Aquanox Deep Descent

Underwater is where space games go to become accurate. Friction = no momentum, and water allows for sound propagation. There’s even some oxygen for explosions!

SUBAQUEOUS GAME JUNKIE!

Tell me more about this interesting Underspace thing.

Underspace looks like the modern version of Freelancer we’ve all been wanting. VERY excited about it.

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I’d never heard of it. I just looked it up. Looks neat. But this one is open world right? Freelancer’s campaign was super linear. (I never tried multiplayer Freelancer, which was supposed to be open-world I think).

FreeSPACE was super linear. FreeLANCER was pretty dang open.

Wow, I must have played a different campaign. At launch at least, the game I played was pretty much point a to b to c to d to e. There was never any backtracking back into older systems, it was always new system, new system, new story mission, moving forward. It wasn’t like Privateer/RGO where you’re in an open world trying to make a living and also doing story missions.

Are you sure you’re not thinking of Starlancer?

That’s what I was wondering.

Definitely a space game. Also, possibly a sandwich.

Wow…
I’d really recommend the German voiceover (it’s the original, after all). Though I don’t know if German voices + English subtitles is possible. Should be, but it’s an old game so you never know.

Definitely not Starlancer. Starlancer is the one I couldn’t play because on my Microsoft joysticks, they forced me to play with the stupid throttle on the joystick itself, I couldn’t override it with the keyboard. So basically I made it about 2 missions before giving up on the game. It just wasn’t any fun trying to take my left hand from the keyboard all the way to the joystick to adjust throttle, and then all the way back to the left side of the keyboard. It was the only space sim to ever do that, and I couldn’t get past the second mission because of that.

Freelancer is the game that was supposed to be big and open, but it turned out to be a really linear campaign through many star systems, all controlled using an un-fun mouse and keyboard control scheme that made the game feel not like a space sim. I got all the way through it and finished it, but it was a mediocre experience and I don’t remember any of it except for what I just wrote.

Freelancer had kind of a goofy whitebread protagonist, IIRC.

Are you sure you’re not thinking of Tachyon: the Fringe?

(is this the start of a bit? this could be the start of a bit.)

In the immortal words of Bruce Campbell: Viva New Vegas baby! I played through Tachyon: The Fringe twice, it was the last of the space sims and it actually came out after the genre died basically. But yes, the structure of Tachyon was actually pretty similar to Freelancer. Even though it took place in a large space of star systems, it was basically a linear campaign that took you from place to place. You didn’t really have to do many side missions or activities like in Privateer, you could basically go through the whole game as a linear adventure. Freelancer was like that too. I never backtracked at all in Freelancer, whereas Tachyon makes you backtrack to older systems a little bit as part of the story. Freelancer just keeps moving forward, introducing to new planets and bases and systems throughout the campaign, and you never have to go backward.

I actually never played any of these, which looking back is a great surprise to me. I remember them all, I just…didn’t play them, which is crazy coming from someone who played through WC1, 3, 4, 5 and Privateer and even gave Privateer 2 the old college try, and also Freespace 1 & 2. I remember feeling some disdain for the mouse and keyboard controls of the *Lancer games. Maybe that was it, or maybe I was just busy playing other things.

This just reminds me I really need to go back and play WC2 all the way through. I only got bits and pieces of it through a friend because it didn’t come out for the SNES like the first one did, and by the time I had a PC of my own the third one was out. Should see if I can get it working with a 360 controller.

I only played bits and pieces of WC1 and 2 myself. A mission here or there when my brothers were playing through the campaign, and I happened to be visiting for Thanksgiving, etc. Privateer was the first one that I played all the way through, and it’s also my favorite. My brothers disdained WC3 and 4 when they came out, because we had the opinion at the time that all Full Motion Video games were crap, and it was a trend that we hoped would go away soon. It did go away, but after I played through WC: Prophecy and loved it, I actually went back and played through WC3 and 4 and found them to be great games. The FMV didn’t hurt them in any way, and it only helped in telling the story.

Privateer 2 was crap as a Privateer game, but as a random linear adventure game starring Clive Owen which happened to have a space sim portion, it wasn’t bad. I played through it and was mostly disappointed that it wasn’t like the original Privateer. But looking back, if I’d judged it as just “The Darkening”, I would probably have had a positive impression.

I liked 3 & 4 on release. I was surprised that they got Malcolm McDowell, who young me thought of as a Serious Actor (much the same as young me also thought of Sean Connery). One of the first clear examples of whitewashing I’d ever seen, I think, although I didn’t think much of it at the time.