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Hope for Another Star Control Sequel?
Pluvius writes "A recent post on GameSpot's Rumor Control blog suggests that there may be a chance for a new entry in the classic Star Control series in the foreseeable future. It would be developed by Toys for Bob, the creator of the first two games in the series, and it is implied that the company already holds the rights for the franchise. Quoting from the article: 'But maybe, just maybe, if enough of you people out there send [Alex Ness, producer] e-mails requesting that Toys For Bob do a legitimate sequel to Star Control 2, I'll be able to show them to [Toys For Bob parent company] Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing.'"
Yes, but...
Will it have Frungy?
Will I be able to load in the stats from the latest Frungy season? All the latest players, their colouring patterns, tentacle length and favorite flavour of delicious lichen? Will I be able to customise team-lineup, including the infamous 1-9-18-2 formation? What about personalised limpets? Man, I was so steamed when I found out that we... ah... I mean those funny, yet unutterably powerful, fearsome yet compassionate and all-around great guys the Zoq-Fot-Pik had been cut from the atrocity that was Starcon 3.
All I can say is, you better get it right this time!
I, for one, welcome our new Ur-Quan Overlords. (ducks)
If you haven't played this classic game, then go to http://sc2.sourceforge.net/ . The 3DO version source was released under the GPL and the music and art is free to distribute with the source.
Oh wow. Oh wow wow wow. That would really be killer. SCII is still one of the best PC games of all time - even the music has been on my iPod mini since I bought it.
Posted anon to avoid karma whoring...
I highly recommend the open-source "Star Control Timewarp". It's awesome:
http://timewarp.sourceforge.net/
Toys for Bob haven't made games for PC's for a long time, even if a sequel would be made, what platform(s) would be able to run it?
I really hope that the sequel gats made, and also that it wouldn't be limited to just game consoles.
Star Control was fun, and Star Control 2 is one of the best games ever!
If you haven't tried it, do yourself a favor and go get it at http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
I knew the industry was in sad shape but I didn't think it was that bad, even after 50,000 Madden games.
Nick
We already knew TFB had the rights to SC2 (though apparently not the name, thus the port goes by Ur-Quan Masters, IIRC). So has something new happened that suggested that they might want to, depending on interest, or is this just another one of those "spam the everloving crap out of this guy until they cave in!" tactics?
Pulsing hot liquid flows through my outstretched tendrils, sending thrills into my interior, The moment has come. I swell and burst.
I spent years believing that Star Control 2 was the very best game of the 90's. Particularly for the plot. Layers within layers within layers, and humour to boot! Side stiching laughter.
Hell, I admit it. I played one of the pirated versions from the 90's whlie I was at university. The ones that deliberately crashed in the starmap because (said the urban legend at the time) it knew if the game was cracked in the "obvious" manner, and crashed a lot as punishment. It didn't matter, I managed to play it all the way through anyways.
I've played the game several times since, including the latest version of the open source Ur-Quan Masters, which is pretty rock solid at this point. I also now own the game (A CD re-release), with the box proudly displayed in my computer room.
I've raved about this game for the past 13 years. Plotwise, the only game I've seen that's beaten out SC2 has been "The Longest Journey" by Ragnar Tornquist, which has a sequel "Dreamfall" finally coming out on Monday. I've been dreaming about a Longest Journey sequel for 5 years, but come to think of it, I've been dreaming about a SC2 sequel, a *PROPER* SC2 sequel, for 13. SC2.1 would have "nerd-squee!" (or "OMG! Ponies!!" if you prefer) written all over it.
Hell, at this point I'd be happy if they used the existing UQM open source engine, and gave us a new plot in the StarCon universe. Hell, I'd be willing to do voice acting for the thing. (UQMites, I'm also hopeing that someday soon we'll see UQM mods with user made storylines. That would be cool too)
Well then: I think we all know what to do, right? Spam the nice Toys for Bob guy until Activision breaks and decides that a Star Control 2 sequel would be a nice idea... Hands up everyone who didn't send an e-mail yet, so I know who to LAUNCH FIGHTERS! at.. :)
The petition referenced at the end of the post is old and busted, and he gave the wrong link anyway. It was part of The Pages of Now and Forever
I know it's not SOP to RTFA, but for those of you that are unfamiliar with the off-the-wall humor that comes out of TfB, you might want to check it out.
Don't put advice in your sig.
Just remember that SC3 never happened. Continue the story right after SC2.
SC3 certainly lacked the flair and originality that a proper SC sequel, done by the previous core team, would have had, but I don't think it was all that bad. It kept me up til 5am in fact, and I enojoyed myself. The resource management was ok, the storyline was decent, the combat was acceptable... sometimes I wonder why people think of it as such an abomination.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Finally our ten years of worshipping Dogar and Kazor at #starcontrol brings good news to our Hyperwave broadcaster.
