This game is... it's... (damn I can't think of the word cos I haven't used it in so long)... it's ORIGINAL. Jeez I never thought I'd use that word again :) You control a rebel ship which is just ahead of the advancing imperial armada. Over five sectors (each containing about 20 star systems) you have to develop your ship's systems and weaponry, recruit additional crew, and survive hostile encounters all while keeping ahead of the armada. In the final sector you must defeat the imperial flagship to win. This is pretty tough - even on Easy I only managed this the second time through. The gameplay is not about piloting your ship or manoeuvring in space - you actually control the individual crew members in real-time to man systems (weapons, shields, engines, helm, etc), repair systems, repel boarders, etc. As such it is a fire-fighting game and you do literally put-out fires as well (tho much more fun to open fires - and boarders! - to vacuum!). It's a budget / crowd-funded release so don't expect any cutscenes, etc but the cute graphics and tunes are more than worthy of a professional game studio. I've dropped it one star because I think it will get a bit 'samey' over time. The devs have done what they can to extend playability (each final victory unlocks another ship design, etc) but I think this is a game which is better dipped-into for a week or so every few months. Still top marks to the devs - who knew an original game would turn-up this long after the Golden Age of computer games (which for me will always be between the first System Shock (1995) and Morrowind (2002)).
Fantastic and massively addictive once you pass the steep-ish learning curve. I wanted this back in 2012/13 when it was released but I'm old skool and resented paying £30 for a game with no disc or manual - god was I a fool... One month in and I'd totally mastered landing, deploying standalone science experiments, and interplanetary transfers. Two months in and I've landed on Eve (this is hard), I've setup my own Comm Sat network and have my self-designed Rover (with a self-righting mechanism!) on nearly every planet and moon in the entire system. What I particularly love about this game is that it encourages RL (real life) behaviours, e.g. after a dozen launches you are going to end up with a lot of space debris (spent boosters, decouplers, etc) in orbit. Now, you can just 'kill' them, but it's far more fun to make a reusable Space Shuttle Grabber, rendezvous with the debris, grab it, and then de-orbit it so it burns up in the atmosphere - you can even spin your grabber ship in circles a few times, release the debris at the right time, and use centripetal acceleration to give the debris an even bigger kick backwards. I don't know anything about this spyware??? I only ever start the game up when I'm offline so I say Mwa-ha-ha-ha to the spyware guys - fill your boots. Fave Kerbonaut: gotta be Valentina with the best nkers eyes... I wonder if Valentina Tereskova likes the game :)
I'm a big fan of GOG but in this case they've really dropped the ball - they've dropped the ball into a bath of acid situated on the planet Jupiter whose gravity ensures said ball will never be retrieved... 1. H&D Deluxe was released as Freeware in 2003. Re-selling this is slightly immoral. 2. The Freeware is at version 1.51 - while yours is still at 1.3. 3. The Freeware comes with the H&D Editor. 4. The Freeware is one game with the addon Fight For Freedom as a Menu option - yours is two separate game directories each containing the full game. 5. The Freeware install is 272MB - due to point 4, yours is 930MB... ever hear of bloatware? 6. The 2003 Freeware works perfectly in 1600 x 900 on a 2024 Win11 64-bit machine. Yours does not (see 7-10 below) 7. I tried several different graphics options (V-Sync, Triple Buffering, etc) but on startup, your version has a bad flicker and other graphical anomalies on the Main Menu H&D graphic. 8. On the Main Menu screen of your version, I can't see the 'Start Game' or other text - hitting these is blind trial and error. 9. By trial and error, I managed to enter a profile name and start a game... the campaign selection screen shows OK, but as soon as you move the mouse it turns into a totally tripped-out kaleidoscopic nightmare in which you can't see which option you are selecting. 10. By trial and error, I managed to start the cutscene for Campaign 1 and the cutscene froze. I'm not giving your version 4 Stars, but the game deserves to be played. This is an incredibly atmospheric joyride from start to finish. I'm dropping one star because the squad AI works well, but not perfectly - the 'Hold Fire' command (given first-person or by the map ) doesn't work. Otherwise this is a great game BUT... get the freeware version.
