c u r r e n t   l o c a t i o n
http://home.freeuk.net/a51/games/sc2.htm
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r a t i n g : 9 / 1 0
you arrive in the sol system after having left a colony founded 20 years before-hand in a star system many light-years away. then, to your horror, you discover that the war which had been raging when you were cut off from mother earth, has been ended; but humanity and it's allies have been defeated by the (wait for the typical, melodramatic stereo-typing) evil ur-quan and their hierarchy of battle thralls. being the determined, hero-type that you no doubt are, you set about over-throwing the hierarchy and liberating earth.

the gameplay is really quite simple, and space flight is easy, which takes away the common frustration that over-realistic physics systems can produce. the combat is fun and has an edge of realism, with battery recharge times, etc. and the actual exploration challenging. as you attempt to gain mineral wealth, your piloting skills and resourcefulness, not to mention luck, are put to the test. when it actually comes to interaction with alien races, this is arguably one of the two best aspects of the game. the aliens themselves are very different, not just strange fore-head make up to differentiate them, and they all have different fonts that they speak in, making interaction often quite challenging. the dialogue is very intelligent, and often amusing (especially when the crew members argue), and really makes you think. this succeeds in drawing you into the game no end, and makes you feel that you are part of a star trek-style first contact situation.

the other feature which separates this from most other games is the sheer depth of it. the game doesn't only occupy the time in which it is set, the history of the the entire sector in which you are comes into the story. you learn why the ur-quan enslave races and other, even more surprising, things about their history. also, the arilouleelay fit nicely into the historical proceedings of our own fair planet. this leads me to believe that either the creators paul and fred (paul reiche III and fred ford, formality fans) had this whole game planned out when they made the first game or they found that the races, etc. they had created were easily inegrateable into this story.

the graphics themselves are very, very nice, and really suit this style of game. they aren't flashy, polgon-pumped, 24-bit wonders, but they make an extremely good job of using the 256 colour palette available to the vga monitor which was standard at the time. the planets look good, the aliens impressive, and the combat works well. the sound is also a gem for it's time. the programmers (wisely) chose to avoid the usual shitty midi format, and used a similar (but vastly superior) mod format, making the sound nice to listen to.

there are, of course, faults, but there only appear to be two. the most glaring is that once you have gotten everything you need out of a certain species, they seem to repeat the last thing they said constantly, never changing. the second fault is much less significant, but still quite vexing, that is the lack of a game after you defeat the ur-quan (i won't ruin the surprise by telling you how), as it shows you the end sequence and dumps you back out to the begginning. i personally would have liked to visit the members of the new alliance of free stars (or whatever you chose to call it) and seen how things were going, but alas, i was unable too.

probably the most interesting, and unusual aspect of the game is that your character (he is male, there's no choice about which gender your character is) has a love interest! i don't think there are many games that've got this in it, and i've only played one other that does (dune, in the strategy section).

the major themes of the game are: freedom, the rights of sentient beings, good verus evil, exploitation, fear and love. i'll explain some of the larger themes, and leave you to discover the smaller ones yourselves. the freedom aspect of it weighs heavily into the equation, as the whole game is based around freedom, or the quest for it. alot of things in the game concern sentience, and the treatment of sentient life-forms. it's not too easy to give examples here, but it seems very clear to me that it is a theme; maybe this is just because I am a Trekkie, and therefore open to such things, but maybe it's more than that.... there are also some of the most surprising plot twists that i've ever seen in a game. i'll not ruin them by telling you.

the files below are useful, but not essential to play the game (other than the game-file itself, obviously). the resource guide basically tells you where the best systems for minerals, lifeforms, etc. are. the manual tells you how to control the game (i played it without it though, as i got the manual later than the game.) and the background file is a group of text files explaining what the sentient milleu was, and other such things. finally, there's the starmap, it's a large (946k decompressed) jpg file, which was a scan of the starmap that came with the game.

this game is definitely worth download, and it is one of the most immersive games (not just abandonware games) that i have found. i can't stress this enough, this is possibly the best game in the world, but, if you despise science fiction (big mistake) then you might'nt like it as much as a trekkie or more mainstream sci-fi fan.

g a m e   d i s k s
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o t h e r
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--- r e s o u r c e   g u i d e - (691k) ---
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l i n k s
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game taken from the now defunct gd's abandonware site