The Freedom of Outer Space

For the past few months I have been on a quest of sorts, not the kind that involves collecting 10 vicious chicken lips or making sure the Amulet of Kings gets delivered to its rightful owner, my quest has been quite different. For quite some time now the market has been starved of good space exploration games, and this is what my search has been all about.

Early in the Xbox 360's life we had Project Sylpheed which was quite good but many complained it was overly complicated, and not a true exploration game anyway. Not too long ago we had a port of an Elite clone originally released on the PC called DarkStar One, a pretty good game and surprisingly it was in full 1080p, but it left me wanting more, much more.

The PC side of things is another story, there is quite a lot to choose from with great games such as Evochron Renegades, Independence War 2, the very complicated X3, the brilliant but perhaps a bit simple Freelancer and lastly not an exploration game but certainly worth a mention is Freespace 2! even the space section of Spore wasn't half bad, but even on hard setting it was just not very challenging.

Current gen consoles have been around for about 5 years now which makes we wonder, where are all the space games guys?? With Elite IV looking like it might take another 7 jillion years before we even see a first screenshot the horizon looks truly grim. Has this genre really become so unpopular that devs think its just a waste of time and money to make these kinds of games? I certainly hope not.

If devs are not willing to take a risk with the genre then perhaps they could test the waters with a HD remake of some of the older games like Freespace 2 or even one of the Elites. Freelancer is a prime candidate for this kind of treatment, the original game was around 700 megs so falling well within the download game size limits and it had quite arcade like gameplay, perfect for an Xbox Live game. It might not make it onto PSN as it was originally from Microsoft Games Studios and they probably still own the rights.

[Dramscus]

I just started programming and learning how to make games. As I was going through some tutorials for blender the other day I realised that the foundation for spaced base combat games is probably more simple to create than any other game genre.

The physics are super simple. There isn't any gravity to simulate, something starts moving it goes forever. It pretty much just comes down to graphics and sound after you have the movement down pat.

I'm thinking that the first practice game project I make will be one of these types of games.
I know it's not something that'll probably ever be seen on a console or most people's home pc's but I'm hoping one day that a version 2 will.

It's sad that space shooters are so neglected now a days. Though it's also sad that D&D style rpg's are being neglected, and interesting game types that fall under miscellaneous categories.

They should make another pod racer game, they should also have some space based star ship racing games, through asteroid fields around moons, maybe through wormholes. Or a total zero G space station based fps game. space in general is just neglected this gen.

Here's hoping for a come back.

[Perjoss]

Good luck with your project, it sounds like something you could have a lot of fun doing. As someone who has started many projects of my own (not games creation but stuff like short films) let me give you 1 piece of advice that I'm sure many will agree with: dont aim too big, maybe start off with just 1 solar system with 5 planets or something.

Aim for something that you are very likely to finish. That way if it all goes well you will get a fantastic sense of completion and not to mention you would have laid the foundation for a much larger universe.

[Dramscus]

That is really good advice. Thank you.

I will be sure to do just that, I'm actually thinking just a small dog fight around a small space station to start. Maybe four or five ships.

[SageHonor]

Would you count Mass Effect and Starhawk since both of those games have a sense of space exploration?

[Perjoss]

Mass Effect is a good mention, I did love driving the Mako around on the planet surfaces, planets themselves looked fantastic and the buggy handled great and was fun to drive around and do combat in. It was also fantastic how you could jump out at any time and walk around and fight.

It's a shame they removed all that and replaced it with the incredibly boring planet scanning. The galaxy map I guess also has a hint of exploration to it, But the feeling of freedom I really like in true exploration games is when you travel around places that do not feel like they are supposed to be visited and you start to get that feeling of oh damn, I'm really far from home.

I would love to see a game like Mass Effect where instead of clicking 3 or 4 times on a map to travel across the galaxy instead you would have to fly there, from a gameplay perspective obviously this would never be done real time but perhaps a cut down 5 or 10 min flight, and not just travelling through a starfield but along the way maybe getting into space combat or receiving distress calls and then you could decide to change course to help out or carry on with main mission.

[SageHonor]

Yeah but in mass effect some of the planets looked cool but had the same looking warehouse in it you know? I do agree though there isnt enough space exploration games and whatnot

[Bonobo12345]

Hey I was looking for a good space game to play on PC!

You just gave me some to research a bit thanks!

[kramun]

I've been looking for a game that surpasses Elite, a game that began on the 8-bit computers. There's been Freespace, the X series, Freelancer and so on, but nothing has gave me the epic feeling of being in space that Elite did.

I don't think there is a single game that was made in those days that was so ahead of its time that even now, in 2011, has yet to be outdone.

I'm not really surprised that it hasn't been something that has taken off on consoles really, I just don't think the audience is there.

The only games that have made headway in the space simulation genre have been the X series, which comes very close to what Elite was. It's a daunting game to play, and takes a lot of time to adjust to, something that automatically makes it unsuitable to consoles.

Egosoft are probably the best contenders in the space sim race, but I don't think consoles will be viable platforms for them. The market just simply isn't there.

Pc is probably the only way to go if you want some space ship busting action.

[rebeccahoward]

well, look at how many of us have lost jobs either to the illegal aliens or else to outsourcing.
http://in.answers.yahoo.com...