OT: What's your 2011 game "Must Have" list?

[Von Paulus 8]

And no Von Paulus, I haven't actually heard of either of those titles until just this moment. I did look them up though and they look brilliant. Particularly Evochron Mercenary, there's gameplay footage on its website that just looks bloody marvelous. I take it they're indie space sims?

Yes.

Evochron is more simulator than Starpoint Gemini. You should try the demo. IMO, the main problem with it, is that it lacks SP content, specially a proper campaign. Most of the players end up playing in MP. But has a space combat simulator I find it nice.

http://www.gamearena.com.au/pc/games/title/evochron-mercenary/reviews.php?id=5088861

[Bullethead 12]

Ah, the early 1990's world of computers. There are very few things I miss from those days. EVERYTHING was so utterly primitive and unsophisticated back then that it's amazing people were at all willing to jump through all the hoops in order to make anything work. And the overwhelming majority of games from that period are complete crap, especially simulators, which were really too much for the stone age PC's to handle

 

Well, it depends on how far back you go... Flightims like F15 Strike Eagle, Falcon 3, Apache, F19 Stealth Fighter (from before we knew it was really F117), all were exceptionally good games. They had good modeling, dynamic campaigns, and ran reliably. All very, very good, especially when you consider they put all that on just one or two 512K floppies. Of course, the graphics were utterly laughable: at that time, I had a 4-color monitor so saw everything in either black, white, cyan, or magenta. But that just goes to show--graphics aren't what makes a good game, it's sound mechanics and replay value.

 

HOWEVER, I agree, the next batch of sims was crap, and it only got worse from there. The start of this slide coincided with PCs becoming mainstream and the ancestors of the 1st graphics cards. At this point, game companies started putting on their money into graphics at the expense of gameplay. Thus, the suddenly large market ate up crappy games in record numbers, so the Evil Publishers and Evil Retailers saw nothing but dollar signs. So they conspired to force the Good Developers into shorter and shorter product cycles, until eventually ALL you had was graphics, not gameplay, and not even a game that would work at all out of the box. And the Forces of Evil laughed all the way to the bank, until they realized that the Internet had gone mainstream at the same time, so now folks knew better than to buy their schlock, and they all went bust while the customers went to consoles.

 

Also, space sims don't even exist anymore and that sucks.

 

I think you would find the X Universe series of games belies your opinion. These are totally excellent. You can do whatever you want, build and empire, go kill stuff, get rich, or all of the above. You've got a whole universe to explore at your own speed and in your own way. You can end up commanding huge fleets of your own and establishing your own kingdom if you want. The games are entirely moddable, the devs update them reguarly with added content besides bug fixes, you name it.

http://www.egosoft.com/news/current_en.php

[Javito1986 14]

Ohhh that looks great too. I already wrote down Evochron Mercenary and Starpoint Gemini for future buying (still holding to my 'not buy any new games until finish what I have' mantra). Bullethead, which X game do you recommend I play first? The most recent, X3 Terran Conflict, or should I go all the way back to the original?

 

 

EDIT: Nevermind, i discovered the 'Superbox' on Steam. Funny I've never in my life heard of either of the three space sims you guys have mentioned today. Suddenly I feel richer!

Edited February 13, 2011 by Javito1986

[Von Paulus 8]

Ohhh that looks great too. I already wrote down Evochron Mercenary and Starpoint Gemini for future buying (still holding to my 'not buy any new games until finish what I have' mantra). Bullethead, which X game do you recommend I play first? The most recent, X3 Terran Conflict, or should I go all the way back to the original?

Javito I didn't mention X because that's such a obvious title, that I wonder how did you have missed it?

I bought X Superbox on a steam's sale last Christmas, but didn't played it yet. I've tried a couple of years ago, but I wasn't in the right mood for that game at the time.

From what I've read in some forums people advised to start with Terran. But Bullethead is our X guru, he knows better.

[Bullethead 12]

Bullethead, which X game do you recommend I play first? The most recent, X3 Terran Conflict, or should I go all the way back to the original?

 

EDIT: Nevermind, i discovered the 'Superbox' on Steam. Funny I've never in my life heard of either of the three space sims you guys have mentioned today. Suddenly I feel richer!

 

X3 Terran Conflict is IMHO the best of the series so far, especially with the 3.0 update which added a LOT of free content. However, the mod community has made it possible to bring the older games almost up to current standards.

 

The games are in chronological order. Thus, the main point of playing the older games is to know "the story so far". The gameplay in all of them is pretty much the same, although it gets more flexible and the graphics get better as you go along.