Space, Flying and Space Flying

[ewhac]

Do you still have [Freespace 2]? If so, good. If not pick it up from Good Old Games for $6 [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/freespace_2].

Now go here [http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=65038.0], and follow the directions. [ ... ]

I did that a few months ago -- bought a copy of Freespace 2 off GoG, then downloaded and installed all the user-created upgrades...

And then was promptly wrestled to the ground by the sheer number of controls I need to master. Oh sure, you can bind any command to any key. The trick is [em]remembering[/em] how you set things up. And if you change things around you have to re-remember things. Seriously, they need like a flashcard drill for the controls.

Also, I don't know if it's me (it probably is), but I've always had this trouble with spaceflight sims where I constantly over-steer and under-steer toward my target, and basically oscillate around them. Maybe it's inertial simulation, but I can never quite tune in to the joystick response curve, steer straight toward something, and track it reliably. So I suck at dogfighting.

 

[thenamelessloser]

I love flying in games. Not only does it give me the invigorating sense of freedom that man has envied from the moment he first glanced up from his cave to see a flock of pterodactyls sweeping past, but it also instantly evolves gameplay into the third dimension.

Yahtzee is a creationist?

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Do you still have [Freespace 2]? If so, good. If not pick it up from Good Old Games for $6 [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/freespace_2].

Now go here [http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=65038.0], and follow the directions. [ ... ]

I did that a few months ago -- bought a copy of Freespace 2 off GoG, then downloaded and installed all the user-created upgrades...

And then was promptly wrestled to the ground by the sheer number of controls I need to master. Oh sure, you can bind any command to any key. The trick is [em]remembering[/em] how you set things up. And if you change things around you have to re-remember things. Seriously, they need like a flashcard drill for the controls.

Also, I don't know if it's me (it probably is), but I've always had this trouble with spaceflight sims where I constantly over-steer and under-steer toward my target, and basically oscillate around them. Maybe it's inertial simulation, but I can never quite tune in to the joystick response curve, steer straight toward something, and track it reliably. So I suck at dogfighting.

They actually have that, sort of: the various training missions are designed to drill certain core and advanced controls into your head, though for some odd reason they don't go into the more advanced (and very useful) controls until you've been playing the game for a while and switch squadrons. I always skip those or turn time compression on so it goes by really fast, but they sound like what you want. Assuming you haven't already reached the point where the Advanced Training kicks in, you can go to the mission simulator and press Ctrl + Shift + S and all the missions will display, so you can go through them earlier - just don't get tempted and start playing later missions in the simulator!

 

[lumpenprole]

And when you decide to streamline it, the on foot stuff will probably prevail, if only because a) it's far more common and popular and b) let's face it, a big part of the fun of space sims is being in space, and you don't actually need to pilot anything to get that.

I don't really think that's true. If you look at how many people jumped up and said Battlefront 2, it seems like there's plenty of support for the jump in and out of ship model. Somebody up there referred to 'Grand Theft Spaceship' and that's a perfect analogy. Earning my pilot license in GTA:SA was one of my favorite parts, and after that I flew everywhere.

I think the tools and the talent exist to make a game that used ground and space, and used it well. I think a big part of the reason it hasn't happened is that there's really been nothing like it and game companies prefer to bet on ideas with a track record.

Yeah, but Grand Theft Spaceship is exactly what I'm talking about. I have to disagree with you about San Andreas. Flying around in helicopters and planes is one of the most frustrating bits of GTA for me. Controllers are just not great at doing 3D movement, mostly because they have two sticks with two axis on each one. I just popped Sylpheed on my 360 now (because I talked about it before and wondered if it was as bad as I remembered) and it just doesn't work properly. Yawing and rolling are locked to the same axis on most configurations, and the only one that doesn't do this completely removes the ability to roll. Likewise, throttling is usually a pain.

So if you just force that on a GTA structure, you are likely to either scare people off the complicated 3D flying or dumb down the mechanics.

Other games don't really have the same pace. On most FPSs with air combat people jump into air vehicles for small periods, and even then, they are often notoriously hard to handle. It makes them rewarding to master, but it also leads to specialists, with a good chunk of the players staying grounded to prevent complaints about jumping on a plane and crashing it due to a lack of skill. Or just jumping on planes and dying due to a lack of skill, if they have no choice but to participate.

I'm not saying I wouldn't like to see that Grand Theft Spaceship concept realized, and done well (I'd love to, actually), I'm just acknowledging that it'd have a few big problems to solve in the process. Even on Dark Void flying is so unwieldy that they made accidentally flying into a wall while trying to take off indoors a gameplay mechanic. If that is not an admission of the difficulties of in-game flight, I don't know what is.

Well, I don't know that simplifying the mechanic is a bad thing. Again, in many of the games mentioned in this forum, a simplified mechanic is the rule. I think one of the reasons Colony Wars died out as a series is that they had gotten the flight to a great point, but sort of neglected the gameplay around that.

