Spayce Shotters: Is the genre back?

[Chardok]

So I was on STEAM today, and I noticed two new space shotters

http://store.steampowered.com/app/71000/

and

http://store.steampowered.com/app/200410/


I know two games aren't really enough to judge if a "resurgence" is occurring, but this long-lost genre (I guess there are 4Xish element to both these games, but still space combat focused), but I find it encouraging that in the space (lol) of just a few weeks 2 space combat shooter thingos made it onto the front page of STEAM.

Here's to hoping for a Wing Commander reboot, right?! Anyone?!

[Stark]

Aren't they both Elite-style space traders? This isn't Wing Commander stuff, its X3 stuff.

And two games nobody bought is never going to bring a genre back, no matter how many people buy them on sale and never play them.

[VF5SS]

Can Wing Commander Prophecy be made to run on a modern system or is fussy like MW3?

I know you can get 3 and 4 running no problem because they have console ports :3

[Alyeska]

Can Wing Commander Prophecy be made to run on a modern system or is fussy like MW3?

I know you can get 3 and 4 running no problem because they have console ports :3

Just give Good Old Games another few months. They have released Wing Commander 1-3 already.

[CaptHawkeye]

Somehow I think SOL looks like it could easily degenerate into a bullshit mess of spreadsheets like X3.

[Stark]

Evochron Mercenaries is not very good. Its been around for a while but there doesn't seem to be much meat to it - I guess it's the 'EVE but single player' market.

[Chardok]

Well, Fuck.

[Havok]

Isn't Mass Effect a Spayce Shotters?

It seems to be doing well and I can't imagine it not spawning more?

[VF5SS]

Just give Good Old Games another few months. They have released Wing Commander 1-3 already.

but I already own Prophecy on its multi-CD original release

why do I need to re-own it?

[Alyeska]

Just give Good Old Games another few months. They have released Wing Commander 1-3 already.

but I already own Prophecy on its multi-CD original release

why do I need to re-own it?

You don't. But if you are unable to run Prophecy in Windows 7 environment, the GOG release would take care of that.

[Alan Bolte]

Somehow I think SOL looks like it could easily degenerate into a bullshit mess of spreadsheets like X3.

Evochron is the X3 wannabe - it's actually just the latest (2010) in a series that's been around for two decades and hardly anyone has played... presumably because by all accounts it isn't very good.

SOL is, from what I've heard, a very short, and not very deep, Wing Commander wannabe.

[Alan Bolte]

Tried to edit, ran out of time.

Anyway, I wouldn't ever expect traditional space shooters to "come back." The only advantage a space shooter has over a ground-based FPS is the third dimension, and the average gamer always thought Descent was a confusing mess. Now, if someone could somehow reinvent the genre, maybe you'd see the occasional decent indie title, but so long as we keep retreading old ground that never got beyond Half-Life 1 without the level geometry, space games will be restricted to EVE, X3, and Freespace 2 mods.

[Thanas]

SOL looks pretty good though.

[Eleas]

Tried to edit, ran out of time.

Anyway, I wouldn't ever expect traditional space shooters to "come back." The only advantage a space shooter has over a ground-based FPS is the third dimension, and the average gamer always thought Descent was a confusing mess.

I'll grant you the point about Descent, but honestly, the rest is just reducto ad absurdum. One might as well point out that the only advantage the gun has over the sword is its greater range. While technically true (and even that's arguable), it overlooks every consequence stemming from this one difference. Things like cover, movement, the ranges fought at, the mission structure, and basically everything that has to do with the dynamics of the actual game must needs turn out different because of that one difference.

So yeah, we could say that the third dimension makes all the difference. We could also fairly say that it changes everything when it comes down to actual gameplay, which should be what actually matters.

Now, if someone could somehow reinvent the genre, maybe you'd see the occasional decent indie title, but so long as we keep retreading old ground that never got beyond Half-Life 1 without the level geometry, space games will be restricted to EVE, X3, and Freespace 2 mods.

I agree. The problem is that conventions have stratified and need to be thrown out. Only when the slate has been cleared of detritus will games emerge that are actually worth playing.

[bobalot]

There is also X:Rebirth which is supposedly rebuilding the X engine from scratch.

[Tolya]

Just give Good Old Games another few months. They have released Wing Commander 1-3 already.

It's not Good Old Games anymore! It's GOG.com. Because there will be new games soon. [/PR guy]

[VF5SS]

You don't. But if you are unable to run Prophecy in Windows 7 environment, the GOG release would take care of that.

They should release a program that makes the old discs run as a nice gesture to fans

p.s. i still have XP so maybe I could try it again to see chunky Mark Hamill yell at people.

If only there was a console port, cuz I can get every Playstation and Saturn game I own to run beautifully on my computer :3

Wing Commander was one of the better games as far as not having bullshit PC keyboard controls that consist mostly of things you'll never use. Although it still have like three identical beam weapons that only differed in color and recharge time.

I'd say space shooters need to be more like Colony Wars but replaying that one recently all I can help but notice is most of the missions are terribly generic and a chore. I think everyone liked that first game because they got James Earl Jones to narrate some sci-fi schlock about space Jesus.