1. Best Game Story EVER... The intro cutscene is SHOCKingly enthralling, even now - never mind for 1994. As a superfan once said... "You do a cut-and-paste job on the AI and everything goes pear-shaped... Shodan has gone completely insane making HAL look like a grumpy lollypop lady." That's the thing - hundreds of people have died in the most horrible manner - and it's YOUR fault. Humanity is about to become extinct - and it's YOUR fault. 2. Best Baddie EVER... Shodan taunts you, Shodan threatens you, Shodan tells you she knows what you're up to... hell, She even invites you to a party if you inadvertently destroy the Earth! No other endgame boss has ever been like this, and it's still rare to find any of these tension-raising devices these days. 3. Best Tech Advance EVER... This was the first six degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) first person shooter ever made. Commonly perceived reality has three rotational components (look up/down, look left/right, and roll left/right) and three translational components (x and y positions on a 2D map, and a z position for the vertical position of your head). By being the first to add a Lean Left/Right and Prone/Crouch/Stand commands Looking Glass gave us the first true 6DOF FPS. 4. Best Exposition EVER... The audio logs are a stroke of pure utter genius. To listen to the pain & suffering of people who've just seen their best friend killed or transformed into some kind of monster (all while you're are exploring or fighting) is possibly System Shock's greatest gift to posterity. 5. Most Squeamish Moment EVER... I don't want to post any serious spoilers, but at one point you have to go searching for someone's severed head - on a space station composed of nine levels full of body parts!!! I had five more but I ran out of space :)
I appreciate GOG's Preservation Program and was a bit intrigued by the gushing reviews so thought I'd give these a try. I'm actually a little ashamed that I couldn't appreciate them but they are truly awful. Look I wasn't expecting Neverwinter Nights or KOTOR. I really dig some old skool games - I own Ultima Underworld 1&2 (discs and GOG download) and still find a lot of playability in these 1992-4 classics. I even dig out Lords Of Midnight & Doomdark's Revenge from time to time (look them up) but these... M&M 1/2 - screeching monochromatic music (worse than early ZX Spectrum games), completely unplayable (M&M1 I couldn't even start the game cos the Start key is the '#' key and it must have moved position since 1986). M&M 3/4/5 - Better music but just one endless ditty that goes round and round driving you mad. As for playability they are still (mid-90s now!!!!!) using that awful move forward an entire block every time you take a step (just like Lords & Doomdark but they were 1982-4 speccy games). M&M6 - I've yet to try... the first five depressed me so much I had to go and play NWN2. Honestly, you lot who are giving these sad efforts 4 and 5 stars need to try Ultima Underworld 1&2 - these Looking Glass classics are older than most of this six-pack but so *so* much more playable. Peace
Beautiful music. Beautiful ships. Graphics still look excellent, particularly the particle effects from the fusion drives (ship engines). Nine ship classes (Scout, Light Fighter, Heavy Fighter, Corvette, Destroyer, Carrier plus three Transport ships) for each of seven races (five 'friendly' plus two completely hostile alien races) makes about 60 distinct ship designs... and they are very distinct. The Capital ships (Destroyer, Carrier and Station Transporter) can each carry dozens of smaller ships themselves. On top of this, you have a full interdependent resource system based on a Base Resource (Energy cells), Unprocessed Foods/Minerals (e.g. Wheat, Beef, Silicon produced from Energy Cells), Processed Foods (e.g. Burgers produced from Wheat, Beef and Energy Cells) and finally Complex Tech (e.g. Lasers, Shields produced from Burgers, Ore/Silicon and Energy). And you can even own your own Stations making all of the above, and assign your own ships to buy needed resources or sell the end product. Or you could spend your time on missions: - scout missions helping people make appointments, - emergency trade missions (needing a variety of ships) where you rush cargo to a nearby sector, - assassination missions (OMG they are so much fun) - tourism tours... sounds dull but those tourists love a side trip into a hostile alien sector! - and the grandaddy of them all... Invasion missions where alien capital ships swarm through the sector you've pledged to defend. Better than X3 cos: - when you dock you actually navigate through the interior of a space station to find a docking bay. - the ship designs are far more varied and gorgeous, - the ships have a higher range of speeds.
