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I think this was the most engaging video game I have ever played. Not because it’s actually amazing by today’s standards but I was the right age (must have been

I think this was the most engaging video game I have ever played. Not because it’s actually amazing by today’s standards but I was the right age (must have been 12 or so) for it to catch my imagination perfectly. To this day I maintain that the alien races are some of the most inventive I’ve seen in any media, the storyline more compelling. That said, I’ve not played it since (beyond some melee games via Ur Quan Masters) because I suspect it won’t live up to my memories. But man would I love to see a sequel (there was one but none of the original team were involved).

VonGuard 5y ago
It did, indeed, have amazing alien races, extremely unique and original. Everything from the crystaline Chenjesu to the Used-to-steal-humans-and-probe-them-but-they're-not-aliens-they-are-pan-dimensional-beings Arilulaleelay, to the cowardly Spathi, to cryptic Melnorn. Play it again. It holds up. Maybe even more so! I recently did an interview with the lead maintainer on this project, for the MADE's podcast. Very timely, and coincided with a major update last year, the first in a long while. https://art19.com/shows/the-madecast/episodes/f64c139a-5d76-4d5c-bdc9-62c524bcbac6 https://art19.com/shows/the-madecast/episodes/f64c139a-5d76-...
- afavour 5y ago
  Oh man, I’d kind of forgotten the Arilou plot. What an incredibly smart play on the “little green men” trope. I suppose another reason I haven’t played is that I already know the plot back to front. I want to know more about the Orz (another subplot that fascinated me). Hell, I wanted to know if there was anything more to be learned about what happened to races like the Gg (the fact that I remember such minor plot points twenty years later speaks volumes). I was very disappointed when I heard that the sequel wasn’t going to touch any of that.
  - thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
    Did you ever find the Black Spathi Squadron?
  - fho 5y ago
    Iirc you could actually lose by not doing anything? [spoiler]The UrQuan advancing more and more up to a point were you basically just got a game over screen?[/spoiler]
prawn 5y ago
I liked it in my teens (especially Melee mode) then tried to introduce it to my similarly-minded son recently, but he grew bored quickly. He favours Minecraft and Fortnite.
bnralt 5y ago
I played it for the first time a few years ago and was pretty impressed. I haven't played a lot of modern games, but are there many that have a real time living world/branching story like this? It seems like that was more of a 90's trend (Colonel's Bequest, Exile III, The Last Express), and efforts since then have gone in the direction of everything being an amusement park (IE, everyone in the game world waits around for you to show up before they do anything). And just to reiterate what others have said, the writing is superb.
- Noumenon72 5y ago
  I played it at age 38 and it was great because of how it used every science fiction trope and voice acting effect that it could, to characterize all the aliens. All the plot twists and hints made sense and I don't think I ever consulted a guide.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    Star Control 2 (and 3!) influence is felt everywhere in Mass Effect games.
- chrchang523 5y ago
  Are you aware of any games made in the last 20 years with writing quality comparable to Star Control II (or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri)?
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    The wonder and technology descriptions in Alpha Centarui were so amazing, I don't think they'll ever be beat. Like the rest of the game, they did a really great job of providing just enough information to let your mind run wild. I miss when games used to provide giant reams of text like that. There was a game, "Lords of Magic" that came with, essentially, a small novel's worth of entirely superfluous setting information (in the form of a little book!). It had the kind of background fluff you'd normally find in a D&D manual. I think I spent about as much time with the book, as with the game.
kelnos 5y ago
I came across it somewhat later in my life (early 20s maybe, when it was just the commercial version of Star Control II?) and enjoyed the hell out of it then, and replayed it again 7-10 years later and still enjoyed it. I started a replay of it a year or so ago (late 30s). I still haven't finished that playthrough, but still think it's a great game, and will certainly get back to it when I have some more time on my hands.
theevilsharpie 5y ago
> I suspect it won’t live up to my memories. As a 12-year-old kid (or thereabouts), I remember playing another DOS space shooter/RPG called Solar Winds, which I remember having a reasonably engaging shareware episode. I tracked it down later as an adult and played the full release and the sequel, and both felt really rushed and fell well short of the world that the shareware version offered. It was definitely an experience that didn't live up to my childhood memories. On the other hand, I didn't play any of the Star Control games growing up, and so had no nostalgia for Ur-Quan Masters when I first played it around 2018 or so as a middle-aged adult. The game definitely holds up today, and even though the combat can be frustrating, the game's heart and character more than makes up for it. Even the grindy resource collection aspect is oddly addicting. It's a shame what became of the Star Control franchise since. :(
- parksy 5y ago
