Space Combat Sims

I get these mood swings from time to time, jumping from lilypad to lilypad through the murky pond that is my interests. This month I have been mainly focussed on my eternal quest for a "space combat sim" that suits my needs for a storied world with a cast of humans and aliens I care about, with craft I can marvel at and enjoy and with combat that raises the blood pressure over the threshold weakly held down by my daily intake of Ramipril.

Before we finish filling the fuel tanks, and engage the magnetic catapult shooting us into the Stars, I'd like to confess that I didn't fawn over Elite as a child. I vaguely remember it, and I was too busy playing Gyruss at the time to take any notice of it. So I don't come at this from a rose-tinted cockpit of the imagination fuelled exploration of the Stars that many seem to cling onto. I come at this from inside of Luke's X-wing, I come at this from the helm of the Millenium Falcon, I come at this from the sphinx helmeted Buck Rogers, from inside the Vipers pit of Battlestar Galactica both past and present. I come at this from every sinew in my body that screamed in anguish at the thought that I was born too early, for my "spitfire in space" dream of taking on bogey after bogey in space.

Trading is fine, if it gets you the cash to soup up the combat ships. In fact traders and miners need protection and thats where I imagine myself, not a sleek fighter, but a seasoned support ship with a fleet guardians role. I'm there for the thrill of kill, rather than the slow burning candle of profit and cargo runs.

I've set the scene, I hope, so I can now share with you what I've found out there for us to dip our toes into the dark pool of the Universe. I realise this list isn't comprehensive in terms of covering all that come before. I realise I've not given full credit to the Wing Commanders and the Independance War's of the day.. in fact one of the more enjoyable outings I remember playing was Renegades: The Battle for Jacob's Star, subbing the games music for Warrior Soul's Space Age Playboys CD... but I'm looking from now and into the future..

From what I can gather, the current lie of the land is as follows, in no particular order...

X3: Terran Conflict

I've tried to like the X series since day one, and I've always come away bewildered, and lost. There must be excitement and action in there somewhere, and the later series look the part, space is beautifully rendered, the space stations look gorgeous, but the spacecraft always disappoint. The game(s) always seem to be riddled with very fastidious quests, they seem to aim for sandbox play that involves giving you no grounding to work from, other than to read the fan literature on the web and hope you can make sense of it all. It seems altogether too in depth early on, like if you spend a week on it, and nothing else, perhaps you'll find the spark of enthusiasm and off you go, months of your life sucked away. But for me the games never seem to hold water, it always compromises enjoyment of the Universe, its always a rough edged ride, presumably to keep the previous fanbase happy with what they're used to. I bought into Terran Conflict, because of the promise of an updated UI, and some more user-friendly questing early on. Admittedly it is a step up on X3: Reunion, but its not enough, and the UI is better, they've massaged it into some EVE Online wanna be, but with the most frustratingly complex menu mechanism to perform the most simple and mundane tasks. Obviously theres the key configs, and surely you should be learning those off by heart. But, you know, theres no gentle introduction, theres no adequate tutorial.. and the progress is slow and the combat is few and far between. If you know what you're doing, and you pump up the SETI (time advancing mechanism) you will be able to bear the long hauls around the systems with very little going on. If only someone shook it by the collar and made it into something more approachable, something more substantial it could easily suck EVE Online people away from subscriptions... however, I think the Egosoft people would rather you pay their subscription to the upcoming X Universe..

Evochron: Renegades

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Evochron Legends

I have to marvel at what has been done with Evochron Renegades, its a fully fledged space combat/trading sim all crammed into a 30Mb install. I haven't got much history with the StarWraith 3D games at all, so the world presented stands as it is, and its convincing enough, the combat is fluid, the craft are customisable to a degree no other game has in terms of presentation, even if they are a little on the blocky and stubby side (you can tweak the size and shape of the parts you add to the ship). All this and more, economy, missions, and planetfall landings.. its very impressive.. Whether it will hold you, graphically speaking its a good few years behind, but content wise its a bargain and it delivers. Looking forward to seeing what can be done with the forthcoming Evochron Legends. For me, I think this perhaps would be the closest to Elite that we've had. If I had a thing for Elite, that is.

Starshatter

This is a well put together game, that I've bought but only really scratched the surface of. Its quite a complex flyer, with graphics that will pass, although the initial fighters come across as aeroplanes rather than space vehicles. It apparently scales up to large Battlecruisers, but I've not been able to get past the rigorous early missions. Perhaps more time needs to be invested here.. Definitely a labour of love, and very moddable.

