Be Excellent To Each Other

Talk of Star Control II in the XBLAH thread made me go and check in on Ur-Quan Masters. For those not in the know, the original producers of the game open sourced the full source code and game assets to the 3DO version (which had full voice etc). The only thing it doesn't have is the name, as that's trademarked by Activision. Then a project sprang up to get the game playable on a number of platforms; that project is called Ur-Quan Masters.

Well, turns out UQM is basically complete; it seems to be a perfect version of SC2. All downloads are here for Windows/Mac/Linux. I however have been playing the PSP port which, although suffering from a streched screen ratio, seems otherwise perfect. And more compelling than any of the PSP games on there.

And now, in further excellent Star Control news, Stardock are apparantly trying to get the rights to produce a sequel. Fingers crossed, that could be excellent.

If you don't know what Star Control II was, for shame! IGN named Star Control II the 17th best game of all time, and Gamespot named it one of the greatest games of all time. It's excellent! Star Control I was a top-down space fighting game; you chose a ship and fought, one on one, with another one in an Asteroids-ish playfield. Strategic depth came from the choice of ships and how you used their weapons, which had varying effects and powers against specific other ships.

Star Control II then did something completely bonkers, by taking that part of the game and making it a small part of sprawling space epic. In SCII, you travel the galaxy, exploring star systems, conquering planets, juggling resources, and interacting with alien species in frequently very funny dialog trees. In many ways it was years ahead of its time -- for example, it has real consequences; piss off an alien race with poor diplomacy choices and they won't join up with you in rebelling against your slave lords.

they also want to do new Master of Orion and Baldur's Gate games, which would be ace.

One could question the relevance of doing MOO when they have GalCiv. But GalCiv never clicked with me the same way MOO did.

I would try it, but you need to be a member of the site to download the PSP files and I can't be bothered signing up.

Also, I am currently playing Football Manager Handheld 2009 on the PSP, which I'm going to find very hard to stop playing.

really?

*Wees*.

MOO3>>>GalCivII.

Attached to this post. You also need the three "content" packages from the main project's download page.

They are also doing a new Master of Magic game. With another name (War of Magic), because Atari asked to much for the IP.

ooh, mac version you say.

I like this.

It's like a poor mans Escape Velocity Nova (which is AWESOME ALL CAPS)

ftfy

Surely Ur-Quan Masters has been available for ages? I have a boxed copy given away free with Retro Gamer Issue 2, which was 2005 I believe. Not that' I've ever even installed it.

I suppose I should.

It has, although it moved on a bit since then -- it's been feature complete since late 2006 I think. But the PSP port is new, and it came up in another thread a few days back and Zardoz was asking what it was. Hence, this thread.