Idle Thoughts Drift To Privateer
Major Striker let us know about an article we'd previously missed over at IdleThumbs. The site recently wrote a nostalgic retrospective on the original Wing Commander Privateer. Somewhere between Elite and Grand Theft Auto, a generation of gamers will forever remember Privateer as their first wide open game. And nothing compares to getting this experience in the science fiction universe that you already know and love. The article has a couple mistakes in regards to Privateer 2, but it also helps direct people to DOSBox so they can get to playing again. And now that Privateer is poised to return soon, hopefully a whole new generation of gamers can enjoy it anew. You can find the full article here.
And when you get right down to it, that’s what my experience with Privateer was all about. The feeling of boundless possibility, not the possibilities themselves. What I really, desperately wanted from this game, it could not give to me. I wanted to fly to all the gleaming space stations and planets I had seen in the magazine, to explore them, to get lost in them, to leave them and then find somewhere new to explore and get lost in. But whether it was because of technological limitations, or a limited budget, or because that just wasn’t the focus of the game, all you could do was stop at these places and stare.I blame the artwork for being so captivating and the music for being so melancholy. Whether I was on the drizzly streets of New Detroit, or inside the massive, hollow center of the space station New Constantinople, where you could see spaceships flying in and out and the stars outside swirling as the station spun around on its axis, these sights always hinted at something more. I wanted to become a part of these places, to discover the hidden wonders and secrets that lay buried beneath their surfaces.
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