Stardock Tried To Make Star Control, Master of Orion Sequels

Gamasutra reports on comments from Stardock CEO Brad Wardell in which he described his efforts to revive two old but popular franchises: Star Control and Master of Orion. Quoting: "'I actually pitched Atari on a whole idea for a true successor to Star Control,' [he said], noting that the game would follow original series developer Toys for Bob's Star Control II rather than the Legend Entertainment-developed Star Control 3 ('We just pretend that never happened,' the CEO says of that release). ... Novato, California-based Toys for Bob has actually floated the idea of making its own Star Control II sequel, with co-creator Paul Reiche III indicating he has tossed potential design ideas around, but with the company now owned by publisher Activision the proposal seems to be stuck in limbo."

Re:Big whoop...

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember it as one of the best, most imagination inspiring games I've ever played.

I once faked sick during 2 weeks of junior high so that I could stay home and play it constantly.

Star Control II was amazing. Awesome story, awesome characters, awesome gameplay. One of the best ever adventure games.

Mind your disrespectful, heathen tongue, boy.

I feel sorry for those who missed out. You can look up the Ur-Quan masters [sourceforge.net] remake on sourceforge, though.

I certainly hope for a true sequel, or at least a game set in this amazing universe.

Re:Are you out of your mind?

[caitsith01]

I used to play it all the time on my Compaq Portable III. I highly doubt that any sequel will recapture that early 90s spirit.

This MUST be possible. I have never understood why companies don't release what amount to identical games under the hood with heavily updated graphics which remain true to the original art style of the previous game. Keep all of the game logic, but replace the graphics and make it run stably on an XP/Vista system.

Case in point: Sid Meier's Pirates!, which was in many respects totally identical to the old 2D version, and which looks great and is awesomely fun to play.

My dream is for someone to finally, FINALLY do this to XCom/UFO - keep the EXACT game mechanics of the original game, but make it run in 1280x1024 with photorealistic (but still manga-esque) graphics. They could keep the original music but re-record it. It would be stunning.

Other candidates for this treatment would be Syndicate/Syndicate Wars, and Theme Park.

I doubt it

[dj245]

I remember Fallout 1 (or maybe 2) had a certain edible item called a "cookie". It restored a very small amount of hitpoints if you ate it. However, if you ate the cookie, your hard drive light blinked twice. This was back in the day where hard drive writes were quite loud and noticable. Since no other edible items wrote to the hard drive, most people realized that this was an easter egg left by the developers. With hard drives so quiet today (and SSD starting to take over) would anyone even notice if this was in a present-day game?

This is a fairly obvious example where the software needs the the hardware (loud hard drives). But I am sure there are other examples where the hardware of today cannot give the same game experience of yesterday.

Re:Are you out of your mind?

[meringuoid]

Case in point: Sid Meier's Pirates!, which was in many respects totally identical to the old 2D version, and which looks great and is awesomely fun to play.

Sid Meier likes doing that. Take a look at Colonization, which preserves the basic mechanisms of the original, but adds more sophisticated Civ4-style diplomacy and trade. And alliances with the Indians.

Only problem is, the Royal Expeditionary Force is normally absolutely huge by the time you declare independence, your troops don't upgrade to Continental Army status, and there's no foreign intervention force coming.

I had to drastically revise my war plans. In the original I used to build big heavily armed fortresses and pack them with troops and cannon, and wait for the king's men to come to the slaughter. In the new game, that doesn't work: artillery get a huge bonus to city attack, so no fortress is strong enough. Instead I play a Stalinist strategy. All troops and most of the population are evacuated from any cities the king's men approach, leaving only a token guard. The civilians are sent to the arms manufactories deep inland, and there drafted into the militia. The army lurks in the woods.

Meanwhile the king's men destroy my token garrison and occupy the city. That's when I counterattack: the artillery bonus now works in my favour. Sure, it means my cities get wrecked. The objective is to exterminate the king's men, not to have a viable colony left when the dust settles.

It actually made me feel very bad. The burning ruin of the greatest city in the New World, now home to nothing but a couple of small fishing communities. My score history at the end showed a colossal drop during the war, as all trade and useful industry was abandoned, and all of the civilian population not involved in arms manufacture evacuated from the cities and drafted into an army in the wild. And then slaughtered. I had a mental image of Field Marshal Sir Dougie Haig with his battle plans, sweeping soldiers off the board with a dustpan and brush...

Re:Are you out of your mind?

[falcon9x]

I would like to see this in X-COM also.

And in Wing Commander

And in SimTower

And in SimAnt

And in Dungeon Keeper (Evil Genius doesn't count)

And in Theme Hospital

And in Grim Fandango (mostly for the controls, I like the look of it)

And in Gunship 2000 (PLEASE!)

X-COM and Gunship 2000 would be the ones I would like most to see revived in the spirit of the original (none of this X-COM: Interceptor or things like that).