Disclaimer: It’s been 2 years since I last played this game so a lot might have changed (though I suspect it hasn’t).
Not sure if it counts as AAA but since you mentioned X4, I think Elite: Dangerous can be included as well. Honestly, I have a love-hate relationship with this game because I feel it has so much wasted potential.
Just as an example: the devs made a 1:1 replica of the Milky Way galaxy, featuring more or less 400 billion star systems. From what I could gather, it uses real astronomical data and you can travel to each and everyone of those systems. I’m not sure how much it has changed nowadays, but last I checked, around 99% of the galaxy was yet to be explored. Also, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but it takes months to go from the populated systems to the far end of the galaxy and its a massive, massive undertaking, where you sort of need to use external tools to plan your trip. And honestly, for me, the sheer scale, the possibility of exploring actual, real places, like the Galaxy core, and also the actual undertaking, is probably the best part of the game. Just going from the core systems to Colonia (which is the other cluster of populated systems) takes a good while, namely days, or even weeks.
But there’s a catch: there’s not much to see or do in these trips. You’re basically warping from system to system and you might stumble upon some really cool real life phenomena like a neutrino star or a hypergiant star or even a black hole (which does nothing to your ship, as far as I know, just gives you a cool visual effect). I’m going to be honest, when I first got to the system harboring the Betelgeuse hypergiant, it was so massive, I couldn’t see the end of it and thought I was going to crash into the star and lose my ship. There was another time where warped in the middle of a binary star system. Again, panic ensued. And honestly, these moments are memorable and stick with you for a long time. But they’re not nearly as a common as one might think.
And it wouldn’t be that bad if, again, there was more to do and see. To put it simply, most of the time, the game feels aimless and empty. You can trade, be a pirate, mine, but you’re doing it just because. Sure, there are community events where you can have an effect on the galaxy, but I don’t feel they have that much of an impact. I guess they were trying to change that with the addition of an hostile alien species but I’m not sure how’s that working out nowadays.
But even then, I could’ve tolerated all of this if it wasn’t for the consistently stupid decisions made by the devs. Instead of actually addressing the current criticisms of the game, they added fuckin’ space legs to the game instead, which nobody asked for. Adding insult to injury, this expansion, Odyssey, is (or was? Not sure how it is nowadays) an unoptimized mess. I had the game crashing on me so many times, I eventually got fed up and uninstalled it. The framerate was also very unstable as reported by a lot of people.
Oh, and they also stopped supporting the console versions. Not sure if they got some sort of compensation, honestly.
And yet, I still haven’t found a space game that managed to equal the highs that I experienced in Elite: Dangerous. I tried No Man’s Sky, X4, Everspace, and all of them came up short. I’m sure they’re great games but the game that makes me forget about Elite: Dangerous is yet to come. Although I should probably try No Man’s Sky again.
I think that I was probably spoiled by Eve in that regard. It has a lot of “wow” moments too. Or SC, though obviously that came after E:D. I’m also just not sure it really had the impact on the genre that the others have, though some of their impacts have not all been positive, obviously.
I guess it has an apparent advantage over SC, in that it’s an actual game that released. How much of an advantage that is, I don’t know, as I never tried Star Citizen. To me, something that put me off Star Citizen (and as far as I know, the same happened with a lot of other people) is the funding model.
It seems straight up dishonest. It’s like they’re leading people with a carrot to a game that might or might not come out. And it’s been this way for years, now. Again, from the outside, it seems they keep eternally promising and adding (or trying to add) stuff to the point where the game is never going to be finished and, at some point, they either keep this model forever or are going to abandon the game. I don’t want to be too judgemental regarding a game I don’t even play or have been hearing much about these past few years but, honestly, it’s what made me stay away from it.
Whatever the merits or flaws of Star Citizen as an individual game, I do think that the sheer amount of cash dumped into the thing by backers does demonstrate that there’s legitimately demand out there for a game in the space flight combat genre.
Agreed 100%, but to be fair I knew which way the wind was blowing with this game back before release when they made that horrible yaw change to keep pvp 'engaging'.
The whole legs thing would have been a nice to have, though. Not being able to just stand up out of my chair was immersion breaking. Once upon a time I jumped through a whole lotta hoops to get it working with my VR headset and NGL, I cried when I drove my rover on Mars. It was that gorgeous. What struck me most was physically looking over my shoulder and seeing the tires of it kicking up dirt and leaving that telltale track on a world where nobody had ever been.