I need to lit my Torch and joy this. It's time for the culture 22, full of CS and WoW sissies, see the afterblow of my afterburner. SNORT.
In response to this news, only one thing can be said: "Loser! Idiot!"
Star Control 3 made many of us *frumple*. But if Toys for Bob are *jumping in front*, and hope to bring Star Control back into *heavy space*, I would be a very, very *happy camper*. I imagine there will be much *dancing* to make this a reality due to the *silly cows* who hold the license, but if Toys for Bob can get *many fingers* into *slow time*, I'm sure there will be many *parties* *in the middle*. *Spicy games* are always fun.
You can always try Space Rangers 2. It's not a clone, but the premise is very similar with wildly different SF game styles fused into one whole. It's dirt cheap too. Check it out.
a tors/review.html?q=space%20rangers
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/spacerangers2domin
A recent post on GameSpot's Rumor Control blog suggests that there may be a chance for a new entry in the classic Star Control series in the foreseeable future.
Now to quote the article:
When pressed for details by GameSpot... He said he does, of course, know what game he's working on, and it's not a Star Control sequel. "It's pretty cool and fun but has nothing to do with Star Control or space or role-playing," he said. "It should be out by the end of the year. My hope was that some time in the future, maybe the next project or maybe the one after, we would get a chance to make another Star Control game."
And to further quote the article, which after reading it, doesn't really seem to suggest all that much, they even bother to neatly sum it all up in one sentence:
Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus...for now.
Pretty weak rumor if you ask me. The guy basically says maybe in the future a project or two from now we'd like to do a sequel. How the hell is this newsworthy? In fact I kinda wish I had the minutes back it took to read TFA.
I'm starting to understand why no one reads the articles anymore. A) they suck. and B) even slashdot appears to be more about sensationalism than actual news delivery.
The funny thing is... sensationalism only works for a while. Yeah it gets people hyped up and interested in the short term, but it only causes dissent in the long term.
I have personally stopped watching or reading traditional news sources altogether simply for that fact. They can't be trusted. Might as well read a tabloid because it starting to amount to the same thing.
I'm 23 years old.
And FFXI it doesn't come close.
I can't even play Japanese movie-fests. Star Control makes you feel like you're a part of something. It's pretty amazing really. Funny, exciting, rich in interesting characters, difficult and has a great battle engine (you can play melee against your friends for hours).
It's easily in my top 5 games of all time, along with MOO2, X-COM, Fallout 2 and Buldar's Gate 2, none of which are 3D.
We really should have age limits on Slashdot...
Well you Star Control people, there are plenty of non-complete projects out there that are very similar to the Star Control concept. First, there's the: incredible looking Infinity
Then there is the Starflight III game. Starflight I & II being very similar, and many feel inspirational to the Star Control series. Starflight III has been in development for bloody ages. They are making progress though, and my bets say we'll have it before long. I can't wait for it to finish.
There are others, and I've even spent about 18 months developing my own unoffical sequel to Starflight with original content. Boy is it hard, despite having basically the full requirements and design goals laid out in the best way possible, the original games. The worst part is the team's motivational considerations. It's hard to work on a game in your own time for weeks on end. I'm probably making a project that no one will play, save the few die hard fans of the old games. I had notions that there may be a wider audience, but after running the game idea past a few 13-14 year olds, I'm not sure the current generation of gamers will appreciate, or even understand a space-opera Star-Trek esq single player RPG since they are not fueled by those romantic memories of games of old. It seems if there is not some military or MMORPG element to games these days, no one wants to publish them. (there's a few exceptions)
On the other hand, there is a counter culture in game development that craves smaller independent type games. PC gamers are all getting pretty sick of 1-2 great titles each year, and the rest, which is pretty much me too crap, from the big publishers.
