The Homeworld series is pretty good, but getting old now....
Homeworld 1 & 2 are strategy games, they're not space shooters / sims.
As for Space sims, the genre is quite dead. The last good space sims were Freespace 2 and X-Wing Alliance, IMO, and they came out in '98 or '99.
I wouldn't even call the Rogue Squadron series of games as part of the space sim family. You fly around in a tiny bubble. Talk about a lack of freedom in flight...
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Too bad Interplay went under & took with it the Descent: Freespace IP.
Those games were fun (heck even the normal Descent games were a blast imho)
Freespace 2 saw its source code released (2003 iirc), and still has a dedicated community that maintains it. Don't know where to go, but Google is right over there.
Are there anything except the X-series for fans of space sims to look out for anymore?
I'll forever hate Micro$oft for canning Freelancer2
I am playing Venetta Online. Nice looking game for only four Devs who created it.
Does have a monthly charge of 9.99 USD and is an mmorpg.
Another one you can try is Evochron Legends. This one is just a multiplayer or single player, not sure
Vendetta Online is quite possibly the best thing to come along since... the internet.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
I've actually been playing Galaxy on Fire 2 on my Android Tablet lately to get my space sim fix. It's a surprisingly very good 'Freelancer' type game. You need a pretty beefy 'droid device to run it though. Runs smooth as silk on my Lenovo K1 nVidia Tegra 2 Tablet. Very nice game for any of you Android/iOS people out there.
I played Black Prophecy during the European beta last year. That was pretty good. It reminded me of Jump to Lightspeed. It's a freemium game so you can try it out for free. It's in the mmorpg.com game list if you want to check it out.
Jumpgate is still out there http://www.jossh.com/join_today/index.html however the game was bought out and they seem to not care about adding players. I played the game alot and enjoyed it immensely.
I would love to see another space sim with Neutonian physics.
Yep, this is a genre that could really use a revival. I've been looking for good space combat sims in the last few years but so far haven't been able to find any. JGE sounded interesting but it went into development Hell ages ago.
Evochron Mercenary has the right idea but the production quality of it is just too low for me.
They should reskin Uncharted Waters with a space theme and instead of going from port to port you fly from planet to planet. Add some new fluff and that would be awesome
Elite on C-64 was the best of them all... Loved that game.
This is a genre that have been lying low for a long time but it might pop up again any time, it do have plenty of potential.
And well, now I am talking about the "trading space sims" alá Elite and Freelancer, not the Space combat sims like Eve and Planteside.
Well, I played it on teh 48k Speccy, but yep agreed. It is hard to convey the impact that game had. Just epic, which wasn't easy to achieve on the hardware back then lol.
If you have iOS Traveller AR has released in beta,it's only 99c and very space simmy. It is based on the Traveller pen and paper RPG rule sets. It's Beta and still buggy and not all the functionality is released yet but it has a great deal of potential. It has regular GM run events and communities are starting to build up and characters are starting to become famous. I am having a blast.
@ RefMinor: What happened to Outer Empires? I was travelling for a while so could not continue with that game and seems to have vanished? I remember Traveller AR being advertised, but was not interested in AR so ignored it, but watched the gameplay trailer (non-ar) and for an iOS game looks - brilliant!!
Infinity looks very interesting - they should start a crowd/free-sourcing scheme by the looks of interest/potential for this type of game.
Well doing alright with some indie-games: (unepic, hacknet, stealth bastard, spacechem) atm but have been looking for a space sim for a while (EvE eventually continue with!). Not a space sim, but a space-ship management sim both nearing beta: Starcommand (pc after iOS/android) and also Faster Than Light
I'm guessing X3 series (Terran Conflict being the newest) isn't mentioned in any post, because everyone who likes space sims already knows about it? It is one of the more popular space simulators...unless you guys are talking about something different.
The mods for it are great, as well. The game can be modified as much or as little as you want. Some big overhauls for it, too.
Comments
The Homeworld series is pretty good, but getting old now....
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
Ultimate Space Sim
Ultimate Space Sim Videos
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
I am playing Venetta Online. Nice looking game for only four Devs who created it.
Does have a monthly charge of 9.99 USD and is an mmorpg.
