136: What Happened To The Last Starfighters?

Howard Wen

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Jan 30, 2007
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What Happened To The Last Starfighters?

"Suhr theorizes that the genre started to fade from the marketplace at a point in time when gameplay shifted toward simpler controls and away from realistic schemes, which included those of airplane simulators. Many of the classic space sims can be tricky to figure out how to pilot well.

"'Most space sims are more complex [to play] than games like Doom 3,' says Suhr. 'I do think they are harder to access. Some people prefer it that way, but it really is an obstacle for a lot of people.'"

Howard Wen tracks the demise of the space sim.


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vaga_koleso

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Feb 1, 2007
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I think the other important aspect in revitalizing the appeal of star fighters is cross-pollination of the sci-fi theme into sister genres (and particularly Adventure/RPGs) with games like Mass Effect. Sci-fi draws more heavily upon the human imagination that almost any other genre; in the same way that space is more boundless than earth, the possibilities of the future are more boundless as compared to things that are happening now or have happened in the past. But for many people, imagination takes a little while to "revv up", to really get going. Couple that with the gameplay difficulties of an unknown/forgotten genre, and for many, the barrier is set too high. With the demise of the Star Trek series, most people's imagination is no longer in that sci-fi state. That loss can be recouped, however, with more epic sci-fi based stories told via the popular game genres of today. Mass Effect was one game that really re-kindled that fire under my sci-fi passion: it was epic, it was galactic, it was gadgety and cool, it was Star Wars reborn in every way. If games like that came along a little more often than once in 10 years, perhaps people would be more likely to give a classic star fighter style game a try.
 

Zeshin

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Feb 12, 2008
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I would think that it's worth mentioning both Jumpgate Classic and it's sequel in-the-works, Jumpgate Evolution. MMO Space Combat Simulators to the core, far from extinct as the article seemed to relay - neither reason mentioned apply to JG (except maybe the forth, but that has nothing to do with the actual game...).
 

shinseitori

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Feb 12, 2008
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This is a great article, and as an avid fan of the genre, I'm glad you took the time to write on the topic. I can't agree with your first point (not every space sim is like the X series, after all), and I do think the potential for sales is there. However, there just isn't interest on the developer side right now. I believe part of it has to do with the necessity for a brand-new graphics engine, something I think could be truly amazing with the new lighting and physics effects that have been developed over the past few years.

I'd also like to add in a couple of other possibilities:

1) Lack of a compelling intellectual property

When the general public thinks of space combat, there's two immediate reactions: Star Wars and Star Trek. Realistically, Star Trek is too slow-paced to be suitable for the genre. Unfortunately, Bridge Commander is about as exciting as it gets. That leaves us with an IP that's been used up. Several games later, there's not a whole lot that can be done except with remakes. We've seen large scale combat with Rebellion and, more recently, with Empire at War, dogfighting with the myriad of X-Wing titles. All that's left is the prequels, and games based on those movies probably will end with the token treatment they got on the consoles.

There's nothing left, so you need something new. Wing Commander and X were popular but they had their niches to fill. I believe that FreeSpace had the potential to branch out, and it did to some extent. The series had a compelling narrative, one worthy of a television miniseries, but now developer Volition has moved onto console shooters and other such nonsense. The last bright spot for the genre was Freelancer, which was a disappointment in many regards. It could have ended up as envisioned in a MMO format and been quite good, possibly better than Eve, but it was converted at the last minute into a single player game with a truly massive but empty universe to explore. Fleshed out as a proper single player experience, this could have been a franchise for Microsoft to get behind and revitalized the genre.

2) Necessity of proprietary hardware

FreeSpace 2 was a lot of fun with a force feedback joystick. Not every gamer wants to shell out for hardware for a single game, though. Joysticks still see use in more conventional sim games, but an intuitive, straight-out-of-the-box experience may have been a good strategy. This was adopted perhaps too late in Freelancer and Darkstar One, for example. It's not the same as a joystick, but it still provides for a fun experience.

The genre has some of that "you need a joystick to play it" stigma. Perhaps it comes with the territory--for an immersive experience inside a cockpit, you should have flight controls. PC gamers have to spend enough on hardware to generate the processing power needed for today's games. They shouldn't have to spend extra on proprietary hardware to play their games.

What the genre really needs is a shot in the arm from an innovative developer, backed by a big publisher. I don't know how someone can take a new spin on Star Wars and market it, so it probably will have to be something entirely different.
 

vaga_koleso

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Feb 1, 2007
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shinseitori said:
The genre has some of that "you need a joystick to play it" stigma. Perhaps it comes with the territory--for an immersive experience inside a cockpit, you should have flight controls. PC gamers have to spend enough on hardware to generate the processing power needed for today's games. They shouldn't have to spend extra on proprietary hardware to play their games.
that's a great point that was clearly overlooked in the article, though I did enjoy destroying a couple of mice playing X-Wing that way for a while. Still, after Guitar Hero, nothing is impossible :)
 

oneplus999

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Oct 4, 2007
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I have been wondering about this for years. Wing Commander was one of the first "real" games I played, and all the space games since them have just been painful. What? You mean I can't accelerate in one direction and conserve my momentum while turning 180 degrees and firing behind myself? I'll have to check these ones out.

