Consider this, you can get the bundle of Sttar Control I & II for $3.99 on here on their own. Remember that. Star Control III & Origins were ripped from the original duo of developer's and were some of the earlier obvious 'throw it together, slap a hot/known name on it, and call it a day' updates to a series. In III's case, it went horribly downhill due to going from superb hand-drawn and animated pixel art to $20 muppets - yes, really, you can even spot the puppeteer rods in a few frames for the various races. About the only 'new' thing added was a means to drop down colonies. Except that Star Control I already had that, if in a more primitive fashion. It's also a massive downgrade for the combat & plot in that in Star Control II, you could upgrade your flagship from the spacegoing equivalent of a rowboat, to a dreadnought that could kill anything in the game. In Star Control III? You cannot mod your flagship, and it'd barely better than the worst ship in the game (which, funny enough, is the human cruiser). Origins itself was meant to be a completely different title and had the 'Star Control' name tacked on at the last moment as a very underhanded tactic to stop the original Star Control creators/developers from making a new game in the series via renewing the copyright before they could. While the graphics are indeed better - about on par with the Master of Orion remake - the storyline is effectively lifted straight from Star Control III with not much more than changing the names/pictures of the aliens. You literally could mod in the older names and never tell. That and the plot for many of the races simply stops and they turn into 'repeat the same lines' NPCs from that point on. I own(ed) Origins simply because my girlfriend bought it for me knowing I loved the original two games. I played through the story campaign once and deleted it in disgust. I won't even discuss what I thought of Star Control III.
I have the original game discs and the GOG version, and checked using the same method that gives you the secret Firaxian faction (with Sid as the leader - you get fusion reactors from Turn 1). The source of the GOG's copy were altered so that any difficulty beyond the two lowest are set to the impossible difficulty (transcendent). At the 3rd difficulty level on up, any enemy faction can build two units at once per city in one turn. So be advised. Its still the same game with no other changes however. So if you want to relax, and enjoy the classic feel? Play them, just that you'll easily stomp them. If you want a challenge? Well, it jumps straight to 'computer is a cheating b@st@rd' mode. Its that or alter the game files back to the original settings.
Nowadays with the Touhou craze or Fraxy (if you know of it) with bullet patterns, beauties like Raptor:CotS are all to often forgotten. Let me say this is one of those top-down shooters that begs to be played. This is one of those classics that incredibly fun to play, with ever increasing waves that make you sweat even after maxing out your fighter's bought power-ups. And for its time, was one of the best soundtracks as well.
