|
Pages: [1] 2
|
 |
|
Author
|
Topic: What's with all the Starcon3 Hate? (Read 8482 times)
|
locustkiller
Zebranky food
 Offline
Posts: 12
|
Let me start by saying i think the Ur Quan Masters is a great project, and a big thanks to all the people involved in resurrecting one of my favorite PC games from when i was a teen. i am again enjoying it immensely.
i spent endless hours in my friends' basement playing Star Control 1 & 2. The most fun, obviously, was playing against my friend in supermelee. Both of us bending elbows uncomfortably to share the keyboard.
ive read thru page 10 or so of this board and if there was a previous thread explaining why so many of the hardcore fans rag on SC3 so much, then i missed it and forgive me.
When SC3 came out, and a friend sent me a copy , i had a lot of fun with it. Yes it starts out kind of goofy, but you still get to do all the fighting, all the running around and exploring/developing relations good or bad with alien cultures. Losing the game by randomly choosing the funniest response to a given conversation... And bane of the pure strategy gamer, i actually enjoyed the graphics : puppetry-type video interfaces with the aliens, and the ship model updates.
it's been awhile since i loaded up SC3 on a new computer and tried it again (ive been playing UQM since i found this site a few weeks ago) but now ive got the itch to do so.
i recall in SC3 they had you build colonies for RUs and Crew for the resourcing part of the game, which i was fine with, since they changed that part from SC1 to SC2 as well.
Yes it was easier than SC2, yes it was less balanced (Once you acquire the Doog and start planting colonies , your battle supremacy is assured). However i still got that "star control feel" of zipping around exploring and not knowing my fate, or how i was going to tackle the problems at hand. i truly despised the bad guys, i felt pride at turning enemies into allies..all those Characters and plot twists kept me interested, just like SC2.
So my question is, for you haters, did you play it all the way thru? Did you judge the game on its own merits , or stick to the fanboi credo of judging everything by comparing it to your "standard" favorite game? i'd just like to know.
To me a similar comparison would be Warlords2 compared to Warlords3 Reign of Heroes. Same basic concept, but totally different games. Nothing will ever be as good (in my opinion) a pure strategy stack-army-movement-and-production-single layer map-game as W2 but W3 was a perfectly enjoyable game with upgraded graphics and options, but not quite as pure a game.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alvarin
Enlightened
Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 798
|
I don't hate SC"3" , just feel that i was robed of my money - if i played before bought it because of the name - i would never buy it .
I really disliked the colony management - it is absolutely the same every time with no events (like at the game "Reunion") but you have to have those to progress . I was shocked to find huge parts of dialogue ripped whole from SC2 .
At cosmetics department , those puppets were really bad , not only inconsistent with previous parts of the game , but also lousy by the day's standarts as well .
The storyline is poor , events are few and long between . You just have to wait a lot for time-based events , flying aimlessly ...
List goes on and on . The only part that could be held for third one is the melee , but i don't really like the space fights ...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Elerium
*Smell* controller
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 272
|
SC3 was just an atrocity, really. Sure they had some interesting ideas for one or two aliens, but that's about it.
Implementation sucked, the music also sucked as it was like listening to a freaking funeral over and over and over again. SC2 in comparison had a really nice soundtrack that was memorable.
The puppets were ugly as hell, they massacred the Syreen and the Arilou with those awful pulsating heads, the VUX didn't feel like VUX with the whiny voice, the Spathi weren't Spathi as they sounded awful (wheres the voice effect for the Spathi??), stolen dialogue, the Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah thing was implemented badly, plus the whole fact a player controlled Dreadnought could waste any ship in the game, even Plexor's final ship was wasted in 3 shots. You couldn't escape Hyper-Melee and also the Ploxis ship was whacked in that if you blasted it, it would zoom across the screen super fast constantly which means you have to wait for the thing to slow down.
The Herald ripped off the Ilwrath's cloaking sound, all of the ditties for the new quadrant were boring generic rock tunes (except for one or two), the Vyro-Ingo were hastily added lame annoying aliens who the writers thought up some half assed way to merge them and the VUX together (what the heck?). The Pkunk somehow became.. giraffes, the Supox were lamely killed off by the Orz (not shown in the intro either) so as to mention them but not exactly implemented to save money. On the Orz, the Orz weren't even fleshed out, they didn't mention the Androsynth if I recall correctly missing out one of the biggest plot curiosities in SC2, instead they have them as "secret friends of the enemy" who are just stupidly degraded to fighting you at the end when the big bad comes back. The Doogs also were crew cows in that you could fight them with Syreen and end up hording tons of crew, or heck just use a Doog vs anything and you can end up regenerating constantly making the Mycons seem totally useless in comparison (not to mention, the Doog ditty is so long it allows you to recuperate your losses while the tune dredges on). The K'tang, the main force you're fighting against the whole time end up like a subpar villain in that they're ridiculous, their ships are also laughable in comparison to the Kohr-Ah in SC2 who you literally are unnerved by and fear if you're not up to scratch fighting them (plus the whole death march thing).