[Tolya]

You don't. But if you are unable to run Prophecy in Windows 7 environment, the GOG release would take care of that.

That's not everything. Many of the titles that we release also contain expansions, additional content, director's cut, better hi-res movies (which were sometimes part of special limited releases). So while it's true that people already own these games, many of them repurchase them for the additional content they missed out in the first place.

[Alan Bolte]

I was a little buzzed when I wrote the above, but I think I was trying to say that I just don't see what I actually like about the mechanics of old space shooters over the mechanics of an FPS - I strongly suspect the main reason I still play these types of games is nostalgia.

As to WC:Prophecy, I haven't tried reinstalling it, but Standoff runs great and the OpenGL patch for that has been ported over to Prophecy.

[Stark]

Like Veef said pretty much the entire genre was built around significant downtime, repetitive missions, and nearly non-existent AI (or some combination of these). The market has moved away from sims, and people can get their pew pew fix in 3D games that can render a world instead of four squares and a dot, so...

Its pretty damning when fanmade campaigns for a game like Freespace are better paced and more interesting than the campaign people were paid to make. Expectations and design standards have come a long way in 20 years.

[CaptHawkeye]

The X-Wing games and Klingon Academy i'd argue seemed like they tried to minimize downtime as much as possible. Especially true for their sequels.

[VF5SS]

I'd like to say that I'm kind of tired of the now outdated classifications of "sim" and "arcade-y" given how the American arcade scene is effectively dead and the fact that a lot of games and genres of games have incorporated the memorable aspects of the arcade experience into the home gaming market. And given how many of the science fiction based "sims" nerds would stroke their neckbeads to were simulating inherently unrealistic concepts that I think the basic concept of a simulator was getting stretched beyond its implied meaning :3

To elaborate one what Stark said that I said, you have to realize the basic space shooter style game hasn't effectively changed since the days of Star Luster for the NES. You fly around, shoot enemy bases and fighters, refuel at friendly space stations, defend shit, and engage your fast travel hyper drive. All of this was accomplished with four buttons and a d-pad. Even the addition of new weapons and messing with the HUD layout wasn't changing the structure of the games. It wasn't until Tachyon The Bruce Campbell Fringe that I'd even seen someone attempt to tackle newtonian physics as a part of the standard space dogfighting scheme. Usually you either got one or the other as far as how the game handles momentum.

Honestly the real triumph of Wing Commander wasn't its vanilla space combat but the attention to detail and storytelling. Especially all those scenes of Mark Hamill getting in and out of elevators. Our young fertile minds were willing to forgive the umpteenth escort mission so long as we heard Biff making smarmy remarks about our sexuality. So much of the player experience was done without the gameplay and more within the player's imagination.

Nowadays, ff you just want to actually feel emotionally invested in the opening battle of ROTSy any two-bit Warsie game will give you the experience without the need for a lame ARC-170 PC game (joystick required, scrub).

And if you just want the visceral, cinematic feel of a space fight there are plenty of Star Fox clones and Japanese robot games that have honed the craft into a fine experience. I actually found a rare Japanese space shooter called DEATH WING. It's an interesting game to say the least since there aren't really any space combat games in Japan that don't involve robots or are not traditional shooting games.

[Netko]

You don't. But if you are unable to run Prophecy in Windows 7 environment, the GOG release would take care of that.

That's not everything. Many of the titles that we release also contain expansions, additional content, director's cut, better hi-res movies (which were sometimes part of special limited releases). So while it's true that people already own these games, many of them repurchase them for the additional content they missed out in the first place.

Even though I still have it on original CDs (all 6 or whatever insane number of them), I'd love to get my hands on a GOGified version of Wing Commander 4 which would hopefully include the DVD version of cutscenes rather then the "every other line is a black one" of the CD version.

WC4 was the peak of the genre for me for the mission based subgenre (with Independence War 2 taking the crown for the more freeform style) and would be what you would have to see again - an actual AAA title with actual somebody-even-heard-of-them actors (OK, these days probably as voiceovers for 3d cutscenes rather then filmed but still) - for the genre to be anywhere close to coming back. Then again, I'm a sucker for a good cutscene which is something a lot of the fans of the genre, and gamers in general, seem to despise.

The same situation was with XCom style games - a mangled mass of indie half-attempts - and now we're seeing a proper game being made by Fireaxis, so there is hope that the studios are going to finally notice that gamers have grown up and some of them would like to experience games of their youth, but adapted to modern technology and gameplay (yes, that means cutting out repetitive stupidity and unnecessary complexity).

[Alyeska]

You don't. But if you are unable to run Prophecy in Windows 7 environment, the GOG release would take care of that.

That's not everything. Many of the titles that we release also contain expansions, additional content, director's cut, better hi-res movies (which were sometimes part of special limited releases). So while it's true that people already own these games, many of them repurchase them for the additional content they missed out in the first place.

One word of Caution. EA is being very tight with GOG about expansions. I think only a single EA release on GOG has come with its expansion.

WC1, WC2, Privateer, Syndicate. All missing their expansions on GOG.

[White Haven]

Three to one says they've got delusions of fighting GOG at the same time as they're trying to topple Steam. Fucking Origin.