  Can concur though I played both Solar Winds and SC2 back in the day. Even at the time Solar Winds felt like a cheaper cash-in on the space RPG genre. The ship drove like a car, the ship modifications were pretty limited. Though it had a great power management system which could have formed the basis for some pretty inventive gameplay if it was properly leveraged. I've come back to Solar Winds maybe once in the past 20 years, and replayed SC2 about 4 or 5 times since UQM was released. Was looking forward to the next instalment but the quagmire of legal issues, divided fanbase, etc, has really left a sour impression on the future of the franchise for me, which is sad given the world TFB created initially.
- zeruch 5y ago
  "Even the grindy resource collection aspect is oddly addicting." Absolutely.
  - philsnow 5y ago
    For me this is 1. developing an intuition for which stars will have resource-rich planets, 2. arriving at the planets and actually doing the mineral scans to reveal sometimes huge deposits of whatever minerals, and 3. actually picking up the minerals without losing all my landers. The first time I played through I lost all my landers a few times and wrote off those rich planets as impossible and didn't keep track of where they were.. then when my landers became better able to navigate the seismic / weather incidents forgot where they were. Now since I have Forbidden Plot Knowledge I can just jump right to the part where I have all the tech I want and am nearly unstoppable right away.
speed_spread 5y ago
The game drew a lot from David Brin's "Uplift" universe (books), which I heartily recommend if you're into multi-species galactic civilisation with a dash of dolpĥin sex.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  Niven's Known Space references are in a lot of places too.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  The Uplift series of books are some of the worst books I've ever read.
  - speed_spread 5y ago
    You preferred Twilight? To each his own, I guess.
Pxtl 5y ago
There were actually two completed sequels and one that died on the vine. None of them involved Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III. The proper successor to Star Control 1 (the combat boardgame) was a PS1 game called Unholy War. I wish we could get remasters of their Skylanders games.
malthuswaswrong 5y ago
I have to occasionally remind myself that games have not become bad. I've gotten old. I can only imagine what it's like to be 12 and play Fortnight. They can republish Command and Conquer, but that feel will never be real again.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Games have become less experimental and more streamlined in a chosen genre. Take Sc2: it has three games in it: arcade space combat, arcade planet exploration, and an adventure plot. Current gamemakers shy from such experimenting, and the resulting products are far less diverse, especially among big budget titles (too much risks, understandable, but still).
  - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
    There's an explosion of creativity in the indie and open source space, this might be a survivor bias as we're only still talking about the games from the past that stayed in the public consciousness
    - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
      they still mostly fall into the lines of established genres. Where are my Strategy/Adventure hybrids like great Dune 1? [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(video_game)
      - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
        Was Factorio an established genre? What about binding of Isaac? I've heard that noitka is pretty blendy Minecraft launched a new genre Auto chess is a new genre that came out recently
        Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        Factorio - minecraft on steroids Binding of Isaak - action shooter others I haven't seen. But I'm talking of different thing. What is absent in modern game are the attempts of synthesis of different genres, which were frequent in 80s or 90s, and gave us such gems as Dune 1 and Star Control 2.
SubiculumCode 5y ago
I've played it again fairly recently and it was still great. I'd like a port or upgrade of the original 2-player star control strategy 3X game
KTallguy 5y ago
I devoured Star Control II as a kid. It was such a great combination of the adventure, simulation, exploration and arcade shooter genres. I had the strategy guide that came with a huge map that detailed all the secret locations. I enjoyed the fighting bits but I think they feel a bit dated today. The other parts still hold up quite a bit! In the 90s there were a lot of games that did interesting combinations of genres, like Star Control II, Magic Carpet, Dune CD, and others I'm forgetting. The cost makes these kinds of non-formulaic experiences so much rarer today... One of my dream projects is a Star Control style game in VR... stay in your Precursor warship and dictate the battle from afar, or hop directly into your ally's cockpit... can you imagine the inside of an Umgah starship surrounding you in full 3D?
- WhiteNoiz3 5y ago
  Check out my game Eternal Starlight - https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1918967004876383/ https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1918967004876383/ (also on Steam) It's not Star Control 2, but SC2 was one of my favorite games as a kid and it definitely inspired it.
afterburner 5y ago
I've played it several times since its release, including a year ago. It absolutely holds up! One of the best of all time.
zeruch 5y ago
I played for years after it was 'out of vogue' but I too haven't touched it in decades. I played the sequel also, and it was good, but was just shy of the potential it could have been. Part of me really wants to install this and give it a quick melee test. :)
jonnycomputer 5y ago
I replayed it in 2008 or so, and it still held up. But then I am not much of a gamer, so YMMV
RunSet 5y ago
Definitely the most engaging game on the 3DO sampler disk. I have just never cared for the "rotate and thrust" Asteroid style controls.
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
> The Ur-Quan Masters What's a comparable game? Masters of Orion?