2) Necessity of proprietary hardware
I was always fine with the keyboard. It would be interesting to see what someone could come up with for Wii controls in a space sim, though :)
 

Cooper42

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Jan 17, 2008
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A discussion of community space sims and no mention of www.eternal-silence.net
?

If the concern is over the lack of appeal of space sims - surely widening the gameplay and experience such as ES does might help?
 

grimmjack66

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Feb 12, 2008
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The same could be said of a lot of old computer game favorites...

Where is the latest incarnation of "Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe", "Their Finest Hour", or "Red Baron". All awesome flight simulators on a 386/486 PC, imagine them with todays technology!

Also, along the same line, is the current lack of good driving simulators. EA has totally destroyed the NASCAR racing simulator market. Papyrus was making awesome racing games every year until EA stepped in and destroyed it...the last crappy PC racing simulator they (EA) released was in 2004.
 

The Q

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Feb 12, 2008
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We can all blame the Wing Commander movie for the state of the world right now. That's right...the state of the entire world lies on your shoulders Freddie Prinze Jr!
 

nightfish

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Nov 7, 2007
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Space sims will always hold a special place in my heart - Tie Fighter Collectors CD anyone? this is the Orange box of space sims

Its not just this genre really - how about point and clicks? Monkey Island, DOTT? Beneath a Steel Sky?

Reason why there not around is simple; both of these just don't sell enough. People want sequels and endless amounts of moronic gameplay in FPS
 

mitsoxfan

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Feb 12, 2008
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Ah, the days when Lucas Arts gave us games like Monkey Island, DotT and Tie Fighter. Before they sold out and decided that Star Wars themed FPS was the only viable IP. Bah. When was the last time Lucas Arts did something creative that wasn't 'Star Wars'? Maybe around the time Tim Schafer left?

Anyway, back to Tie Fighter. Potentially the greatest PC game ever. Forget the genre; Tie Fighter was an amazing piece of work, both from the story aspect and from the execution aspect. Of course, best played in DOS and with a joystick, it was still an incredible bit of programming for that day and age to say the least. It definitely did for Space Sims what Half Life did for the FPS genre. As much as I think the FPS genre is an overdone mix of gristle and fat. With a dash of creativity sometimes (HL series has at least a dash).

I don't think that the 'Space Sim' genre is dead, I just don't think anyone has taken the time to do it right. The X series, specifically X3-Reunion (and if "Wolverine" comes to mind, stop reading now, please), was an incredibly rich game, full of content (I spent 80 hours on it at least), but was also incredibly buggy and the story, IMO, lacked. For a space sim buff like myself, it was a lot of fun to play, and even when it was boring, it was still engrossing, if that makes any sense at all?

PC games today are either: FPS/Semi-RPG (Oblivion and the upcoming Fallout 3), FPS (HL, COD, Halo, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc., Prey), or some form of isometric garbage. Like SimCity Crap-cieties, Civilization, or prettified Diablo (Neverwinter Nights).

I mean, seriously, did anyone think 'Bioshock' was earth shattering? Yet it won numerous game of the year awards. Why? Because it was 'pretty', or 'underwater', or somewhat creative (though not very).

I think Game companies and publishers just like to follow the pack. Keep releasing endless numbers of games like Half Life, ports to PC like Gears of War, FPS like COD and Unreal, etc. etc. Forget taking a chance on a Space Sim game, kids these days don't have the attention span to stare out of a cockpit for 80 hours of game time. They want to be fragging aliens on foot with literally a half dozen different kinds of machine guns. Or pretending they are playing an RPG that?s simply an FPS with Charisma points. How easily we?re all duped.

I'm hoping that the new X3, Terran Conflict, can finally do that series justice and put space sims back on the map.

And why the hell doesn't Lucas Arts start putting together a game like X-Wing or Tie Fighter instead of games like "Empire at War", "Star Fighter" and, *vomit*, Rogue Squadron.

If they took X3, spun it into the Star Wars universe, they?d have absolute gold.

And finally, as if this wasn?t long enough, I find the ?spending money on peripherals? argument bunk. If Guitar Hero can dupe people into paying $70 for a junky plastic guitar, or the Wii can dupe people into buying stupid little snap-in holders for the Wii-mote (I?m talking to you, Link?s Crossbow Training), someone will shell out $30 for a force feedback joystick.
 

