Starlancer

L

Lionheart

Spaceman
So, I'm assuming some of you here have played it, considering 1) it's a space sim and 2) the people who made it. I know it's been out for like three years already, but I never managed to find a copy until last week at EB for four dollars. I played the hell out of it, it was really damn fun; easily one of the best of its genre in recent years (of the ones I've played, at least), and it also made me very nostalgic of the Wing Commander series (no surprise there).

I know it has a sequel in Freelancer, but I haven't gotten that yet--I'm not very interested in it, to be honest, mostly because it makes me think of Privateer, which I never really got into. I would have much preferred to see a direct sequel to Starlancer about the rest of the war and the fight for the inner planets (even though I know what happens to the solar system according to Freelancer). I heard rumors that the Robertses had originally planned for Starlancer to be the first in a trilogy that took place prior to Freelancer, but I don't know if that was true or not. If it was, what happened? Did Starlancer not sell well enough to get the next game greenlit, or something?

And I have to say, dogfighting over Saturn was damn fun. I wish it hadn't taken me three years to play this game.
 
Sylvester said:
Why? I have it, It's a great game. :(
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Sadly, the gaming industry has yet to recognize the 'But Sylvester Bought It' factor when planning future products with regards to poor sales.
 
I got Starlancer when it was new or relatively so; I didn't find it particularly engaging. Gameplay was fun enough, but the story sorta felt like, "Etcetera, etcetera." A fake armistice designed to lure everyone into a trap with hidden/cloaked fighters?

That was Fleet Action, right? Or was it Battlestar Galactica? ;)

Plus, if Wing Commander was WW2 in space, then Starlancer like being in the McCarthy era, except with a hot war instead of a cold one. Not really my cup of tea.

The thing that really put me off of it, tho, was that the next game in the series was set a few centuries later, in another part of the galaxy. (In other words, continuity might as well be tossed out the window.) Feh. What's the point of that?

-The Gneech :cool:
 
Sylvester, no one cares about your opinion here.

Starlancer was mediocrely decent. Fun gameplay, but horrible carrier ship designs (were those carrier designers ON CRACK?) and the fighters weren't that much better. And the voices sounded . . . very very bad.

But for one amusing anecdote, I met Erin Roberts by chance a few years back and I had a long and nice talk to him about WC, his time at Origin, Digital Anvil and the then-recently released Conquest (he and another DA guy were hopping from store to store to see how it sold). After like an hour of talking, I asked him an honest question, "Why did the Starlancer single-player campaign suck?" He laughed out loud and said that they put a lot more focus on multiplayer (to be honest, it was a fun MP game), but when it got released the multiplayer hype wasn't as large as they would have imagined it.
 
I played dual MP with my cousin.

We REALLY enjoyed it.

It really take strain offs those damn shoot-down-the-torpedoes part.
 
Yeah, the 6 player coop is one of the best features of the game.. and it came a bit too early. It didn't really work on the dial up lines we mostly had back then, so nobody did it. It'd probably be lots of fun now.
 
It probably would be, but I don't know anyone else that has the game and there's like never anyone at the Starlancer rooms in the Zone.

Such a shame.
 
Lionheart said:
It probably would be, but I don't know anyone else that has the game and there's like never anyone at the Starlancer rooms in the Zone.
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The game's only $1.99 at EB, so it wouldn't be hard for people to get it and organize a time and place to play.
 
When I bought Starlancer, I thought "this could be the second-best space combat game ever". Then as I played it and every mission became kill-the-coalition-superweapon-of-the-week, I became disgruntled. Also, the last mission with the damned Ion cannon stole my soul.
 
I always enjoyed that last mission. Flying the ship with the cloak was great fun, especially during that particular mission.

I've had the game for a while now, so whenever you guys are ready for some MP let me know.

Also, for about the same price as Starlancer alone you can get the 3 pack that it came in with Crimson Skies and Metal Gear.
 
I got the three pack. Most useful.

But, I just found Starlancer boring after a while. No real point to it, compared to any of the Wing Commanders, just slaying a ludicrous number of enemies.

And to me, that Soviet "Sabre" looked like a ferret from the top, if one removed a pair of the Ferret's tailfins and leveled the remaining two flush with the hull.
 
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