VonGuard 5y ago

It did, indeed, have amazing alien races, extremely unique and original. Everything from the crystaline Chenjesu to the Used-to-steal-humans-and-probe-them-but-they're-not-aliens-they-are-pan-dimensional-beings Arilulaleelay, to the cowardly Spathi, to cryptic Melnorn. Play it again. It holds up. Maybe even more so! I recently did an interview with the lead maintainer on this project, for the MADE's podcast. Very timely, and coincided with a major update last year, the first in a long while. https://art19.com/shows/the-madecast/episodes/f64c139a-5d76-4d5c-bdc9-62c524bcbac6 https://art19.com/shows/the-madecast/episodes/f64c139a-5d76-...

afavour 5y ago
Oh man, I’d kind of forgotten the Arilou plot. What an incredibly smart play on the “little green men” trope. I suppose another reason I haven’t played is that I already know the plot back to front. I want to know more about the Orz (another subplot that fascinated me). Hell, I wanted to know if there was anything more to be learned about what happened to races like the Gg (the fact that I remember such minor plot points twenty years later speaks volumes). I was very disappointed when I heard that the sequel wasn’t going to touch any of that.
- thesuperbigfrog 5y ago
  Did you ever find the Black Spathi Squadron?
- fho 5y ago
  Iirc you could actually lose by not doing anything? [spoiler]The UrQuan advancing more and more up to a point were you basically just got a game over screen?[/spoiler]

prawn 5y ago

I liked it in my teens (especially Melee mode) then tried to introduce it to my similarly-minded son recently, but he grew bored quickly. He favours Minecraft and Fortnite.

bnralt 5y ago

I played it for the first time a few years ago and was pretty impressed. I haven't played a lot of modern games, but are there many that have a real time living world/branching story like this? It seems like that was more of a 90's trend (Colonel's Bequest, Exile III, The Last Express), and efforts since then have gone in the direction of everything being an amusement park (IE, everyone in the game world waits around for you to show up before they do anything). And just to reiterate what others have said, the writing is superb.

Noumenon72 5y ago
I played it at age 38 and it was great because of how it used every science fiction trope and voice acting effect that it could, to characterize all the aliens. All the plot twists and hints made sense and I don't think I ever consulted a guide.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Star Control 2 (and 3!) influence is felt everywhere in Mass Effect games.
chrchang523 5y ago
Are you aware of any games made in the last 20 years with writing quality comparable to Star Control II (or Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri)?
- bee_rider 5y ago
  The wonder and technology descriptions in Alpha Centarui were so amazing, I don't think they'll ever be beat. Like the rest of the game, they did a really great job of providing just enough information to let your mind run wild. I miss when games used to provide giant reams of text like that. There was a game, "Lords of Magic" that came with, essentially, a small novel's worth of entirely superfluous setting information (in the form of a little book!). It had the kind of background fluff you'd normally find in a D&D manual. I think I spent about as much time with the book, as with the game.

kelnos 5y ago

I came across it somewhat later in my life (early 20s maybe, when it was just the commercial version of Star Control II?) and enjoyed the hell out of it then, and replayed it again 7-10 years later and still enjoyed it. I started a replay of it a year or so ago (late 30s). I still haven't finished that playthrough, but still think it's a great game, and will certainly get back to it when I have some more time on my hands.

theevilsharpie 5y ago

> I suspect it won’t live up to my memories. As a 12-year-old kid (or thereabouts), I remember playing another DOS space shooter/RPG called Solar Winds, which I remember having a reasonably engaging shareware episode. I tracked it down later as an adult and played the full release and the sequel, and both felt really rushed and fell well short of the world that the shareware version offered. It was definitely an experience that didn't live up to my childhood memories. On the other hand, I didn't play any of the Star Control games growing up, and so had no nostalgia for Ur-Quan Masters when I first played it around 2018 or so as a middle-aged adult. The game definitely holds up today, and even though the combat can be frustrating, the game's heart and character more than makes up for it. Even the grindy resource collection aspect is oddly addicting. It's a shame what became of the Star Control franchise since. :(

