Space, Flying and Space Flying

[xqxm]

If my opinion is worth anything (and it is), one thing that might explain the lack of flight and space exploration in recent games is that it's fucking hard to pull off right.

I mean, look at your run-of-the-mill gears-of-halo-tournament shooter. As far as level design goes, you just have to think about 2 dimensions, with the occasional ramp or drop thrown in for good measure. You can easily plot out where to pour in a shitload of enemies for maximum excitement AND fun.

Sadly, when moving into three dimensions and the flying simulation, this becomes hard. I've lost count of the many games where you're forced to fly through a fucking corridor and avoid pipes shooting out from the walls while enemies sometimes try to shoot at you.

In space, there's a distinct lack of eiffel-tower high walls for your ship to crouch behind. You also can't just zip away, because you're in plain sight and will be shot, making encounters challenging, yet entertaining, is hard in this environment. I don't think it's impossible, but it'll take a fair amount of playtesting and balancing.

If you pull it off i'll even donate 10 pounds sterling to you. Oh wait, you took down the beggars cup.

 

[GodKlown]

I think there is some truth to the matter that space flight sims fell to the wayside because of profits. FPS and online gaming really took control of the scene, and even with Star Wars returning to the big screen did little to restart the idea. Perhaps it is due for a come-back, but let's all hope it isn't due for integrating into another genre that will take all the fun out of our treasured memories.
Battlefront and the Halo series both featured a limited flavor of flight, but not many offer an open map design to allow you to fly where ever the hell you want. You either smack into an invisible boundary or are told to return to the gaming area, lest you are considered "dead". I always found that crap to be highly annoying and irritating, such as in Battlefield: Vietnam where you had access to jets, but upon launching the jet on some maps, as soon as you took to the air you were already out of bounds. WTF game? You put me in the pilot's seat of a vehicle that can break the sound barrier, but give me the smallest of runways possible to achieve flight? I say we knock down these invisible walls already and let players run rampart with the flying already. A small request, probably not what everyone is looking for, but at least some sign that devs are listening.

 

[bass5]

They did a barrel roll out of the mainstream, and went where all space flight game go to die. The PSP.

 

[ioxles]

The Space Games went here:

http://www.starwraith.com/evochronlegends/index.htm

Pick it up for 15 USD, I have and I'm loving it so far.

 

[Discord]

I personally loved space flight games back in the 90's. Has any played Colony Wars?

 

[TheGreenGoblin]

"Where did space games go to die?" You ask?

They went the way of everything else without good marketing: out of business. It seems there's a fine art to taking any game and promoting the hell out of it until the masses will buy it no matter what. If the game is actually shit on a stick, it doesn't matter because the games already sold. Somehow, the masses will scrounge up another $60 to fall for it all over again.

The bitterness behind the last paragraph comes from the closing Clover Studios. They made a fun, vivid, expansive game called Okami which was a daring and darling romp through Japanese mythology. It was fun. What it wasn't was "promoted." Then again, this is ever so shortly before Yahtzee went to work. (He alludes to it in an early, early review that only us old-timers remember.)

Anyway, Clover Studios should have been saved, not shut down after that game. OK, the controls on the Wii version were so shitty they deserve SOME punnishment, but no more games from this studio forever? That punishes us all.

 

[singing_pigs]

Great. Now I can't get the image out of my head of my own balls exploding. Seriously uncomfortable.

 

[Jhales]

I really enjoyed space simulators, like Tachyon: The Fringe. I too have been wondering where on earth they went.
Also, for a game that has ground to space flight, Star Wars Battlefront 3 was supposed to do just that, and may have actually been good. Too bad the company making it got closed. They were going to do non-canon stuff like make Obi-won an evil, dark-side space pirate (at least that's what he looked like in the concept art.)

 

[Silver]

The problem is of course that Bioware didn't buy the license to Freelancer before making Mass Effect 2, and added flying around in the normandy shooting stuff to the game before release.

If they'd done that, they could have removed some of their patented boring parts too, so that a second playthrough would be a fun thing to do instead of just annoying and tedious.

 

[DeASplode]

I've wondered where on earth they've gone.