Another one you can try is Evochron Legends. This one is just a multiplayer or single player, not sure
Ah yes...freelancer
But : Infinity
This was (and maybe still is) a space MMO to end all other space MMOs
http://www.infinity-universe.com/Infinity/index.php
But it was too ambitios I guess...
Too bad Interplay went under & took with it the Descent: Freespace IP.
Those games were fun
(heck even the normal Descent games were a blast imho)
Jumpgate Evolution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeJ1TtH7B4g
Star Trek Online? It's arcadey.
Homeworld 1 & 2 are strategy games, they're not space shooters / sims.
As for Space sims, the genre is quite dead. The last good space sims were Freespace 2 and X-Wing Alliance, IMO, and they came out in '98 or '99.
I wouldn't even call the Rogue Squadron series of games as part of the space sim family. You fly around in a tiny bubble. Talk about a lack of freedom in flight...
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Evochron mercenary?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/71000/?snr=1_4_4__103_4
privateer was one of my favorite game and i don't see why they stopped doing these game .. they require so little.
Freespace 2 saw its source code released (2003 iirc), and still has a dedicated community that maintains it. Don't know where to go, but Google is right over there.
Vendetta Online is quite possibly the best thing to come along since... the internet.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
I've actually been playing Galaxy on Fire 2 on my Android Tablet lately to get my space sim fix. It's a surprisingly very good 'Freelancer' type game. You need a pretty beefy 'droid device to run it though. Runs smooth as silk on my Lenovo K1 nVidia Tegra 2 Tablet. Very nice game for any of you Android/iOS people out there.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
Been playing that on my Android tablet as well.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
Elite on C-64 was the best of them all... Loved that game.
This is a genre that have been lying low for a long time but it might pop up again any time, it do have plenty of potential.
And well, now I am talking about the "trading space sims" alá Elite and Freelancer, not the Space combat sims like Eve and Planteside.
I played Black Prophecy during the European beta last year. That was pretty good. It reminded me of Jump to Lightspeed. It's a freemium game so you can try it out for free. It's in the mmorpg.com game list if you want to check it out.
Jumpgate Evolution is on hold indefinitely.
Jumpgate is still out there http://www.jossh.com/join_today/index.html however the game was bought out and they seem to not care about adding players. I played the game alot and enjoyed it immensely.
I would love to see another space sim with Neutonian physics.
Yep, this is a genre that could really use a revival. I've been looking for good space combat sims in the last few years but so far haven't been able to find any. JGE sounded interesting but it went into development Hell ages ago.
Evochron Mercenary has the right idea but the production quality of it is just too low for me.
Well, I played it on teh 48k Speccy, but yep agreed. It is hard to convey the impact that game had. Just epic, which wasn't easy to achieve on the hardware back then lol.
Loved Freelancer as well.
There's been a couple released by Eastern European developers.
It has that unfamiliar vibe but most are very interesting.
Starpoint: Gemini
http://store.steampowered.com/app/108110/
Space Rangers2 (probably the best game that capture's Elite's spirit even if you play it differently)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/46330/
Evochron Mercenary (made by 1 guy from the US)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/71000/
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
This thread is full of win!
@ RefMinor: What happened to Outer Empires? I was travelling for a while so could not continue with that game and seems to have vanished? I remember Traveller AR being advertised, but was not interested in AR so ignored it, but watched the gameplay trailer (non-ar) and for an iOS game looks - brilliant!!
Infinity looks very interesting - they should start a crowd/free-sourcing scheme by the looks of interest/potential for this type of game.
Well doing alright with some indie-games: (unepic, hacknet, stealth bastard, spacechem) atm but have been looking for a space sim for a while (EvE eventually continue with!). Not a space sim, but a space-ship management sim both nearing beta: Starcommand (pc after iOS/android) and also Faster Than Light
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I'm guessing X3 series (Terran Conflict being the newest) isn't mentioned in any post, because everyone who likes space sims already knows about it? It is one of the more popular space simulators...unless you guys are talking about something different.
The mods for it are great, as well. The game can be modified as much or as little as you want. Some big overhauls for it, too.
Did anyone of you play TradeWars? Its was an online game back in the BBS era.
It was all text based, but still really fun!