It has the following gameplay types that you can switch to and play as long as you like:
PvE missions where you and other humans (team or randos) battle AI
PvP missions where its you and your team up against anther human team
Free Space missions that you can complete solo or in teams
Free Space exploring where you can jump system-to-system and explore without any objectives
The game studio, Gaijin, is Russian-based and has a tank game War Thunder (infamous for real-world military leaks) and a vehicular combat game called Crossout, though I’ve never played them.
Anyway Star Conflict is free-to-play, pay-to-win (PvP), but if you play the PvE and open space parts you don’t need to invest any money to have fun. You can stick to the lower ship tiers for casual gaming, and switch between fighting styles and ship roles easily. You can pilot blazing-fast interceptors, balanced mid-size fighters, heavy-hitting frigates, or super-slow but massive destroyers, and customize each one with a huge selection of weapon types, shields, and auxillary syatems. The underlying fighting principle is kinda like rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, so an interceptor can easily solo a destroyer, a destroyer can take out a group of frigates, frigates outpower fighters, fighters hunt interceptors, etc. And the same goes for weapons and shields too, with thermal, EM, and kinetic types and their shield counterparts. If you venture into a space region infested with pirates who use kinetic weapons and thermal shields, then equip your ship with weapons of the opposite type of their shields to maximize damage, and equip shields of the same type as their weapons to minimize damage.
Anyway go try it out and let me know what you think!
Honestly? Aloy from the Horizon games. She’s maybe not the most rounded character, but she is a very strong, determined, stubborn, and intelligent person. She knows what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it. I think it also helps that the games don’t really have many choices or multiple endings, which I think was a good design choice. The story belongs to Aloy, not the player.
Also she’s not a protag (sorta, you can play as her) but I would like to give a shoutout to Lae’zel from BG3. I suspect a lot of players haven’t explored her character questline much because of how prickly she is at the beginning, but her character development is extensive and, at times, heart-wrenching. A story of someone getting the entire fabric of their life and soul torn out from under them.
My issue with Aloy is that she was such a Mary Sue in the first game. I can give some benefit of doubt to her on the account of the spoilers, but my god literally the only time she failed was at the beginning of the game during the trial and even then it was more a force majeure than anything she did wrong. She could thrust herself into any situation and come out on top with nothing dragging her down.
I’m found her more relatable in the second game because in the second get we at least get some hints of her mission being a burden on her and when she is caught off guard by a superior opponent she doesn’t magically beat them. But even in the second game she doesn’t have a lot of depth. There’s so much more depth Aloy could have but the writers never gave her the depth she deserves. And I don’t want people to think I’m dunking on Aloy, I think she could be a very interesting character if she had been properly fleshed out as a person. It’s an issue all Horizon series characters suffer, they all lack depth. Some of them are flatter than the Bonneville Salt Flats.
And I completely agree with Lae’zel. She’s my favorite characters from the BG3 party of character. She’s literally how you described Aloy: determined, stubborn and intelligent. If we ignore the zealotry (which stems from her upbringing) Lae’zel is very similar to Aloy because she thinks she exists solely for the sake of her mission, she is indominably determined to fulfill her mission and she will step on anyone who gets between her and her mission. I find it pretty weird how Aloy is almost universally liked while Lae’zel is one of the least liked companions. I guess it’s the difference of seeing the world through the eyes of the person vs seeing the person as they are within the world.
None of the guys at my old job liked lae’zel. I think because she’s kind of mean. I’m like that’s what I’m here for. I don’t want some pushover passive aggression like shadow heart, and karlach is fine I guess, but lae’zel making people lick her boots is the shit. I’m not even into being dominated but I do like women with agency.
TBH I don’t even hate that part of her, but couple that with her people’s fucked up society that she wholeheartedly endorses until a certain part of her personal quest …
I’d probably have been more willing to explore her quest if I actually liked that part of her. Didn’t quite click for me.
Some of my other picks have already been mentioned so I’ll go with an obscure answer: Cpt. Olivia Rhodes from the VR game Lone Echo.
She is by far the most realistic and immersive NPC I have ever had the fortune of experiencing. The storytelling and immersion in Lone Echo is S tier. The game itself is in my top three VR games with Half-Life Alyx and Boneworks.
Very cool, very indie game where you explore a solar system, and the Newtonian-style dog fights are wicked awesome. But it’s also got boarding ships, and realtime atmospheric entry.
It’s one single developer creating it, and it’s been 2 years since the last update, but there is a recent post saying a new one’s coming.
You might want to check out Chorus, it’s on sale super cheap on GOG right now. It’s an action game with some levels on foot and others in space.
An honorable mention is Star Wars Battlefront 2 (classic) - maybe not exactly what you want, but it has space combat where most of the action is with ship dogfights, where you can also attack the opposing capital ship and disable its core systems to win the match. The whole single player game ensures you’ll get one hell of a power fantasy as the ace/hero, even on harder difficulties.
Everspace 2 might be what you’re looking for. It’s fighter piloting and npt battleship style combat bit it’s one of the closest feels I had to what Xwing vs Tie Fighter was back in the day. You can drift and swap end for end just like XvT.
You might also like the spaceship portions of Star Wars Outlaws. I’ve been having fun in there, too.
Lucca is great, too! Really can’t go wrong with either, but I give Ayla the edge for being such a powerful badass who knows what she wants and goes out to get it.
Crono needs a legendary sword that requires a time-hopping fetch quest to get all the ingredients. Frog requires a sword that’s already legendary, and a whole episode devoted to getting it powered up further. Marle, Luca, and even Magus require triple techs and in the case of the former two, a deliberate power up by Spekkio to even be able to access them in the first place.
Man, I need to play crosscode again. I think of all the games I have played in the last 40 years, that has been the best one. Feels like it was made specifically for me.
I love the story, the characters, the combat, and the puzzles! The combat is multi-faceted, difficult and rewarding.
Two complaints I have are navigating through certain areas is a chore (you basically have to memorize the ‘puzzle-like’ pathways to get to some places), and sometimes I felt the dungeons were too puzzle-heavy. Just room after room of very difficult timing puzzles. Thankfully there are accessibility options to make those easier!
P.S. Radical Fish Games just released a demo for their new game: Alabaster Dawn.
Hehe yeah, unfortunately the things you didn’t like are also on the pro side of my pro/con list.
I like that you basically have a good reason to practice all the zones until they feel like tony hawk levels, you know all the lines and how to trick across all the gaps, hehe.
Stringing one combat across every enemy in the zone, getting that multiplier way up. Nothing to really spend the money on, but still fun to do.
Protagonist has got to be Bayonetta (though it’s based only on the first game). Her character growth in the first game was so good, even if the plot was a little convoluted. Never finished the second one since I didn’t like playing on the Switch and never played the third one. Hope her character is still good though.
Honorable mentions are Kassandra from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, and Stelle from Honkai Star Rail (though this one is mostly for the absolutely ridiculous dialogue options we get to choose).
Favorite female antagonist is hands down GLaDOS. Such a fun, sarcastic, and likeable villain.
bin.pol.social
Aktywne