Suggest a 'good' BC3000AD lookalike.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-05 10:55am

Splitting from Arrow's thread:

Can someone suggest a game that lets you command a spacecraft (or any craft, really) in a way that Smartass software supposedly does?

Im wondering if someone actually succeeded to do something similar, which is playable.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2006-12-05 10:57am

Freespace 2?

If you can find it, Colony Wars on the PSX was quite enjoyable.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-12-05 11:01am

General Zod wrote:Freespace 2?

No, while FS2 is brilliant, it's basically a space shooter.

Arrow · Post by **Arrow** » 2006-12-05 11:05am

From the five minutes of my life I wasted playing UC when it came out as freeware, I'd say that the Independence War games X-Universe games (IWar 2, X2 The Threat and X3 Reunion being the ones I've played) actually lets you command a spacecraft the way Smart's games are supposed to.

X2 and X3 will let you command some huge warships, and so will IWar 2, once its modded a bit.

For fighter combat, you've got the Freespace series and the Wing Commander series.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-05 11:45am

Dont forget about the first Independence War. Probably the best space sim ever released, with a great story and what I would call the best of the best of all intro's ever released in a game.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-12-05 02:01pm

Frontier: First Encounters is patched and quite good, although it does get samey after a while.

X2 and X3 are good, but somewhat bland until you get a lot of stuff.

I-War 2 is great, can't really say a bad thing about it. I-War is even better, but it's mission-based, rather than freeform like BC3K.

EDIT: Almost forgot Space Rangers 2, probably the best choice of all unless you're turned off by the top-down view.

EDIT2: Also check out Starshatter, aka "BC3K done right minus the freeform".

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-12-05 02:17pm

I liked WC:Privateer.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-12-05 04:18pm

Feayure-wise, very few things come close except for the game arthur mentioned. Part of the reason is that what Derek Smart does is ambitious, if fact pethaps too ambitious. Feature creep is legion in all of his projects. I'd love for him to finally make a good game, because I love the concept of a game that can be played on so many levels, and the mods for it could be s o very fantastic.

Of course, Derek Smart is a stupid jackass and hates his fans.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-05 05:28pm

I've played Starshatter and I must say it was quite good. The only problem was that it was...boring after a while. Every battle looked the same, and with only a few capital ships roaming the space the level of intensity is...null.

Is there a mod community for Starshatter? Maybe someone actually made it better?

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2006-12-05 05:39pm

Nexus might be what you're looking for. I forgot the full title.

Enigma · Post by **Enigma** » 2006-12-05 05:42pm

Shinova wrote:Nexus might be what you're looking for. I forgot the full title.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident?

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2006-12-05 05:53pm

Nexus was a damn good game, although it might've been better if they sticked to the shady corporate wars setting. Instead, we had an epic battle for the survival of humanity against some generic cosmic might. Again.

But the game was great, the battles were excellent both in size and effects.

I can also recommend Star Trek: Bridge Commander. Its not freeform, but the setting of the game is as close as you can get to being a starship captain. I like that game very much.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-12-05 06:01pm

Yes, Nexus was very good, but it did start to go downhill once the Angelwing and the aliens were discovered, and it really took a nosedive in the last couple of (impossible) missions. I hear there are some good mods for it now, though.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-12-05 08:07pm

Nexus was great at the start, with the low-tech and characterful stuff going on. Then you found the Hero Ship and met the Lame Aliens and it was all stupid. Mission design sucked too, and aside from being pretty I don't really understand why people liked it so much.

Space Rangers 2 is a great freeform, change-the-universe game, but it doesn't have the I-war-style 'tweak everything down to the bolts' aspect to it.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2006-12-05 08:56pm

Am I the only one who thinks BC3k 2.0 was okay?

Temjin · Post by **Temjin** » 2006-12-06 01:31am

Pu-239 wrote:Am I the only one who thinks BC3k 2.0 was okay?

Yes.

And about Nexus, was anyone else constantly crashing to desktop whenever you completed a mission? I really enjoyed the game, but I got tired of doing the same tough missions five or six times in a row.

Losonti Tokash · Post by **Losonti Tokash** » 2006-12-06 08:15am

Temjin wrote:
Pu-239 wrote:Am I the only one who thinks BC3k 2.0 was okay?
Yes.

And about Nexus, was anyone else constantly crashing to desktop whenever you completed a mission? I really enjoyed the game, but I got tired of doing the same tough missions five or six times in a row.

Sort of. Those inexplicable stealth missions (who sneaks around in a capital ship?) liked to crash the whole computer. I even timed it so I figured I had about 8 minutes after the mission starts before the computer exploded. Only happened on mine, though, so I just finished it on my friend's computer.

Jade Falcon · Post by **Jade Falcon** » 2006-12-06 09:08am

There's also a European game called Star Wolves, kinda like a Homeworld style game where you have fighters with a larger support ship which you can upgrade.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-12-06 06:00pm

The Nexus demo was awesome. I actually used tactics in that - I sent two destroyers off to get help. When the alien ships started firing on one, I had that one sacrifice itself to let the other get away. The full game never engaged me as much as it did there.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-12-06 06:13pm

That's because that isn't tactics: people do that in RTSes, for christs sake. The actual game missions just didn't have objectives that let you do stuff like that. The Hero Ship was a big factor in that: they couldn't make a fleet game where casualties were acceptable, because you had the Hero Ship that had to survive. Sigh.