Eternal Silence, a HL2 mod sort of brings together what you're looking for. Flying spaceships one minute then boarding the enemies space station to complete an objective.

Although it is multiplayer only and from what I remember only takes place in space only. No going down to a planet and nuking some Arachnid asses.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Space games died out because caned media dose not see the merit in making a game for a niche in a niche demographic.

I mean I would kill for a shadow squadron (32X) sequel. Only you have 6 ships to chose from( 3 power based,3 speed based) with customization on all stats(speed,power shield,armor,repair,weapon power,weapon type) and starting weapons ,ect. Add you have 3 weaopn types loaded to a ship each has an over dive/charge function, there are 5 weaopn categories Missile class, Heavy gun class, Repeater class, tracking gun class(which offers auto turrets or tracking shots).(if you don't recall this is more a shooter than sim and have a set amount of power to make it through the whole game with few and far between energy rechargers)

Add in drops for 12 different weapon you can pickup and drop freely then offer multi modes of play. there are 3 main types of play modes and many sub categories. Main play modes are Fumes where you get no power drops and only a few one use fueling points between areas.Energizer where you get energy drops randomly.And unlimited where only jumping and weaopn(at a half rate) use power.

The single player and same console co op sub modes are
Free for all where you tackle zones anyway you want,the edges of zones would be jump points to move to a new zone.

Adventure plays to the story.

For co op you have the option of using 2 small ships with split stats or 1 large one, one person flys the other shoots.

Online sub modes are
Free for all and Adventure which can offer death matches with or without enemies, team death match with or without enemies.

Bomber allows for up to 6 players on one ship, one flyer 5 gunners/shileders against 5X as many targets .

Base runner where you get to build a base and layout helpful AI and gun turrets and defend the base, players or teams take turns taking out the base and or each other.

God just think about the fun to be had >< *wets self*

 

[Lomsor]

I also wondered where they gone.

But recently I found a lot of new spacegames (and I mean real PewPew space fighting) in production.

Black Prophecy (Oh I'm so waiting for that!)
Jump Gate Evolution
Infinity: Quest for Earth
Shattered Origins
Salvation Prophecy
Arc Nebula
Combat Simulation System
Miner Wars
Heresy War
Naumachia: Space Warfare (one of my favourite)
Starpoint Gemini
Rifted Universe

Source:
http://www.spacesimcentral.com/

 

[Lord Frunkamunch]

Dear Yahtzee: Have you ever played Soldat? It's great. You'd like it. Promise.

 

[hayashi38]

Try Project Sylpheed for 360, Yahtzee.

The story in the game really sucks (as it is written by Square-Enix) but the gameplay is pure action aerial combat.

The only thing I didn't like about it was the arbitrary time limit, but it didn't bother me that much since it only got in the way once.

 

[Nesetalis]

My friends and I have been attempting to build a new space game ourselves. I feel the distinct lack of enjoyable space combat. X3 is okay but as people said, way too complicated and you cant just ignore one part to play another.

The last good space game I played was Freelancer, before that there were Freespace 1 and 2, Privateer 1 and 2.. and probably my favorite of all time that got me hooked on the genera Tiefighter wars.

Production is slow but ideas are high and well fleshed out.

anyone curious about the details can peek at our wiki we have setup.
http://demoo.cr0n.us/wiki/doku.php/development

 

[DeathWyrmNexus]

I am feeling an odd emotion of total agreement. Usually I have this irksome quality of half agreement but this time... Nothing but agreement. It is one of the fun things I loved about Destroy All Humans, that despite their glitchy nature, you had a jetpack and a flying saucer that you could use as you wished.

So ya, I want a damn space game because I sorta missed out on the older ones. I still want to know how I managed that.

 

[aaronmcc]

:34-1:15
(What appears to be) Seemless transition between ground gameplay to space flight. *sigh* What might have been...

dude who filmed this need to stop smoking!

 

[Dahaka27]

Yahtzee said:
I'm waiting for a game like Crimson Skies where you have to take off at the start, and if you see a nice green field somewhere, you can land, get out, stretch your legs, maybe have a bit of a picnic before returning to the dogfight.

Ever play Warhawk on the PSN?

Just a thought.