Slashdot Mirror
Spaceflight Sim Dark Horizon Set for Release
Paradox Interactive has just announced the release date(s) of their latest game, Dark Horizon as September 23rd in North America and September 26th in Europe. Offering flight-sim style space combat (with joystick support, even) and many RPG elements like ship customization and weapon creation, this is the first serious attempt at the genre I have seen in a while. Hopefully game studios will realize that there are still many loyal flight-sim fans out there just drooling for a chance to dust off their joysticks and accelerate to attack speed.
I know I don't have much to go on at the moment, but the game looks more like the X series than the Wing Commander and Privateer series. While X was cool, it simply didn't manage to impress the same... aliveness? of the Wing Commander universe.
Case in point: WCNews did a first look piece on the game, but it didn't get much enthusiasm from the crowd. While one can HOPE that the game revives the Wing Commander genre, I think too many space sim developers focus too much on realism and/or pretty graphics to truly understand why the simplistic Wing Commander engine was so popular.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
First serious, recent attempt my ass. This sounds like Vendetta Online in so many ways... that game kicks ass.
And yes, it runs on linux. Quite nicely, in fact.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
Don't get your hopes up guys, this is being made by the same Russian developers that produced the positively awful Tarr Chronicles back in September of 2007, Akella and Quazar Studio. Furthermore if you watch the Dark Horizon trailer and look at the dialog text, you'll find the name "De'khete" in there, that was one of the enemy factions from Tarr Chronicles.
It looks like this is the sequel to Tarr Chronicles under a different name to hide the fact that it's related to that flop. I hate to judge developers before they even get their work out, but when their last title was an abomination and their next title is a sequel coming out a mere year later, I wouldn't put much faith in the game being anything more than a hunk of junk even more rushed than their last game. Go read the reviews for Tarr Chronicles, Dark Horizon is probably just going to be the same thing all over again.
Man, talk about one of my all time favorite games along with Tie Fighter. Great story and overall game play. It's too bad that X-Wing vs Tie Fighter just didn't work out as well as the originals. Now, the game that I really wanted to play was the Babylon 5 space sim that was canceled waaay back in early 2000. That baby looked great!
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
There's a game named Darkstar One that might work for you, the hyperspace mechanism is a lot like Elite's (though fuel doesn't need to be restored, the drive recharges automatically over time). What might or might not be an issue is that your wanted status works kinda like in GTA, you build up wanted stars but they decline over time again (though maybe that's a good thing as you can afford doing some piracy without near-permanently fucking your savegame over). The combat controls much like Freelancer IIRC and you don't get to buy a ship (you get alien artifacts to upgrade your one-of-a-kind alien-like ship or something) but since it's very cheap now (10€) it might be worth a look.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Did you play Frontier: Elite II? Time controls baby, if you ever played that at 1x you would be waiting forever. Realism with a healthy dose of magic works.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
BattleCruiser 3000AD was the one that felt that way to me.. Coupled with trying to run the whole ship.. It was certainly a hard work game, but realistic for all that!