The Ur-Quan Masters Discussion Forum

Heya everybody.
I'm sorry to create a thread that will most likely bring up the old "damnit not another one of those threads...[/i] thoughts, but I just had to make it.  ;D

THIS GAME IS BRILLIANT!

It was a long while since I enjoyed such a storyline. Honestly, in today's game market, it's not easy finding a game with such a storyline as UQM's.
Every second of playing this game, whether I had to start over, or found a Rainbow World, was pure enjoyment.

Even if nobody cares, I had to share my thoughts about this game with other people that have played it.
I'm now officialy a fan.  ;D

It's great to see that even today, people that never knew the game in it's proper "time slot" are enjoying it so much.

Most of the time I get my friends to frown at me because of the graphics, and they do not even give the game a try...

They don't know what they are loosing  ;)

I agree with the above comments, and would like to add that I think it's great that the praise isn't just from us "old guard" who played it on PC/3DO when it was first released, but that so many new players are discovering this little gaming gem for the very first time and are loving it!

Just goes to show graphics etc don't mean a thing when you have a well designed and well thought out game!  :)

Yea, I'm a new recruit too. I had played starflight back in the day, so I did already have a respect for older games, especially ones in this genre.

Well-drawn 2D graphics don't age as quickly, in my opinion, as 3D graphics. UQM still looks good (especially with a little filtering to disguise the low resolution), while 3D games from the same era mostly look pathetic with blocky and angular models and blurry textures (or no textures at all).

Now, the "one step per second" ship rotation looks a bit ridiculous after all these years, but "fixing" that would require some major rewrites (and mess up gameplay).

i agree best damn game i ever played when my big bro bought this game in a sci-fi pack with my other favorite star crusader i was enthusiastic cause my bro always bought the best games and i was right the game was so fun i had fun by just watchin over his shoulder while he played and just chose on the star map where to go next :-[ i was 8

man i still think this game would be perfect massive multiplayer if only someone would make it well i know what im doin when im turnin 14 (just 2 years) im gonna get a job and pay for a server and find a guy makin the game and let him use the server ive seen to many online fan games die before there glory cause there was no money for a server and they were good ones too

Fair point old chap, but what I meant to say was that what makes UQM work aint the graphics it's the game. The decent graphics are just a bonus.

I sure we all agree that without its gameplay, UQM would lose a lot of its attraction. My point is that a lot of the design choices in SC2 were such that the game ages well.

Another example: MOD music isn't as limited as e.g. Adlib or General MIDI, and improvements in technology can be used to play the original SC2 MOD music at a higher quality (similar to the way the 320x240 3DO graphics can be interpolated to a higher resolution). The range of sounds and styles available through MOD technology is comparable to that of fully sampled audio (e.g. CD audio, MP3), while the music types popular on the PC at the time UQM was made were limited to beeps and buzzes or, if you were lucky and/or rich, a set of quite decent but boring standard instruments. The use of MOD music gave the musicians a wider range of expression and also made the music more consistent over different platforms (at the expense of greater CPU usage).

You are certainly making some good points there! I hope you don't think I was being crttical of UQM in some way as that was not my intention. Neither am I infering that any updates are pointless.

I agree that the graphics haven't become in any way 'offensive' over the years or aged badly. The clear design and conceptual originality of the game have carried it through without a doubt.

The main point I was trying to make was that, for me, UQM (and indeed SC2) will always be a favourite due to the gameplay and not the graphics (or even the sound). They could be ray-traced in the manner of Atari's Asteroids and I would still love it.  ;D

I agree with you, except for one thing: ray-tracing. I do not think it means (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray-tracing) what you think it means (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_graphics).

Ahhh Vector graphics! That'll be what I meant! My bad!
Thanks for putting me right ;) ;D

I remember when I first started playing SC2, I was a mere teenager and absolutely gobsmacked at how good quality the graphics for the aliens while you were conversing was.  Seeing the amount of detail especially with the Ur-quan and the Umgah and the fact that it was ANIMATED really blew me away!

The addictive power of SC2 took me away from my normal life for 2 weeks during vacation.
Only sleeping, eating, and playing SC2. ;D

The graphics I don't mind as much. After
all, the flow of gameplay is more important
than the window dressing. One
thing I would like to see in future releases
is a more .... standard infterface. I mean when
moving through the menus, I find them unintuitive.
I think this is one of the harder points for
newbies... "What, no mouse?"

Frankly, I like the keyboard-only approach, but
maybe something could be done to make it
more natural to get to a menu and then navigate it.

I know this has been repeated ad infinitum ad nauseum, but I love this game.

I came across a magazine that had a note about SC2 in it and I bought the mag because of it.
I was a huge fan and remember playing this game for hours.  Challenging other players for hours was a regular thing in college :) 

Thanks so much for all you who have brought this back.  I'm seriously geeking over this.