Starflight™ 1+2

If you played this in the 80s, then you will love having the GOG version. Dont need to worry about where you put your decoder wheel, of if you still have the map. No complicated shells or configurations, just launch it an play. Still my favorite space exploration game, nothing has come close.

5 stars with the caveat that it's not for everyone. Starflight was one of the very first computer games bought in my household. My older brother had a notebook with careful notes on the game and had diligently marked up the map to note locations of wormholes and so on. So the game had a sort of halo around it in my mind, but when I finally played it myself as an adult, it was everything I had expected. It's amazing to me that they made a universe that felt so rich, so big, and so open-ended and got it all to fit on one 5 1/4-inch floppy disk. And Starflight 2 is even more colorful and entertaining than Starflight 1--it takes all the things about Starflight 1 that were fun, and makes them better. The game-universes are fun to explore, and the story lines are inventive and surprising and satisfying. However, to enjoy these games, you must be willing to keep a notebook and write down all important information, and you must like slow-paced games. You cannot beat the games without diligent note-taking and a lot of patience. Furthermore, a lot of time in the beginning will be spent just driving around picking up minerals: I find this deeply satisfying somehow, and enjoy that aspect of the game, but many people would quite reasonably find it utterly boring.

These are great games and ahead of their time in many ways. However, in other respects they're quite primitive and flawed. What you need to understand going in is that you don't really play these games for their mechanics. The action is bad, the controls and interface are stiff and clunky and the graphics are pretty simplistic and sometimes unappealing. The dialogue, however, is actually quite strong and holds up well to this day. There's some good humor in there, although I felt that in the second game they tried a little too hard with humor which made that game feel overly silly, whereas the first game had what I'd almost call gravitas, leavened by the comedic elements. The world-building is also quite excellent. Though the aliens do mostly fall into the "planet of hats" trope, it works well for what these games are. There isn't much of a defined narrative, beyond the game's backstory. Nor are there any real characters to speak of -- every person you encounter in the game is just a generic clone of every other members of his species/culture, personality-wise. However, this is an open world game, and you can bring your own personality and imagination to the game to enrich your experience greatly. One thing that I encourage players of these games to stop after every hour or two of gameplay and take stock of your situation. Do a "captain's log," by which I mean, imagine in your head that you're dictating an actual captain's log, recapping and pondering recent events and upcoming challenges or dilemmas. Playing pretend like this might seem silly, but it's part of the fun of playing a good RPG, and it will help focus your thinking and help you win the game. Last thing to note: the original Starflight will corrupt your save game if you choose "Save Without Quitting." The batch files that came with the game originally to manage saves were also flawed, but I think GOG fixed that part. Starflight 2 does not have these bug, though the save system is still clunky.

This a decent space exploration game with lots of depth, despite the aged graphics and clunky UI. Like many older games, the game doesn't let mistakes just slide. In particular, don't run out of fuel, since there are heavy fines (in-game currency penalty). Use the classic method of being choosy when you save your game. i.e. you should save the game just before making any long excursions and don't save after messing up and receiving a penalty for running out of fuel. Also, it seems to be a stuggle grinding for resources that are sparsely scattered across planets (you sell resources for in-game currency). This seems to be one of those games where you have to invest dozens of hours to accomplish much. I've confirmed that a botched save can prevent the game from working, since saves mess with the exe file. This applies to StartFlight 1 anyway. There's a decent game here, but I'm giving it 2 stars because the save issue and crash to desktop on load has happened a couple of times already. The crash/error persists until you uninstall and reinstall the game. I agree with other reviewers that many other games were influenced by StarFlight. Someone mentioned MassEffect; nice game. Another one is Star Control 2. It's easy to play, has a great story, and nice (albeit quirky) sounds & voiceovers. The ending is cool too. I'd recommend StarControl 2 or MassEffect over this. Happy gaming.

I bought Starflight I with my first computer, a Tandy 1000sx. It was beautiful in 16 colors. Imagine what a rewrite could do for this game. SF2 was just as good and in VGA! I can't recommend these games enough. Just try to figure it out on your own without help from the internet.