Star Control I and II

[h1]Star Control 1[/h1] Never had a chance to play it back at the time, turned out it's a pretty cool mini-strategy game. The main strategic screen is a space quadrant which consists of stars interconnected with hyperspace tunnels. Each star system can be either a mine, fortress or a colony (its all in the manual). Mine produces resources (to build new starships), fortress is a fortified system that requires effort for other ships to pass by, and colony lets you populate your ships with new crew members. All of it comes together in a pretty fun and quick strategy game of management and decision making. What to make of this node, should I fortify it or produce more resources? Should I build an expensive ship or should I make myriads of cheaper ones? Should I quickly expand my empire and stretch myself thin or is it better to keep it at minimal and focus on density? The mainbase, i.e. mothership that produces new ships, can also be moved to a next node if needed, even at a risk of exposing the base and high cost of not producing anything while the transfer happens. Some systems conceal Precursor artifacts that could be discovered. They add different kind of boosts to the ship that found one. The rush for finding artifacts is a cool part of it all. The melee combat mode is pretty basic if you compare it to subsequent SC entries, but still kinda doing the job. It can be completely automated by AI assistant. There's different kind of scenarios to choose from. From compact sized quadrants, to fully expanded ones with plenty of room for all possible strategies. What I personally think of SC1 is that original devs should have taken this type of gameplay and then improve and expand upon it, instead of going the route of full adventure mode like they did with Star Control 2. Which takes me to the next part of the review. In the end, RECOMMENDED, even if just out of curiosity for the origins. [h1]Star Control 2[/h1] This is the one where SC fan community placed their bets. The most popular and beloved one. It was part of my childhood, as well as for many others. But playing it now feels pretty rough, clumsy and even boring. There's no strategy elements now, it's all been cut in favor of a plot, negotiations with other races, etc. I mean it's all pretty cool on paper, but once you get your hands on the controls, you can't help but feel all the unnecessary bloat that comes with this type of gameplay. First of all, I hate that you need to manually fly and maneuver your ship to each planet, to each star system, to each wormhole when it comes to hyperspace jumps. I'm quickly getting tired of resource gathering mini-game you have to go through on each planet. Second, lots of grinding, IMO. Third, lots of flying around looking for solution, things to do, things to chase. I would certainly get it if these arcade elements would have some merit to it, some sort of fun factor that really makes, let's say, an 8-bit mario game so fun to just move and jump around. But the movement in SC2 is so basic and has that awkward inertia that it simply is not fun to do. It's not a game, it's a mechanical traversal from A to B, a downtime, and that's kinda it. In the end, CANNOT RECOMMEND. Sadly, it aged like a plate of curd and feels like a game for storyfags only. [h1]The bottom line[/h1] So here's the deal: Star Control is moving into SC2 direction as far as it can be seen from numerous blog posts for the new Free Stars game (official successor to SC series). And I'm not a fan of that. One dream Star Control game for me would be to have an elaborated dynamic strategy game that involves base building and resources management much like in SC1, and a combat mode with roster of ships and the precision of SC3. All in the aesthetics of mid-late 90's art direction: dark and low-key color palette, skeumorphic UI that doesn't affraid of real world materials, no cartoony characters. Lol, some things are too much to ask.

Even after configuring controls, it doesn't work.👎

The Greatest computer game ever made.