Space Game General All-Platform Thready Discussy Thing :)

I still dislike the Devs/Publishers of Space Engineers due to their bait and switch on the mining game they started with and using the money for another game.

And even though Star Citizen leaves a bad taste in my mouth Wing Commander is probably the one game that brought me into those types of Space Games.

Spaceward Ho! was a game I played a lot… way…way back in the beginning! So it would be on my list!

@BrianRubin
Is Factorio a Space game (you do build a Rocket ship at the end! And you fight alien bugs! ; )

I too am still upset over that one.

Do you do anything with the rocket, like fly around and go to other planets? If not, then I’m inclined to say it’s not a space game.

There’s, to me, a clear line between a space game and a science fiction game. Like a bunch of entries on Rock’s list above, I wouldn’t even consider space games.

Which ones? Like Supreme Commander? I know it doesn’t take place in space, but it occurs on different planets with several factions duking it out on said planets. Same with the Halo games. Only Halo Reach has an actual space sim portion of the game, but all the Halo games has someone traveling through space to get to the places where the action takes place. Same with Shogo: MAD. No space gameplay, but you travel through space to get to the planets where the action takes place. I also never considered Super Mario Galaxy as a space game before today, but as I was eliminating non-space games from my list, I realized, no, you totally do half your gameplay in space in Super Mario Galaxy.

Also, I guess RezHD takes place in VR space, not actual space, so I think anyone would have good grounds for dismissal of that one from the list. But you’re totally shooting down space ships and aliens in some levels! Even if it is only in VR space.

It’s certainly not the list I would have made, but I dont’ really have any problem with any of those games. They all take place in space, is that not basically the definition of a space game?

Space is barely featured in many of the games you mentioned. They could take place in different shopping malls and they’d be largely unchanged.

For me, for a game to be a “space game”, space has to be a major feature of the world you inhabit, not just something in the background.

Hmmmm, okay, with that more restrictive definition I guess this is my new list:

  1. Star Control 2
  2. System Shock 2
  3. Independence War (I-War)
  4. Master of Orion 2
  5. Freespace 2
  6. Wing Commander: Privateer
  7. Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2
  8. Super Mario Galaxy
  9. Elite: Dangerous
  10. Wing Commander: Prophecy
  11. Star Wars: X-wing Alliance
  12. Knights of the Old Republic 2 - The Sith Lords
  13. Mass Effect
  14. Dead Space
  15. Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
  16. Geometry Wars 2
  17. Wing Commander 3
  18. Mass Effect 3
  19. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
  20. Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
  21. Descent Freespace: The Great War
  22. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
  23. Tachyon: The Fringe
  24. No Man’s Sky
  25. Homeworld

Is KOTOR a space game?

Only the turret section.

I think space plays a pretty significant role in the KOTOR games, as it does in Riddick and Mass Effects.

Kinda, you do own a spaceship and tell it where to go but beyond that it’s limited.

Yeah but the spaceship works more like a fast travel menu than a vehicle. It never felt like space travel.

Yeah I feel the same way, which is why I’m kinda on the fence about it with that one.

I don’t really agree. You’re only really in space to traverse from one place to another. Space isn’t really a place in the game, it’s more like a freeway.

These are definitely more in the spacey vein, since you fly your ship around and scan planets and the like. Space is a place you inhabit, not just just a thing you see out the window while you’re fast traveling.

If none of the gameplay takes place in space (i.e. not on the surface of a planet) it’s not a space game.

In both Riddick and KOTOR games, a significant portion of the game takes place aboard your ship while you’re in space. In Riddick’s prison section, it’s a huge part of the scenario that you can’t just escape from the prison because then you’re stranded on a dead prison moon where you would die. In Jedi Knight you fight aboard a falling space ship. You confront a tie fighter. Even though these are both in a gravity well, the space theming is heavy and subjectively makes it feel very different from a non-space game. And of course all of System Shock 2 takes place on board space ships in space.

Yes but it doesn’t matter that you’re in space. You could be in a Costco and the gameplay would be the same.

Space is just background, not an actual place you inhabit in the games you mentioned.

Yeah gameplay wise there’s not much different, but the Mass Effect games feel “set in space” in a way that the others don’t. There’s also more of a commitment to sci-fi tropes rather than just a traditional fantasy adventure which happens to be set in the future.

Oh yes, very well put.

I wonder if the future Factorio expansion will be about a ship or space station.