Definitely the ability to just wander around without doing any missions or following any story line. It’s one the main reasons why I’ve have taking such a shine to Precursors. It’s a shame that the game is unfinished. If it had more worlds like Mass Effects uncharted worlds and made more use of the interior of the ship as in Sundog. Then it would have been very nearly my perfect game.

Review of Wing Commander Prophecy, Freelance and Darkstar.

This guy pretty much hits the nail right on the head about what he’s says about all three games and his comments about the X games are spot on.

Well he certainly didn't pull any punches there Pinback! 😆

I wouldn't rate Darkstar One 4 out of 10. A more generous 6 or 7, because it's a perfect entry level space sim. You can have a marathon session, you can play a in short burst, you can star playing with your mouse, and change into joystick if you feel comfortable. (Freelancer is also a perfect entry level space sim, but lucks joystick support). If I had to reccommend a space sim, it would go like this:

Play Freelancer --> Play Darkstar One ---> Play Wing Commander Prophecy ---> Join Spacesim Central, because by now, you are hooked to the genre 😀 :D.

Damn right about the X series. I am still stuck playing the first one after all those years. 😀 😀

I think part of the problem with games like Freelancer, Darkstar and Space force. its hard to tell one from the other especially Darkstar and Space force as they are just so generic, how many times have we seen that storyline of the space cadet fresh from space academy inheriting his father ship or the same old game features.

It like developer never seem think, how can we improve the basic game features, some of them like mining have even become more simpler than they were in Elite. 🙄

It just seem that the same basic Elite type game gets remade every three or four years, with better graphic and usually an overhyped feature and we might be getting another one from Egosoft in a couple of weeks from now. 😆 😆

Very true I just wish developers would spend some time looking at the older games and then cherry picking the best ideas for their game instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every 3 or 4 years.

Well some seek deep stories in games me not. I am a cutscene skipper.

Played X2 X3:R X3:TC no clue of the story. Because I roam the universe. Hunting Pirates. Xenon kaa'k

With the latest boarding capitls with the new sub M7 class M7m missile Frigrat.

Economy I notice it has a in depth one but can avoid it.

Story comes from writers. Bulk of gamewriters aren't that good. But for the better ones even alround writers.

They cost a lot.

So a triple-a stuio seeks for good writers.

Wile low cost production cant do that.

Also those old big production they do feel right. that because they get the time to do it right. work it out.

The funding to garther a top team and experience producer.

The difference is good worked out menu systems, gameplay and well balanse. Wich is part of polish games need and getting the time quality and asurance need to have depending on kind of game.

Comparing Xseries with all that old stuf make no sense to me. The closest games in release time are darkstar one and universal combat.

So Why is space sim gaming so unpoplair?

My take on it.

1 ) it unpopulair by the busness part that fund so invest in games.

2 ) unpopulair because there isn't for many years no big title hit out there to proof there is a market.

chicken egg problem. So Red light from publishers.

3 ) could be wenn profesional dev pitch such idea even with protype. the devlopment cost is due to the complexity and more depth of such game much higher. In technical GDD that is adress also planning. So riskier and higer cost.

4 ) due to thehardware got again more powerfull more can be done. More detail complex scenes. problem lot more work to get it done.

5 ) Is this kind of game suitable for current generation of mainstream gamers, to game got more common. So game must very accessable.

6 ) The markets are now ruled by consoles, or beter play a larger role. PC is big platform but each console on it own are mighty big to ignore. So publisher look for games suitable for consoles but also can be adopted to console. consolified. console overhauled.

7 ) unless not a exclusive most publisher like to go crossplatform. many huge market per each platform.

So glad there is a egosoft who did deliver a series in present time. dito for darkstar one devs. Pity that it ain't large budged high profile productions.

where is derek smart with his capitalship games. Universal combat?

And DB want to but don't doing it for decades.

So forget story unless its a big production with focus on story.

Personally from my experience the best writers aren't necessarily at the Triple-AAA studios as you seem to imply.

I for example think that games by Obsidian generally have far better writing than by the two bigger Western RPG developers, namely Bethesda and BioWare.

My experience is that I dont know those studio's not my kind of games.

but I never seen good stoy with rushed or buggy unfinishhed game.

The genres I folow aren't so story depending.

There is a diverence by a triple A title that focus on gameplay with decent story background in a open world.

Then above average production where story is the focus and gameplay suporting it.

For pure singleplayer linair story you take a decent writer if the focus is FPS and have the budged.

But if the focus is story you aim for the best avaible writer there is around wich fall within a large enough reserved budged.

So you get CODBO singleplayer. So you get above average game writer who does a good job.

While story junky's find it crap. it fit this action genre very well.

But also games like Alan wake and Heavy rain wich I don't play but I bet they even look at high profile writers out the gamewriter crowed.

cool video review thanks!

Makes me think about adding story into my project, I'm kind of on the fence now as to how much story I want (in reality how much story I can add) to add.

I was excited about Darkstar one but Skipped it after the user comments came along.

Personally I think if one has to ponder about whether or not to add a story, one shouldn't.

A story that is added only as an after-thought is generally not a good one.

