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Comment on Great games you would recommend from before 1990?

massive_bereavement@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

I hope I don't antagonize the three people here that still remember Starflight, but I'll recommend the Genesis version for its updated graphics and streamlined interface.

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FermiEstimate@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’d agree with that. The updated version from the early 90s is the one I played, and it’s probably the easiest to find unless you really go looking for the old version.

I still think it counts. It’s still the same fundamental Starflight experience.

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SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Yeah and the Genesis version had some fun little things added like flying a circle around a planet to go orbit it. Driving the vehicle around on the planet felt a lot more fun too. So yeah a lot of little things added that just made it more fun. A rare case of a console port making significant improvements over a PC game.

Though the original had a big paper map that you could draw wormhole paths on when you discovered them. But since it’ll be hard to print out the map that big, it would probably be more annoying than fun at this point. So yeah, the Genesis version would be the way to go… if you can get.

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- massive_bereavement@fedia.io ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Console games seldom had this amount of "hard sci-fi" mechanics and that made me super happy.
  I still fondly remember trying to land in a planet with massive gravity and immediately pancaking my crew.
  
  I will confess, I had hopes that Bethesda's Starfield would be somehow similar to Starflight. (I mean they called it a Hard Sci-Fi game)
  
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  - SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Yeah it’s hard to get the mix of space exploration, interesting aliens to meet, and a good overarching story that Starflight (the first of this kind of game) right out of the gate.
    
    And yeah you didn’t scan that planet and check the gravity levels? You’re dead. If you didn’t notice in the report how hostile the animals on the planet are? You’re dead.
    
    But it kind of got it right, there wasn’t a cut scene where the science officer explains that it’s too dangerous to land on the planet, it’s you deciding it’s too dangerous. It had an element where there’s danger but if you get the science right the danger isn’t an issue. Space is scary but science makes it less scary.
    
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