Then I realized I could never leave a bootprint. I think the worst punch to the gut with the space legs thing was not being able to do VR with it afterward. Like...wtf, there's just a very clear disconnect between what direction the ED devs took the game versus what the players wanted.
The whole legs thing would have been a nice to have, though.
To clarify, I’m not opposed to the possibility of you exploring a planet with your character directly on the ground. The thing is, the base game had some fundamental flaws, the lack of content being a glaring example, that the community pointed out as needed fixing and/or improving. But instead of actually addressing the problem, the devs went in another direction entirely. It’s like you said:
there’s just a very clear disconnect between what direction the ED devs took the game versus what the players wanted.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. I mean, if they listened to what the players wanted (at least the bigger and most obvious issues) and fixed their shit, and then added space legs (which was, itself, something hastily and poorly added), I think the community’s reception would have been much more favourable and we’d have a better game to play.
E:D has the basics of a good game, but never builds upon them. FDev is deathly afraid of player agency. They want you to play like it’s on rails in a single player game, but have it an “MMO” for the PVP.
I just fucking want Elite to be good. I could shoot pirates and 'goids all day if getting a ship ready to do so wasn’t as enjoyable as running dental floss into my mouth and out my asshole.
The idea of Eve was always very interesting to me, but I’ve never tried it. The whole aspect of the massive battles wasn’t what I was looking for, I was just interested in the mining and building end of it. I could never tell if I would be able to do that without getting blown up all the time, and never wanted to invest the time in trying it without knowing. I ended up doing something similar in RuneScape. I spent most of the few years I played crafting and selling products and sometimes going on quests.
Yeah, it’s definitely very intimidating to get into, and I don’t think I could start now just because it feels like it’s too late; already 21 years old as a game.
If you want a space game that is very similar to Eve, but not online, check out Astrox Imperium. Be warned, it is very janky and indie.
I’ve got a bunch of other recommendations, but I’ll save those for my med/small posts, so I can write more about them.
I’m pretty sure I’ve bought Astrox Imperium, but I’ve never tried it. I’ve got so many other games I still enjoy playing that it’s often hard to start a new one!
The EVE Online of today has very little to do with the game that came out 21 years ago. It’s been kept up to date very well, the graphics are really nice and the game has been made a lot better for new players. A new expansion just dropped so now it’s actually a pretty good time to try it out.
As for mining in peace: that’s totally doable if you know what you’re doing. The best advice would be to join a mining/building corporation as soon as possible and have them show you the ropes. The element of risk never goes completely away, and you should always be prepared to lose the ship you are flying, but the risks are very manageable, to the point where you should almost never lose a ship unless you’re actively taking more risk.
Yeah, I still play it. I’m based down in Eldjaerin in Minmatar space, right near losec where I do my capital production.
Occasionally I like to try to bait the Russians in Frulegur and Konora (e.g. Coastal Brotherhood) into attacking my carriers or HAW dreads, but I think they’ve learned not to anymore. :P
Ogame is one of those free browser games with pay to win mechanics. I play it every few years just to get rid of that build and deploy fleet bug.
NMSky was pretty mellow and I enjoyed it, up until all the planets i discovered and named had thier names reverted back. No cursing or anything obvious as to why, most were Donkey themed since I am a_d0nkey.
When I think “space game” I usually have a specific genre in mind and Mass Effect isn’t it. You don’t even do anything in space unless you count the hub area since it’s your spaceship. For Starfield to be an honorable mention but Elite completely devoid from the list has dealt me near lethal psychic damage. 😩
Haha, I admit that is my personal bias. I was burned in several ways as an E:D Kickstarter backer, especially when the “all updates” part turned out not to include… all updates.
But honestly, I just lost interest. I was doing rare goods trading routes and Frontier nuked them into the ground, and it became very obvious to me that they wanted to force people to play a certain way.
Wrt Mass Effect, I personally think that “space game” shouldn’t just be limited to “flying a spaceship”. I think it’s fair to say spaceships should be part of it, but Halo or KOTOR or any number of other RPGs that are literally all about space aliens and other planets wouldn’t qualify.
