know how it'll feel in the game. This is something I'm eager to know.

It is sad there is no playable demo to know about this important point. Controls can really make the difference between a good and a frustrating game.

Dis · February 15, 2004, 16:20

there is Eve

but that is a mmorpg with a monthly fee. But the game did look pretty good, just wasn't my style. some people may find it boring.

quantum_mechani · February 15, 2004, 18:33

You could try Escape Velocity: Nova, for a long time it was Mac-only but they now have a windows version. You can find the demo here

MattH · February 15, 2004, 19:13

Now EVN is a great game. And it's a fully playable demo, you can get a good way through any of the quests and do everything before it demands registration.

Spiffor · February 15, 2004, 23:24

I can't get EVNova to work here (WinXP). It crashes right after having loaded. Did anybody experience the same problem?

MattH · February 16, 2004, 00:22

Nope, worked fine for me. Did you try their boards? The response (as I remember) is usually quick.

Imran Siddiqui · February 16, 2004, 00:32

Wow... nice graphics in X2... probably no way in HELL I can play it. I guess that is why I bought my X-Box

.

ravagon · February 16, 2004, 00:58

Quote:

Originally posted by Spiffor

I enjoyed Freelancer greatly for as long as it lasted, but I found it sad the world was so static after the campaign. Once everything had been discovered, once the best ship got equipped with the best weapons, there was no point in playing Freelancer anymore.

Have you tried the unknown systems? The ones inhabited by flights of those nomad superfighters?
I could never find out what to do on that planet inhabited solely by robots.

If you're a B5 fan then http://ifh.firstones.com/ might be of some interest. It developed from the fan-base of the cancelled B5 fighter sim IIRC.
It's still in demo phase but seems to be coming along quite nicely.
Note: I haven't actually tried it. A 200+ Mb dl is just a wee bit much for my system.

Spiffor · February 16, 2004, 02:51

I finally had EVNova to work (simply had to update my QuickTime). It's a good game. It's sad there is so little eye candy, but the depth of the game seems to make up for it: the universe looks pretty huge compared to Privateer / Freelancer

And systems have much more personality than in Elite2

Ravagon:
Yep, I've seen it in Freelancer, and basically, these systems offer a good challenge, being against many agressive nomads, and also it offers you the opportunity to collect the best weapons in the game. The robot base or the ape base are just in-jokes, they don't bring anything really.

Urban Ranger · February 16, 2004, 05:33

What's wrong with GalCiv?

child of Thor · February 16, 2004, 07:39

I suppose in the same theme as galciv, you could try Space Empires IV..........its got a decent demo too

here

DrSpike · February 16, 2004, 09:28

A few friends play Eve and seem to enjoy it a lot.

Hagbart · February 16, 2004, 20:26

Quote:

Originally posted by quantum_mechani
You could try Escape Velocity: Nova, for a long time it was Mac-only but they now have a windows version. You can find the demo here

I second that. I played both EV original and EV override on a mac for many many hours. I bought EV Nova when it was done for windows and it's one of my fav. games.

HIGHLY recommended.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/evn/

Hagbart · February 16, 2004, 20:27

Quote:

Originally posted by Spiffor
I can't get EVNova to work here (WinXP). It crashes right after having loaded. Did anybody experience the same problem?

Try updating Quicktime, it might solve your problem.

EDIT: sry for this post, I saw you got it working.