Starflight™ 1+2

Fantastic game of exploration, meeting strange aliens, and driving around while looking for materials to upgrade your ship. Hours of fun in a small package, and the walkthroughs that come with the game are entertaining in their own rights. Figure out what the Black Egg is supposed to be used for, listen to the emo sadness that is the Dweenle, or pay attention and also listen to the Humna Humna, one of my favorite alien races ever.

Starflight was the first "real" computer game I got when I purchased my Tandy 1000SX from Radio Shack back in the mid-80s. We used to build blanket forts in my bedroom that simulated the ship, and would put the monitor and keyboard in the "cockpit" room of the fort. We made our own immersion. ;) This is where "mining" and resource gathering originated, as I spent countless hours planetside, attempting to get that last bit of ore in my rover before the fuel gave out. This is where your space battles came from - having zero shields and limited amount of armor left, being pursued, and firing off that last torpedo that annihilates your enemy. This game captured my imagination to the point where I still have it on my shelf to remind my of my forays deep into the universe.

To give this game a fair review, you have transport your mindset and expectations back to the mid-1980s. Programmers of that era had to work in Assembly and within very tight memory spaces. No RDX 4090s with 24GBs of dedicated VRAM. We're talking 8088 processors with MAYBE 640 KILObytes of addressable RAM. This game worked within a 128 KB memory space. So, with that disclaimer aside, I declare Starflight to be a technological marvel. In my misspent youth, no other game effectively conveyed the vastness of space. Staring at the starmap (either the printed map or the in-game one), I remember touching my finger to those little dots depicting the star systems and wondering: "What is out there? How do I get there? Can I carry enough fuel? Who will I encounter and will I be walking into a fight?" The way the game (in the early stages) simply allows you to bumble along was liberating and confusing, all at the same time. Only when the price of fuel begins to creep up on you do you start to develop a sense of urgency. The lore of the story unfolds slowly and the hints are a bit obtuse. But after a few disasterous playthroughs, you will develop your own optimal strategy to outfit your ship and train up your crew. All standard fare for an RPG. It's here, when you become more "powerful" (for lack of a better term) that you begin to actually feel more anxious. A single disasterous battle can have you scrambling back to a save game that would undo perhaps days of progress. I can remember the feeling of dread I experienced when delving into a nebula where your shields cannot be raised. The thin Class 1 armour on my ship (chosen to keep mass down and mobility up) made me feel horribly exposed. Sweaty palm moments. So, for anyone with the patience to suffer through a clunky interface and blocky graphics, I highly recommend giving this game a try. You'll find yourself taking notes, learning about Laytonites, rediscovering Earth, meeting fascinating aliens and blow them to bits.

Best games I've ever played, ever. If there were a real (well funded) high-end production of SF3, it could change gaming forever...again.

I remember playing this back in the day and imagining myself in the captain's seat. As a fan of star trek, this gave me the closest thing to the universe. I can't recall how many hours I've spent simply exploring the universe, finding those trade deals, meeting new species, and blowing ships up. The copy protection was unique and part of me wishes that game companies used something similar today instead of the DRM and online activation schemes we have now. Still, I digress. This is definitely a must have game for space fans. Be warned that as this is an old DOS game, graphics are VERY dated and may not be for everyone. I think the gameplay more than makes up for it and stands up to the test of time.