I think that Space Sim or certainly Space Combat sub-genres are fair to require actually flying the spacecraft yourself, but Space Games ought to be a big house, imho, to include RPGs and tactics games and even just Alien Planets, so long as the alien part is really the point (which is why I’d consider Stranded: Alien Dawn more of a space game than Rimworld, though it’s a pretty subjective position to be sure).
I still have a soft spot for Freelancer, despite all the years that have gone by (and aside from some minor UI issues, plays perfectly on a modern PC), and it still looks remarkably nice for its age, too. The story is pretty linear, and the characters not hugely memorable (despite some voice acting from George Takei, John Rhys-Davies, and Jennifer Hale), but it’s just fun to play. It can be challenging if you want to venture into areas less travelled, but because progress through the game is largely dependent on the money you earn (in-game), if you just want a chill evening, you can just trade goods.
And like… this is a game I’ve been playing on and off for 20 years, and occasionally I still find something new. I played it a couple of months ago, committing to docking with every planet and station… and discovered a new trade route that was both shorter and more profitable than the one I had been using. It probably only cut 10 minutes off my three stage trade run around the entire map, but it was still kind of exciting to go “oooh, I never realised this was an option!” All because I visited a station I don’t usually visit.
Yeah, Freelancer is very special. I really think it’s completely unappreciated for how open the world really is, because it’s very easy just to follow the storyline and never just sod off and explore the world. I recently was replaying it with a bunch of mods, and I went exploring the ice asteroid fields in the south end of New York system, and it’s so atmospheric and cool.
I’ve definitely thought about modding Freelancer, but haven’t quite found the right ones yet. I tried Discovery (I think it was), and felt that the changes to the enemy AI and equipment (such as constantly using shield batteries and nanobots) just made gameplay more frustrating than enjoyable, because it made every single battle challenging - no more just chilling out while hauling random stuff through trade lanes. I’d really love a mod that adds new systems, planets, locations, ships, etc without dramatically changing the gameplay to be exclusively about the combat.
One thing that I think that they did right in Freelancer was to cheap out on the not-in-ship content.
X4 put a lot of work into building up an out-of-the-ship environment that lets you walk around space stations, and I just don’t feel that it added a lot of the environment. There are a lot of things that I’d rather have had done relative to X3.
Agreed! I think a lot of games benefit from trying to do one thing really well, rather than multiple things badly, and Freelancer is unapologetic about focusing on doing the in-ship stuff well. Games that try to do both the in-ship and not-in-ship elements end up either with both being done badly, or one just feeling like it serves little purpose in the game.
I’m a Freelancer fan as well. I was looking for a game like that since then. And now it seems there is kind of a successor to the Freelancer. store.steampowered.com/app/1111930/Underspace/
I literally responded to that link with an out loud “oooooooooh!”, my standard “yes I want it” sound. Spiritual successor to Freelancer with Lovecraftian elements? Ticks all the right boxes.
Warframe! I haven’t played in a while but the art style and game in general will always have a place in my heart.
Of the ones on your list I have only played mass effect back in the xbox360 days. It was one of the first games I played. Super good memories. I might need to revisit those if my Xbox is still working
I’ve never actually played Warframe, mostly because I’m not really into competitive arena shooters (with CS:GO and Apex being notable exceptions, though I’ve long since left them behind), and from my short glances that’s how it appeared to me. Does it take place in space?
Oh it’s quite different! The gameplay loop is centered around PvE in a cooperative style with a handful of different modes and a ton of different maps. It does take place in space but there are also missions that feel less spacey like the planes of eidolon
The new items stuff in particular seems like QoL considerations for “we just added a hundred items to the game for players coming back to it after months away.”
Fun fact for those interested the STALKER series was partially inspired by the book A Roadside Picnic. A movie was released in 1979 that was also inspired by it named Stalker.
Maybe the number is from the people who have finished the game. Seems way too high to be all players. After looking it up it seems to be true. 34.4% of players have the Mohg achievement. More than any single ending. Also, Age of the Stars ending is higher than the base Elden Lord ending. Kinda funny considering the whole questline needed for that.
It was mainly around Ubisoft’s The Crew as the latest conversation. This was about a month ago.
Ubisoft took the game offline and also removed from customers’ digital libraries with a message suggesting they try the newer installments in the series instead of the game they paid for.
Not all digital games. If they’re DRM free, and if the multiplayer allows for LAN, direct IP connections, private servers, etc; then they’re built to last, arguably better so than physical media.
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