616Nickel

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Oct 4, 2007
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Freelancer was maybe the first major space-sim to break with the joystick control, offering instead a mous-and-keyboard arrangement that felt natural to anyone used to FPSes. I remember it was pretty controversial at the time of release. It was the first space-sim I'd played since X-Wing and TIE Fighter (which I loved but never finished), and I really enjoyed the vast, beautiful environments, which featured mineable asteroid fields, gas clouds, isolated space stations, and lots of different factions who would attack or ally with you depending on your previous actions. As you progressed through the game, new star systems were unlocked with ever-greater rewards and hazards, with a truly horrendous increase in difficulty towards the end.

Unfortunately the combat was often repetitive, the voice acting was atrocious, and the vaunted trading system didn't feature quite the sophistication originally promised. But it was a lot of fun being able to leave the story indefinitely and just head out exploring, buying and selling goods and occasionally fighting off pirates or rival gangs. I'd love to see something like this with an optional MMO component.
 

hooliganyouth

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Oct 3, 2007
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If a designer puts out a top-notch space combat game then I will happily buy it. If it was built onto an RPG frame so much the better - work up the ranks from pilot to admiral.

Recently:

The Jedi Starfighter series is good but it irks me that you can use the Force to pilot. Then again I put my faith in a blaster not hocus pocus.

"Star Wars Battlefront II" had some pretty fun space combat sequences but nothing too complex.

It was a shame there weren't any deep space sequences in "Mass Effect". I know that the PC was "Captain of the Ship" but even galactic exploration was a little lacklustre.

I'm 100% with you guys - this is a severely neglected genre and while TIE Fighter is a fantastic game I would like to play something fresh and new.
 

moromete

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Aug 16, 2007
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Hey there's also a very nice Battlestar galactica themed mod in development out there on the open_fs2 engine. Just look out beyond the Red Line... the demo campaign is out and pretty cool although a bit short.
 

logos424

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Feb 12, 2008
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Personally I think Space sims could learn a little from games like Ace Combat control wise (Sacrilege! right:)). I loved playing Wing Commander with my Joystick setup and I thought Ace Combat on my 360 was really good till I tried my brothers out with his joystick setup (he splurged on the special edition). WOW, made me remember how sims are really supposed to be played. I did still enjoy the game without the flight stick but a game like Ace Combat is Great with or without a Joystick. Decent setup on a controller made it accessible. I think they need to dumb down the controls but leave in the option to use more advanced controls if the user wants to.
Oh and I hated with a passion trying to play freespace and Wing Commander with a keyboard and mouse. Thats what made me splurge on a Joystick setup for my computer in the first place.

Side note: does anyone remember the name of that space sim that come out for the PS1. Had ships that looked like they where straight out of Homeworld. Loved those games even though they were a bit limited using the PS1 controler.
 

nightfish

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Nov 7, 2007
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logos424 said:
Side note: does anyone remember the name of that space sim that come out for the PS1. Had ships that looked like they where straight out of Homeworld. Loved those games even though they were a bit limited using the PS1 controler.
Do you mean the Colony Wars series?
 

Heidelun

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Feb 13, 2008
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I got to play X-wing series with 5.25 floppy disk when I was just in 6th grade. Loved the same so much that I broke four mouses :(
Later I got the F-16 Joystick.
I really hope Lucas Arts make another X-wing series. Tie Fighter, X vs Tie, Alliance.
My favorite was X-Wing and Tie fighter since they had a great story line behind it.
I still remember when I flew across the death star and going straight up to see how it looks from the above.
Well, I eventually found out it was just a square ...
 

GloatingSwine

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Nov 10, 2007
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I remember hammering X-Wing as well. Great stuff. (I think X-Wing is now tied with Rez for being the game I've bought the most copies of).

I do think, however, that there was a lot of cosmetic simulation that they didn't really need.

When I get home I must try and get X-Wing installed on Vista, see if I can make it work with an Xbox pad, there should be more than enough buttons to map all the actually useful controls.
 

darth nader

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Feb 13, 2008
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I think one other reason for the demise of this genre is similar to what has happened to fighting games: lack of further advancement in the genre. These games haven't changed much since the Wing Commander days. The space trading/mercenary aspect and perhaps the Newtonian physics model seen in a few later games were probably the last major advancement of these games.

One of the few games I thought to be innovative for its time was Allegiance...a Microsoft game. The RTS aspect along with multiplayer combat was like nothing I'd seen at the time. The only game to do anything similar in recent times is probably EVE Online.

There are plenty of good space combat sim type games still out there. The Starwraith series is quite good actually. I wish more people knew about it ( http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/go.htm ). Still, its pretty much like the other games of its type. Hope fully we'll see something new brought to the table that might reinvigorate this genre.