Story is an interesting 'problem'. Some games are a story with nice visuals, and can be awesome, some games can be great environment containing a story, and can be equally awesome. The former is usually FPS style, the latter RPG. While RPG's can create awesome emersive worlds and environments, they are in my experience generally less engaging than FPS's storywise.

It is strange thing, immersion. The RPG world feels more immersive, but at the same time allows or perhaps even encourages engaging in side-tracks that waste your time. So while the universe depends on you for its survival in the coming 5 minutes, your busy helping an old lady get some jewel she dropped somewhere. FPS's on the other hand are usually very limiting in space, which in itself enhances the feeling that the world is fake, yet the story is so all-encompassing that there is hardly time to worry about the limits of your world.

I guess neither is better or best.

For me when I think of recent games where I have really enjoyed the story I think about Metro 2033 and Fallout: New Vegas.

Of course, my opinion might be biased since I love post-apocalyptic settings! 😉

It's funny you should mention Metro, I was resisting the temptation to mention it, since it has no link to space, but it was also on my mind 🙂

Any major hit would have to appeal to the console crowd and a straight out and out space sim probably wouldn’t.

It would have to be some sort hybrid combining elements of a FPS game. As said before I don’t think Mass Effect would have been a big hit with out its bolt on shooter.

Crossplatform reduces risk.

but each major platform is so large that you can have big hit with exclusive.

The risk is just higher. They need a more master piece to generate 2miljion sale on one platform.

But on crossplatform a good above average game could get that with ease.

Or a reduced investment to single platform.

This means PC exclusive you won't go insane with large investment. But take a reasonable break even point.

A crossplatform game could take 1 to 2 miljon as break even.

On PC a break even point of 500K is probaly equal in risk.

But with more funding margin for crossplatform, they get more the resources to get the most out of there game visions.

Only big high profile studio with strong IP can get high budged for platform exclusive.

I also remember that egosoft would go console with this.

But then have to deal with MS who review there production. A extra barrier.

Plus the game but also engine isnt console supporting. the menu system is strong keyboard based solution.

I think for console the need to produce a console ready game engine but espacialy the console UI system must be developd. Might be the current UI isn't portably.

Probaly adoption means rethink the gameplay to.

I trow it on to much rework and redesigning. So they drop it.

X-Rebirth seams to be PC exclusive.

Yeah, I remember the stand-alone X2 expansion(That later became X3: Reunion) was originally scheduled to get release on the XB1 as well, of all platforms.

Needless to say, those plans were canned quite quickly and that's not a bad thing in my opinion.

While lokin out only for windows PC platform

There is a universal combat around 2005 to 2007

And the latest Xseries game. 2008 2009

Precursor 2010

Starpoint gemini. 2011

The only game I know is Xseries.

UC i know it a litt bit others unfamilair with

If this all so no competion not much choice in fresh games.

Cost will always be the deciding factor in this, but I wonder if it may not have something to do with the fact that today’s games players seem to prefer having a human avatar rather then a vehicle.

It seems most vehicle sims have become a bit of a niche market apart from driving ones.

Eve seems to becoming more of a social networking game and D1 mentioned a comment from BP about how they wished they had made avatar early on as they thought people were having trouble getting attached to ship.

Interresting thought.

Cost might be a major reasdon, but also no sucsesfull triple-A game out there as proof of a large market for such game.

Could be also the current gen of gamers aren't into it, and are extreemly alegic to steep learning curves.

But compare it with racing sims. Well I think that market do so well because in realife some male gamers are petrol heads. Often lots of people who are mark bound.

Me not so petrol head but up till now my 4th car is a Ford.

Siera -> Escort -> Mondeo -> Fiesta

So if you play in story and character deep game. Or very custumisable character game. take mass efect.

that's just one part of it.

Making space ships very custumisable also in looks. same game feature race game offer.

other way to deal with this build such game from a FPS/TPS RPG like extending a game like Mass Effect with Elite game features.

Also A link with reallife woud be a stong atraction. except that's dificuld for space ships.

I would look at many space ship oriented scifi shows and movies.

But in essense they are character driven so you fall back to a base game like mass effect.

This means a FPS space roam hybrid.

After that I don't think I'll be picking DS1 up in todays steam sale (it's $2.50). Nice review

Those dudes in vid review got some point but also there preferences.

I would put games of different era or production magintude or small game. Against each other.

And also not different kind of games within a genre.

And story? There are gamers who dont care much about that.

That why dev's make cutscenes skippable and Skipping I do a lot.

If I would be interrested in this game and would be afraid of buyin crap. Don't go for one review.

Because you might have to less in common with the reviewer.

And judge each positive or negetive point to your own preference.

Well I' am a impulsive buyer so I bought it but did'nt still havent installed it.

So many games to play.

Thought I put this in here, it’s a blog that Jabberwocky wrote for Gamasutra

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/SeanLind ... ce_Sim.php

Some interesting comments in there.

That was a great read Pinback, with even Derek Smart getting into it too. Also cool to learn the Salvation Prophecy release date is now only months away! 😎

kind of funny... I was going to post a response to Jabberwoky, but stopped myself because I didn't want to divert attention (in any way) away from his game - since I'm aiming at a similar genre.