I liked your retrospectives, David! I actually started on the Genesis one a couple years ago, when a friend of mine downloaded the bugfixed ROM of it on a whim. Our little group was obsessed with the game for about a week, just exploring and uncovering the plot. I’ve never tried the computer versions for the aforementioned reasons, and only played the second one for a bit (such a weird interface compared to the Genesis), but I get the impression that regardless of medium, the Starflights are just fantastic.

I’m not used to getting so much direct feedback on a post! Thanks for giving me a place to write, Jenn!

Did Star Control 2 have a two-player combat mode? I seem to recall being able to do this in that game. A sort of top-down Asteroids combat model.

I didn’t play the original, but I believe so, if only because the more recent Ur-Quan Masters—the SC2 remake—features online multiplayer.

It’s this style that may be the game’s greatest strength, and is sadly something few games have followed up with since.

Sounds a lot like how the old Ultimas (3 thru, say, 6?) unfolded. They weren’t about cutscenes, massive swaths of exposition, or guiding you through linear events. It really revealed the story through witnessing how things affected the world and through very small dialog bits that painted only postage-stamp-sized pictures of what was going on. It didn’t feel like you were in a linear movie, of even a “world filled with triggered events”. It felt like you were simply exploring a place that things happened in. One of the reasons the Ultimas are my favorites.

And you’re right … very few games have ever doe it that way.

And I distinctly remember a ‘Bird of Prey’-style Klingon rip-off ship that could cloak.

Was this Star Control 2, or has my memory failed me?

We’re getting there, definitely. Mass Effect was totally a step in the right direction, and I got very strong Starflight/Star Control vibes from it. They haven’t got it QUITE right yet, but this is something that will come with time.

The other space game I have extremely fond memories of, which no-one else in the world seems to remember, is Origin’s Space Rogue. This was a 3D flatshaded fly-and-trade-and-shoot game with the twist that any time you landed on a base, it became a top-down Origin RPG that looked like Ultima in space – complete with plenty of narrative, dialogue and subplots. I have a vivid memory of a lengthy subquest involving shuttling back and forth between two sisters in neighbouring star systems to deliver messages. It was, in terms of game design, quite dull, but the fact that the writing was actually quite good somehow made it more compelling.

Plus it had a space station that was almost literally an aircraft carrier – like, the ship – in space.

I tried the Genesis version a couple years ago and found that Starflight didn’t quite hold up as well as I had thought and also that the Genesis version wasn’t quite as good as the Mac version I played growing up. My thoughts on the game are here and here , if you’re curious.