Spaceforce: Rogue Universe

Not a bad effort, looks good, flys smooth, however theres no tutorial as such, story is thrown at you in fits and starts, and you will spend a lot of time in space not knowing what you're meant to do next. Getting to the key config, requires 3 or 4 menu selections, and then you'll be guessing what it is the quest wants you to do anyway.. pressing all buttons and hoping is a very poor way to make progress.

EVE Online

A subs based MMO, not exactly seat of the pants combat with twitch controls, more orbit enemy and turn on your gatling railgun. With the new graphics update it does look suitably impressive, although weapons are still tacked on and often look out of place, particularly with the smaller ships. EVE promises much, but it takes a lot of effort to deliver, the RPG side of the game is very tenuous, although during character creation it is hyped up a bit too much. Missions are often, fly here, kill these, go back and get the money. Or theres Mining. Which can become an extremely tedious way to earn money. Without the added adrenline rush of the twitch controls its hard to recommend this game in this batch.. but I put it in here because it is one of the few space combat games that gets the "look" and scale right. With every new expansion I ride the tachyon beam back to the game in the hope it has something extra to give the player, but usually theres no noticeable difference from what has come before.

Dark Star One

Another bright star amongst a number of dull efforts. Dark Star One, is easy to get into, the tutorial is helpful, the visuals are suitably stunning and the combat plays smooth. I was impressed by this game, because of its ability to embrace the story and mix it in with the missions and get you upgrading your ship as soon as possible. The ship itself has an organic component to it, which requires you to collect artifacts often hidden away inside of mined out asteroids. Theres something inherently cool about having to navigate your ship in twisty winding tunnels inside a huge asteroid. One of the few installs that just seems to gel together and make the game flow into interesting territory, rather than you have to mine it out with a web-based laser.

Void War

An overly colourful arcadey indie offering that just didn't gel with me at all. I think it was the powerups in space, and the very amateur graphics. I can see some effort has been put in there, and the game is aimed at an arcade audience, who want FPS but in space, but it just didn't strike a chord with me.

Vega Strike

This is a freeware labour of love, and as such it might ignite some peoples laser assemblies, but it just turned me cold.. even the installation routine had me squirming at the lack of polish.. I suppose I'm not appreciating the cross platform freeware aspect of the game, but you know, I'm looking for something that will kindle the spark to make me play it, not necessarily ride the free lunch train to modsville.

Babylon 5: I've found her

Now then, I was very impressed at this freeware offering, basically a modded version of Freespace 2, with Babylon 5 models and storyline to boot. Interesting things were happening as soon as I was onboard a Fury, and there was a tutorial to coax you into the cockpit early on. Worth the effort if you have a passing interest in B5, or of you like your storied combat to have a space opera theme.

Beyond the Red Line

Another modded demo using the Freespace 2 engine to deliver a Battlestar Galactica (the recent show) hit, and I was even more impressed with this, voice acting was well done, and you were sucked into the atmosphere of it all, the graphics and models were superb and the viper Mark VII's looked and handled like they do on the show. As one of the nuggets sekonded to the Pegasus, you're taken through training and on into a couple of missions in this demo, and I must say, I'd look forward to this becoming a full fledged effort in the future.

Galactic Command: Echo Squad

Theres just something about the whole 3000AD setup that see iteration upon iteration of space combat shooters that just don't seem to be put together very well. Gaudy presentation, awkward fonts and key configs, little story.. and yet theres a whole boatload of them, one after the other, and they all seem to be painted with the same unattractive brush. I've dipped into one or two iterations of this franchise and I've always been sorely disappointed every time. And mostly at bargain prices.

Vendetta Online

Now I did play this a long time ago, and its an online game with free account and paid accounts, I can remember the graphics being slightly out of date, and at the time, I was thinking that perhaps they're not going to be able to compete with EVE Online at all.. but its obviously a niche game for fans.

Allegience

Some online shooter that Microsoft have a hand in, I couldn't get it to install properly. The screenshots looked ok, I suppose. When I couldn't install it though, my patience ran out and I stuck it in the airlock and opened the door.

Tarr Chronicles

I played this a long while back now, and my memories of it are very vague, but again the controls hurdle of SpaceForce comes to mind. Perhaps another visit is in order, one day.

Star Wolves

Another odd ball here, because its not really twitch cockpit stuff as such, but I've written a review of it many moons ago so I thought I'd include it here.

Star Assault

Amateur bewildering effort as I recall.

The Future:

Heresy War

Probably my favourite out of the whole collection, its got instant playability, its got the visuals it deserves, with promise of more when the game fleshes out to a final release. Its action and story and it plays smooth and natural. I'll be keeping my eye on this with baited breath.

Dark Horizon

Again another beauty I just couldn't get to work. My quest had waned enough for me to ditch games that required extensive helpdesk support to play.

Infinity Universe

Black Prophecy

Jumpgate Evolution