HarvesterOfEyes

@HarvesterOfEyes@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thoughts on Space Games, Part 2: Top-5 Medium-Sized Games +⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So many great games mentioned, like Sins of a Solar Empire (will have to get back into it sometime), Homeworld, Freespace, and Galactic Civilizations. Thanks for reminding me of them!

  Oh, and since we’re on the topic, here’s a great playthrough by Tom Francis that showcases how great the Galactic Civilizations II AI is.

  Although, I have to ask: no Endless Space? Not even 2? I had a great time playing it, to be honest. Probably not as complex as the aforementioned GalCiv but it was a ton of fun for me, nonetheless.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thoughts on Space Games, Part 1: Top-5 AAA Games⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I guess it has an apparent advantage over SC, in that it’s an actual game that released. How much of an advantage that is, I don’t know, as I never tried Star Citizen. To me, something that put me off Star Citizen (and as far as I know, the same happened with a lot of other people) is the funding model.

  It seems straight up dishonest. It’s like they’re leading people with a carrot to a game that might or might not come out. And it’s been this way for years, now. Again, from the outside, it seems they keep eternally promising and adding (or trying to add) stuff to the point where the game is never going to be finished and, at some point, they either keep this model forever or are going to abandon the game. I don’t want to be too judgemental regarding a game I don’t even play or have been hearing much about these past few years but, honestly, it’s what made me stay away from it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thoughts on Space Games, Part 1: Top-5 AAA Games⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Disclaimer: It’s been 2 years since I last played this game so a lot might have changed (though I suspect it hasn’t).

  Not sure if it counts as AAA but since you mentioned X4, I think Elite: Dangerous can be included as well. Honestly, I have a love-hate relationship with this game because I feel it has so much wasted potential.

  Just as an example: the devs made a 1:1 replica of the Milky Way galaxy, featuring more or less 400 billion star systems. From what I could gather, it uses real astronomical data and you can travel to each and everyone of those systems. I’m not sure how much it has changed nowadays, but last I checked, around 99% of the galaxy was yet to be explored. Also, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but it takes months to go from the populated systems to the far end of the galaxy and its a massive, massive undertaking, where you sort of need to use external tools to plan your trip. And honestly, for me, the sheer scale, the possibility of exploring actual, real places, like the Galaxy core, and also the actual undertaking, is probably the best part of the game. Just going from the core systems to Colonia (which is the other cluster of populated systems) takes a good while, namely days, or even weeks.

  But there’s a catch: there’s not much to see or do in these trips. You’re basically warping from system to system and you might stumble upon some really cool real life phenomenons like a neutrino star or a hypergiant star or even a black hole (which does nothing to your ship, as far as I know, just gives you a cool visual effect). I’m going to be honest, when I first got to the system harboring the Betelgeuse hypergiant, it was so massive, I couldn’t see the end of it and thought I was going to crash into the star and lose my ship. There was another time where warped in the middle of a binary star system. Again, panic ensued. And honestly, these moments are memorable and stick with you for a long time. But they’re not nearly as a common as one might think.

  And it wouldn’t be that bad if, again, there was more to do and see. To put it simply, most of the time, the game feels aimless and empty. You can trade, be a pirate, mine, but you’re doing it just because. Sure, there are community events where you can have an effect on the galaxy, but I don’t feel they have that much of an impact. I guess they were trying to change that with the addition of an hostile alien species but I’m not sure how’s that working out nowadays.

  But even then, I could’ve tolerated all of this if it wasn’t for the consistently stupid decisions made by the devs. Instead of actually addressing the current criticisms of the game, they added fuckin’ space legs to the game instead, which nobody asked for. Adding insult to injury, this expansion, Odyssey, is (or was? Not sure how it is nowadays) an unoptimized mess. I had the game crashing on me so many times, I eventually got fed up and uninstalled it. The framerate was also very unstable as reported by a lot of people.

  Oh, and they also stopped supporting the console versions. Not sure if they got some sort of compensation, honestly.

  And yet, I still haven’t found a space game that managed to equal the highs that I experienced in Elite: Dangerous. I tried No Man’s Sky, X4, Everspace, and all of them came up short. I’m sure they’re great games but the game that makes me forget about Elite: Dangerous is yet to come. Although I should probably try No Man’s Sky again.