Legend
of Space Flight Sims Returns by Cameron Hills
Friday, October 4, 2012
Source article: "Wing
Commander creator returns to game dev with new space sim" on
Gamasutra, October 4th, 2012
Sometimes
a game captures your imagination with thing no one had imagined before. Future actions being restricted by past
choices? That may have been a feature of
the Ultima games by “Lord British” Richard Garriott, but was practically
unheard of in the space exploration genre in 1993 and is still rare today. The game designer of such games as Wing
Commander, Privateer, and Starlancer, Chris Roberts, has today announced his
return to PC game development.
Privateer
was a space exploration and flight simulation in the same general universe as
his previous Wing Commander series. <Review> Starting out with an old scout ship, the
player has to decide how he or she will make their money. Do you spend hours trading commodities,
become a bounty hunter, or go after those rich traders as a Pirate? Depending on your choices, you may be frozen
out of important stations in the later game and may even be hunted by the
military and other bounty hunters. Thus,
your choices come back to haunt you.
So
what makes Privateer different from other games in the same genre? Next to Galaxy on Fire 2 (GOF2) it is more
complex, next to X2 it is far less complex and time consuming, and
compared to Galactic
Phantasy Privateer provides a better flight experience. Privateer hits that perfect sweet spot of
gaming experience.
With
Chris Roberts’ return to gaming with his
announcement of Star
Citizen the PC gaming Space
Sim crowd has reason to celebrate. Our
evenings and early mornings are booked up for the foreseeable future.
