Star Control II
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I was quite surprised to not see this as a suggestion yet after searching through, so apologies if this was already mentioned elsewhere!
Star Control II is a constant not only on my list of “Best DOS Games”, but on my personal “Best Games Ever”. A completely different beast than its predecessor, it has an amazing combination of exploration, adventure, and good old fashion spaceship blasting. It also manages to be a rare breed of game that can simultaneously be incredibly funny and deeply serious.
I play through it again every few years myself just for fun, though it’d be a joy to see others giving it a whirl. And in terms of discussion topics, it’s got a whopper of a history for the franchise following it, culminating in the recent announcement of the newest entry in the series by the original creators. Certainly plenty to talk about!
Star Control II has always intrigued me, and looks really awesome, but I’ve never played more than about 30 minutes of it.
It was heavily inspired by Starflight, which the club did a few years ago (and which I also haven’t played!)
I think it could make for a good DGC episode – there’s a lot of rich discussion you could have about the differences and similarities between the two games.
I could have sworn that it was made freeware a number of years ago, but now I see it for sale on gog and steam (for just a few bucks to be fair).
I must be getting mixed up with the open-source spin off, “The Ur-Quan Masters”. Which, like, is apparently exactly the same and why would you buy Star Control II when you can just play the open source version?
So, Ur-Quan Masters is a remake of the original with a few quality of life improvements that was spurred along by the original creators (Paul and Fred) after the license for the Star Control name (but not the content) went elsewhere.
As to why you’d buy the original at this point, well, I guess if you really want the authentic experience, bugs and all. But otherwise UQM will give you everything in a little nicer package.
Star Control II is definitely a must for the club at some point!
haha wow, so my siblings and I used to play the ‘Super Melee’ mode exclusively.
Never did get a chance to play through the normal game, another one to revisit!
SC2/UQM is really exceptional.
– surprisingly deep story, especially the backstory going back thousands of years
– large and dynamic map reflecting recent story developments
– original and fun alien races/species
– great voice acting
– gameplay loop mixing resource gathering, combat and exploration
The club already played the spiritual predecessor Starflight, but there’s nothing like SC2.
This would give me a reason to play it 🙂
Starflight was on the club already, so it would be interesting to see how SC2 compares with that one!
Never could really get into the second star control, maybe because I played the third one before the second. Three was okey.
The first star control, however, with its (hotseat!) strategic game mode was a favourite.
Note that all three are available via gog, and on sale at the moment.
I also recommend the open source version “The Ur-Quan Masters” that TigerQuoll mentioned. It is based on the 3DO version that was released as open source; I had to compile it on Linux, but runs beautifully.
Check it here: https://sc2.sourceforge.net/
(we would play the DOS version for the club, of course)
This definitely needs covering, Loved
exploring the universe as a child.
Great memories 🥰
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