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Starflight 1 + 2, also Star Control 2(free)

MachismoMachismo Registered User regular
edited February 2007 in Games and Technology
Did anyone else play these games?
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/starflight
http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/starflight-2-trade-routes-of-the-cloud-nebula

These games came out in the late 80s. I didn't play either until the early 90s when I got a compilation pack sold by EA that included Starflight 2.

For those not aware, the game offered excellent open-ended gameplay and a quick ass story.
You start out with a ship and a small crew(like 5, one to run each station). You trade to upgrade your ship, but during the course of your experience the story is slowly revealed and events begin to have you contribute to the overall plot.
It had neat graphics for a game of the time where planets would have a sort of 3d, vectored look to them when you landed with large, colored polygons showing the hills and stuff.

It has a lot in common with the great Star Control series in that you find resources on planets and deal with aliens all the time in both combat and diplomacy.

Anyone else remember this stuff?


BTW, the follow up was Protostar (as EA didn't allow the name Starflight to be used). It was an excellent game as well, but I never played it. I just ordered it though from Ebay.

Screenies of SF2:

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/starflight-2-trade-routes-of-the-cloud-nebula/screenshots

Not THAT impressive, but good for the era. Still ok, by today's standards if it were a flash game or something.

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Posts

  • HarshLanguageHarshLanguage Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Starflight was such an immersive, complicated experience (I was a middle schooler at the time)... it was intimidating, but awesome. I still remember the huge folding map, selecting crew, trying to get from one planet to another, exploring to find specimens and artifacts. Great stuff.

    HarshLanguage on
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  • RohanRohan Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    God, I loved these games. I had the original on my C64, and it was very slow going as there was a lot of disk access. A friend had it on the Mega Drive and he loved to nuke one of the planets - I can't remember the species' name, was it the Ughleks? The squid-like guys? The musical guys, too, were interesting. And the hopelessly inept guys, which remind me of the Pakled in Star Trek.

    I remember once I jumped to Sol and encountered a ship that looked exactly like the Enterprise in The Original Series. It had level five weapons, engines and shields, and wouldn't respond to communications. It kept following me, too, and I couldn't get away without it following, therefore giving me another delay to wait through as the C64's tiresome serial 1541 drive loaded up the near encounter data. I got so frustrated, I fired at it with my mostly level three ship.

    I was pwned.

    Rohan on
    ...and I thought of how all those people died, and what a good death that is. That nobody can blame you for it, because everyone else died along with you, and it is the fault of none, save those who did the killing.

    Nothing's forgotten, nothing is ever forgotten
  • FunkyWaltDoggFunkyWaltDogg Columbia, SCRegistered User regular
    edited February 2007
    I played Starflight on the Genesis. I generally had no idea what the heck I was doing, but it was fun.

    FunkyWaltDogg on
  • JulesJules Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Ancients are old powerful race, so are Velox. Obviously us are related.

    Yes, I played and beat both games. The most fun was getting the egg and blowing away the Velox, I could never land on the spemin homeworld though.

    Jules on
    (USER WAS INFRACTED FOR THIS POST)
  • MachismoMachismo Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    As an update, I found this rather neat program.

    Basically a DosBox GUI. Very slick and easy to use. This particular link includes SF1 and SF2 as well as alternate version of those games with a million credits as well as modified maps.

    Needless to say, and following the example of the websites of Binary System's former employees, do not download unless owned or lost the disks for the game.
    http://www.starflt.com/downloads/sfdosbox.msi

    From here:
    http://www.starflt.com/

    Machismo on
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  • SploozooSploozoo Grillaface Richmond VARegistered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Starflight was amazing, never played 2...

    Star Control 2 Basically took the format and made it better methinks... easily one of the best games of all time

    Sploozoo on
    Mnemonic anamnesis.

    aka Grillaface
  • DrezDrez Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Star Control 2 was more accessible, but I feel that Starflight was a much deeper game, overall. They are very similar though. I mean...finding artifacts and whatnot on planets was just awesome. I never beat Starflight, so I never played much of Starflight 2.

    I recommend the PC version.

    Drez on
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  • MachismoMachismo Registered User regular
    edited February 2007
    Also, Star Control 2 is now OPEN-SOURCE. This means that it is free to enjoy!

    The open source version is built from the 3DO version (I think) and has upgraded graphics and music.
    Pretty sweet.

    http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

    Machismo on
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