Of course, rumors are usually just very silly rumors, but why does everyone seem to want the same sequels for the same series over and over, and why are game developers so comfortable in producing those sequels over and over? The results usually don't turn out that great after a few iterations (cough, Wing Commander Prophecy pretty much was Doom all over again, and then Origin Systems died), and unremarkably, most don't feature all that much 'new', let alone earth-shattering plot and character development. Games are a lot like movies, once it's up to Rocky 3, or (darnit) Rocky 5, if you aren't doing much new and innovative with it, it's usually time to just move on. Take the example of System Shock. Now, there was System Shock, it blew, well, the few people who gave it time away. Capitalizing on that, there was the amazing System Shock 2, but because of the slightly unforgiving interface and unique gameplay, it was never really a huge commercial success. Now, with the 'spiritual successor' BioShock hitting shelves next year, it uses some of the same interesting and different concepts, but is a completely different game. Originality? It sure looks like it. But why don't more developers 'take the plunge' and use their famous name and bankroll to do something more interesting and original? Instead of Half Life 3 and X4 and Civilization 5, why not try producing something actually playable, fun, and interesting, like so many of the 'new and original' games of the early to mid 1990s, not to mention some of the great games of the late 1980s? If studios are so 'concerned' about sequels that they constantly put out, then they just need to be strong-armed by big-name studios into putting up for more original and interesting games. There's a reason why 'indie' game quality, despite being rough around the edges, is starting to casually surpass that of big commercial games. Even if the big commercial games are flashier and have 1GB worth of graphics and 50MB worth of content, it often doesn't make them very playable or intelligent, and why spend $50+ on a boring big-name game when you can spend $0-10 on a fun and remarkably polished indie game? Many, even if in the 'same old' genre, do things that haven't been done in similar games for more than a decade now, and do it very well. Nevermind that they also tend to be maintained and patched for a bit longer. It's pretty infuriating when that 'big game' only gets one or two patches, but they never fix the critical issues that some people or everyone are getting, leaving some games even completely unprogressable after a certain point for many people (cough, Knights of the Old Republic). And that's not to say that all sequels are bad, but...if it's a good continuation of the same story, which actually tells that story, and does a good job of it objectively, before fanboyism? Then sure...by all means (just like Wing Commander and WC2, or even WC: Privateer and the lesser known sequel Righteous Fire), but if the primary goal is just to sell an engine, or otherwise make money? Screw you. As a game developer (though certainly not big name), it's just really not right to completely sell a game out, rather than offering something that's actually meaningful, playable, and a fun and unique experience.
"A Goddess rarely smiles for she is forced by others to be an island unto herself." - Zephiris
This petition circulated from Jan 03 - Dec 04 before it appears to have become innoperable. There's also been a similar effort in one of the forums used for a SC open source clone. What makes you think spamming Alex Ness will result in more favorable results??
Best. Game. Ever.
I played hours and hours with star control 1, it's one of the best games i've played ever, i really hope for a new version soon. I hate current 3D games, they are all the same, no originality on them.
There is so much I loved in Starcon II. I almost didn't reply to this topic after sending my email this morning. Too bad this got posted on Easter.
One examples of what I very much liked about Starcon II is how it had the battle of ideals between the Kohr-Ah and the Kzer-Za. It fit together in such a wonderful way... kind of like The Terrible Secret of Space [the Flash movie based on the music from The Laziest Men on Mars]. (Two robots arguing if the best way to protect humans from The Terrible Secret of Space is by pushing them down the stairs, or instead, shoving them down the stairs.)
It was the great humor that made the game. Toys for Bob totally understands this. I really _do_ hope this game gets made, and that Toys for Bob gets the work.
It would be like waiting for a new corvette to be released and when they unveil it, it looks and drives like a Chevy Cavalier.
That game was unoriginal, predictable, drab, etc... and was in no way worthy of the Star Control name. It stunk like some marketing idiots got together and said "gee, how can we profit off of this name", rather than "I have this good idea for a game and a story that's worth telling".
If I ever meet the person who was responsible for that game, I'm going to make them cry.
A Frungy mini game inside the game would be *most* excellent.
Hell, let's face it, Toys for Bob could probably release "Frungy! (The Sport of Kings)" as it's own title and we'd probably all wet our pants in excitement.
Just think of it... the Interstellar Frungy League, with the Pkunk players screaming out "Idiot! Moron! Worm!". Khor-Ah with their Talking Pet cheerleading squad cheering: "You will be annihilated!". The Chmmr won't ever be ready to take the field when gametime comes around.
Maybe a Slylandro would be the ball.
"Juffo-Wup fills in my fibers and I grow turgid. Violent action ensues."
> The number of ships actually DECREASED between SC2 and SC3, some
> of the storyline aspects of SC2 were either changed or outright
> ignored (why did the Spathi join when in SC2 they sealed themselves
> off on their home planet?)
As explained by Niffiwan (the Spathi) in SC3, the Chmmr came and popped their protective sheild "like a soap bubble" and announced that the Spathi "were free".
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Nope.
Not a thing.
+++ATH0
FUCKING PUPPETS.
They turned the Syreen from a race of blue-skinned hotties into reptile-people from Uranus.
Jesus CHRIST was that a terrible idea. And why eliminate Hyperspace? You had the impression you were actually doing something worthwhile and GOING somewhere traveling through Hyperspace - and of course the game eventually eliminated the long travel times for you.