parksy 5y ago
Can concur though I played both Solar Winds and SC2 back in the day. Even at the time Solar Winds felt like a cheaper cash-in on the space RPG genre. The ship drove like a car, the ship modifications were pretty limited. Though it had a great power management system which could have formed the basis for some pretty inventive gameplay if it was properly leveraged. I've come back to Solar Winds maybe once in the past 20 years, and replayed SC2 about 4 or 5 times since UQM was released. Was looking forward to the next instalment but the quagmire of legal issues, divided fanbase, etc, has really left a sour impression on the future of the franchise for me, which is sad given the world TFB created initially.
zeruch 5y ago
"Even the grindy resource collection aspect is oddly addicting." Absolutely.
- philsnow 5y ago
  For me this is 1. developing an intuition for which stars will have resource-rich planets, 2. arriving at the planets and actually doing the mineral scans to reveal sometimes huge deposits of whatever minerals, and 3. actually picking up the minerals without losing all my landers. The first time I played through I lost all my landers a few times and wrote off those rich planets as impossible and didn't keep track of where they were.. then when my landers became better able to navigate the seismic / weather incidents forgot where they were. Now since I have Forbidden Plot Knowledge I can just jump right to the part where I have all the tech I want and am nearly unstoppable right away.

speed_spread 5y ago

The game drew a lot from David Brin's "Uplift" universe (books), which I heartily recommend if you're into multi-species galactic civilisation with a dash of dolpĥin sex.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
Niven's Known Space references are in a lot of places too.
moron4hire 5y ago
The Uplift series of books are some of the worst books I've ever read.
- speed_spread 5y ago
  You preferred Twilight? To each his own, I guess.

Pxtl 5y ago

There were actually two completed sequels and one that died on the vine. None of them involved Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III. The proper successor to Star Control 1 (the combat boardgame) was a PS1 game called Unholy War. I wish we could get remasters of their Skylanders games.

malthuswaswrong 5y ago

I have to occasionally remind myself that games have not become bad. I've gotten old. I can only imagine what it's like to be 12 and play Fortnight. They can republish Command and Conquer, but that feel will never be real again.

Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Games have become less experimental and more streamlined in a chosen genre. Take Sc2: it has three games in it: arcade space combat, arcade planet exploration, and an adventure plot. Current gamemakers shy from such experimenting, and the resulting products are far less diverse, especially among big budget titles (too much risks, understandable, but still).
- X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
  There's an explosion of creativity in the indie and open source space, this might be a survivor bias as we're only still talking about the games from the past that stayed in the public consciousness
  - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
    they still mostly fall into the lines of established genres. Where are my Strategy/Adventure hybrids like great Dune 1? [1] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(video_game)
    - X6S1x6Okd1st 5y ago
      Was Factorio an established genre? What about binding of Isaac? I've heard that noitka is pretty blendy Minecraft launched a new genre Auto chess is a new genre that came out recently
      - Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
        Factorio - minecraft on steroids Binding of Isaak - action shooter others I haven't seen. But I'm talking of different thing. What is absent in modern game are the attempts of synthesis of different genres, which were frequent in 80s or 90s, and gave us such gems as Dune 1 and Star Control 2.

SubiculumCode 5y ago

I've played it again fairly recently and it was still great. I'd like a port or upgrade of the original 2-player star control strategy 3X game

KTallguy 5y ago

I devoured Star Control II as a kid. It was such a great combination of the adventure, simulation, exploration and arcade shooter genres. I had the strategy guide that came with a huge map that detailed all the secret locations. I enjoyed the fighting bits but I think they feel a bit dated today. The other parts still hold up quite a bit! In the 90s there were a lot of games that did interesting combinations of genres, like Star Control II, Magic Carpet, Dune CD, and others I'm forgetting. The cost makes these kinds of non-formulaic experiences so much rarer today... One of my dream projects is a Star Control style game in VR... stay in your Precursor warship and dictate the battle from afar, or hop directly into your ally's cockpit... can you imagine the inside of an Umgah starship surrounding you in full 3D?

WhiteNoiz3 5y ago
Check out my game Eternal Starlight - https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1918967004876383/ https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1918967004876383/ (also on Steam) It's not Star Control 2, but SC2 was one of my favorite games as a kid and it definitely inspired it.

afterburner 5y ago

I've played it several times since its release, including a year ago. It absolutely holds up! One of the best of all time.

zeruch 5y ago

I played for years after it was 'out of vogue' but I too haven't touched it in decades. I played the sequel also, and it was good, but was just shy of the potential it could have been. Part of me really wants to install this and give it a quick melee test. :)

jonnycomputer 5y ago

I replayed it in 2008 or so, and it still held up. But then I am not much of a gamer, so YMMV

RunSet 5y ago

Definitely the most engaging game on the 3DO sampler disk. I have just never cared for the "rotate and thrust" Asteroid style controls.

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

> The Ur-Quan Masters What's a comparable game? Masters of Orion?