Having played the demo of Dark Void, I think that the flight in it is unnecessarily difficult. There's no added motion control to it that makes it any more needing of depth than the average game space ship, it's just not really clean. I'll reserve judgment on the game until I play the whole thing, but at the moment, I think flying in Brutal Legend is way more fun, and that sucks.

I actually think you could do a great version of Freespace on the console. When I played it, I'd do loadout and pretty much only end up using 5 or 6 items over and over. And that's without the possibility of adding in FPS gameplay.

Again, I don't think there's any magic here, just lack of will.

 

[ProtoChimp]

Am I the only person in the world who liked sonic unleashed that isn't an obnoxious sonic fanboy.

 

[dunnace]

I enjoyed Lylat Wars. Sure, It was mostly on rails but it was still damn good. And occasionally went fully 3d.

 

[Veloxi]

Yahtzee, thank you for this article. As a space sim fan myself, I've also wondered what's happened to my favorite genre of game. Thankfully there are a few recent games you might like:

Parkan 2 - Space game that lets you pilot a spaceship, get out and run around on planets (in a limited fashion) and board spaceships in first person mode. A lot of fun. http://www.1cpublishing.eu/game/parkan-2/overview
Evochron Legends -- A good mix of space combat and trading action. Doesn't let you get out of your ship like Parkan 2, but still a lot of fun. http://starwraith3dgames.home.att.net/evochronlegends/index.htm

The last great game in the genre was Freespace 2, but sadly since neither that nore Independence War 2 -- which came out around the same time, IIRC -- sold as well as their predecessors, developers slowly moved away from the genre since it didn't seem as lucrative, sadly. Kinda like what's happened with flight sims, but without the rivet counters to blame.

 

[philzibit]

In San Andreas, you could fly a airplane and hop out to beat up hookers.

In Battlefront 2 you had space fights where you could hop out in the other teams ship and kill them all.

So there ya go Ben.

 

[Jaebird]

For what it's worth, Iron Man was fun in regards to flying around and shooting things. Sure the rest of the game was balls, but there were moments where I just didn't give a damn. The level with that flying death fortress was my favorite one, because here you are, this tiny, man-sized metal-man; and there's the S.S. Death-from-Above Fortress.

On a side-note, I just hope the next game doesn't have as missile-happy as the first.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Okay, well it's nice to see that there's someone out there who knows how to laugh at himself. Now, let's see if Mr. Combos and his studio know how to take the constructive criticism and use it to improve their work. I certainly hope so, because it would be nice to see more companies learn from their mistakes (like Looking Glass Studios did with Thief 2 (an awesome game, if you didn't already know)).
Also, it would give Yahtzee the chance to feel like he's doing some good in the world and he needs all of that he can get, right?

 

[9squirrels]

How about I-War (Independance War)? That was an outstanding space combat sim. I loved being able to fly through space following similar mechanics to a plane, then hit a button and flip the ship over and start firing on the people chasing me, while now flying backwards. Excellent.
And having played Elite on both the BBC model B, and later the Acorn A5000 (widely regarded as the definitive version), I think that there's worse things that a space game could aspire to than being like Elite.
A mixture of I-War and a FPS would be pretty cool, but sales-wise you'd end up with some problems with customers who were only interested on one of the facets of gameplay, as they'd be unlikely to buy the game.
Unless, (going off into dreamland) they published it as two parts which could be fitted tofther interspersing the two styles of gameplay, but if you only wanted one, the other style missions could be filled in with short cinematics to move the story along... Now that would be awesome.

 

[9squirrels]

Pants = Bad
The Pants = Good.

 

[9squirrels]

.

 

[owyndevaldeck]

I really liked Freelancer. That game was straightforward. thing were to explore I could rob transporters. Lots of factions and ships and good characters with a suspenseful story.

this is really weird, i had this exact same discussion with a couple of mates and went on ebay and picked up a cheap copy of freelancer because i missed it still waiting for it to arrive though...

 

[recoverytwo]

Extra Punctuation: Space, Flying and Space Flying

Where did all the space-flight games go?

Read Full Article

Actually there was a game that was going to be made that is very close to the game you are wanting called Star Wars :Battlefront III .
Here is some game play that might give you a nerdgasm : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j81I_-uaOqg

 

[mawk]

I'm not sure if it's entirely what you have in mind when you think of the old space flight games (having missed that period of gaming entirely myself,) but there's an in-development indie piece called Star Ruler [http://starruler.blind-mind.com/] which looks like it could turn out pretty well. still in heavy beta, mind, but what I've heard so far has been pretty positive.

and then there's the chance it could turn out like an offline Eve Online, but I'll quietly pretend that possibility doesn't exist.

 

[Simriel]

Try Star Trek Online. Both space and ground based combat. And the space combat is AWESOME!

 

[David Bray]

I love you, Yahtzee. You lighten my day.

I'm really surprised at how nice those developers were considering your closing comment. However, in many ways you were gentler than other sites so they're probably thankful for just the cliché-o-meter.

Keep it up.