No. Legend and everyone OTHER than TfB needs to stay the fuck away from this one.
+++ATH0
We at the The Ur-Quan Masters project have set up a web page with some more information and a form to petition Toys For Bob from your browser.
Thanks for proving my point.
And the main reason the warp-engine thing was bad was because of the way getting fuel for it worked, which I think most people agree was an Accolade idea. Most of the game was long periods of waiting for your power plants to refill broken by spurts of actual gameplay. Thank God they implemented a game-speed option, otherwise SC3 would've been nearly unplayable.
Rob
Someone tell me when we are Go! Go! for Dancing!
I think I still prefer Deuteros... sure SC has a better combat system, but Deuteros (Atari ST) has an elegant way of integrating "new technology" (in-game) in a way that enhances game-play. I don't have the ol' ST anymore, but MAME handles it without too many crashes :)
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. - Dr. Seuss
I eagerly hope to see a new Star Control game. The originals were great. I just hope whoever develops the game keeps things simple and is faithful to the gameplay of the originals. But man, there's a lot of potential here.
Nice list of top 5!
;-)
Digressing slightly, did you know they left the debugging info in Moo2!
Fire up Borland 3.1 and see all the variable & function names
Nice tip! I'll check it out.
It has always been one of my dreams to create a Star Control movie. With all of the great star wars and star trek fan movies circulating around, how great would it be to create a star control fan movie? hell, I'd even be willing to sink some money into it (read- the little I get for being a poor grad student)
Toys For Bob made some extremely fantastic, and unfortuantely severely underrated, games while I was growing up. I don't know how many hours I spend enjoying the Star Control series, but it's a lot. If Toys For Bob released a new SC game which would run well on Linux in some fashion, I'd be first in line to pay full retail price for it.
Working in a DevOps shop is like playing in a band made up entirely of keytarists.
Why bother using cross-platform tools at all? There are always sites which claim that this still works in Linux, even linuxgametome lists it as a game, lol - I've written them to tell them otherwise, but they still show the game there. Oh well - more unlucky saps will have to figure out the bad news on their own, I guess...
It's the best 2D "space war" type game I've ever played, but the folks behind the project really piss me off by releasing Windows-only versions...
"I'll be able to show them to [Toys For Bob parent company] Activision, along with a loaded handgun, and they will finally be convinced to roll the dice on this thing.'"
I'm surprised there hasn't been any comparison between Activision and the Crimson Corporation yet.
If a Mycon, an Umgah and an Orz attempt to have a conversation, will it create a singularity or a perpetual motion machine?
If the Pkunk and the Spathi went to war, who would win?
Will we ever learn the purpose of the ceremonial dagger on the Syreen "uniform?"
Sorry, but Star Control 3 was one of the worst games of the 90s. So bad it killed an epic series, producing no further sequels for a decade. It's Star Control's version of Ultima 9. That was kinda a given considering none of the talent that made Star Control 2 the amazing creationi it was worked on Star Control 3. Maybe you think it's better because you never played Star Control 2 and are impressed by the bits and pieces they cut+paste from an /actually/ great game?
If they make a sequel, it should be "Star Control: Not quite 3" and simply forget that Star Control 3 existed.
This may be one of the reasons SC2 was so memorable. Not only was the music in it good but at the time, using .MOD files for music in a video game was something that, up to that point, you only got (for the most part) on an Amiga. The music sounded great on any system, even if you didn't have a sound card it would play on the PC speaker. There was also the side benefit of the fact that you could "rip" the MOD files out of the game's data files and play them in your favorite tracker.
I made a CD of all the tracks that I keep around for whenever I get the urge to listen to game music. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. So my only plea for SC4, should it ever happen, would be that they continue putting good, catchy tunes in there.
What's MOO2? Nice list...
System Shock 2! Very creepy and scary, very good voice acting and dialogues and the story was excellent. It was everything Doom3 tried to be...
Planescape Torment also has some good dialogues
http://jooh.no/ss_planescape.html
These days I'm playing SpellForce. Louse acting and dialogues, but I haven't lost so much sleep because of a game since Baldurs Gate 2.
Teasing the nobles, and rightfully so!
I think it is2 baa/index.html
Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares
8.7 great game
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/masteroforion
Teasing the nobles, and rightfully so!
Here's something funny: Ultima 9 isn't that bad either if you patch it.
But hey, keep saying that SC3 was so bad that its badness is self-evident and requires little to no explanation if you want. Doesn't keep me from enjoying both SC2 and SC3.
Rob
Just be careful in SC3. One of the things that always annoys the hell out of me:
It's possible to make the game unwinnable by doing things in the wrong order. Of course, there's no real way to KNOW it's the wrong order, but that's Legend's fault.