Oh and "You lied to the Owa, and then you die" what the heck?!
"You join Plexor, then you die" etc etc.. so lame. What if you forgot to save? Bah. Total garbage. You could also get stuck by doing something not linear to the plot and remain there forever.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: September 15, 2008, 03:11:25 pm by Elerium »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Shiver
Guest
|
SC3 would have been a fun little game if it had been something I had dug out of a bargain bin rather than the sequel to SC2. Huge letdown. I don't see our fan community directing very much vitriol at it, however. The worst you'll see is the occasional "SCnot3", which is somewhat eyeroll inducing but nothing terrible.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
SweetSassyMolassy
*Smell* controller
Offline
Posts: 271
|
SC3 was just an atrocity, really. Sure they had some interesting ideas for one or two aliens, but that's about it.
Implementation sucked, the music also sucked as it was like listening to a freaking funeral over and over and over again. SC2 in comparison had a really nice soundtrack that was memorable.
The puppets were ugly as hell, they massacred the Syreen and the Arilou with those awful pulsating heads, the VUX didn't feel like VUX with the whiny voice, the Spathi weren't Spathi as they sounded awful (wheres the voice effect for the Spathi??), stolen dialogue, the Ur-Quan and Kohr-Ah thing was implemented badly, plus the whole fact a player controlled Dreadnought could waste any ship in the game, even Plexor's final ship was wasted in 3 shots. You couldn't escape Hyper-Melee and also the Ploxis ship was whacked in that if you blasted it, it would zoom across the screen super fast constantly which means you have to wait for the thing to slow down.
The Herald ripped off the Ilwrath's cloaking sound, all of the ditties for the new quadrant were boring generic rock tunes (except for one or two), the Vyro-Ingo were hastily added lame annoying aliens who the writers thought up some half assed way to merge them and the VUX together (what the heck?). The Pkunk somehow became.. giraffes, the Supox were lamely killed off by the Orz (not shown in the intro either) so as to mention them but not exactly implemented to save money. On the Orz, the Orz weren't even fleshed out, they didn't mention the Androsynth if I recall correctly missing out one of the biggest plot curiosities in SC2, instead they have them as "secret friends of the enemy" who are just stupidly degraded to fighting you at the end when the big bad comes back. The Doogs also were crew cows in that you could fight them with Syreen and end up hording tons of crew, or heck just use a Doog vs anything and you can end up regenerating constantly making the Mycons seem totally useless in comparison (not to mention, the Doog ditty is so long it allows you to recuperate your losses while the tune dredges on). The K'tang, the main force you're fighting against the whole time end up like a subpar villain in that they're ridiculous, their ships are also laughable in comparison to the Kohr-Ah in SC2 who you literally are unnerved by and fear if you're not up to scratch fighting them (plus the whole death march thing).
Oh and "You lied to the Owa, and then you die" what the heck?!
"You join Plexor, then you die" etc etc.. so lame. What if you forgot to save? Bah. Total garbage. You could also get stuck by doing something not linear to the plot and remain there forever.
Ah yeah, good points. There's something I almost enjoyed about the droning midi music throughout the game though. Maybe just nostalgia.
[A couple of things I did like were the 3D rotating starmap and I actually liked the colony creation method opposed to mineral collection. I also liked that the game relied way less on how powerful the precursor vessel was. I don't remember what you mean by "You lied to the Owa, then you die", but I do remember finding the Owa annoying and hard to deal with. I did really like the Harika and Yorn plots, what a great idea for a new alien. Yes, they did massacre the Syreen and Arilou, good god. Another thing I found dumb was the repeat of the Ultron plot. What a cop out. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
I am not always understand about what you speak, unfortunately.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Megagun
Enlightened
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 580
Moo
|
Yes, that was severely annoying...
I remember once playing the game, getting stuck, deciding to restart and follow a walkthrough, and getting stuck *again*..
Ah, such an awesome game it was...
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Terrell
Frungy champion
Offline
Gender:
Posts: 75
|
In addition to the things mentioned, you didn't really have the option to just blast people, without your ship being taken away. Also in super-melee they didn't have all the ships from the previous games. The Androsynth being in SC2 super-melee even though they weren't in the full game would be an example. Where are the Androsynth, Melnorme, Thraddash, Ilwrath, Druuge, Zoq-Fot-Pik, Yehat, & Umgah? I would have liked being able to use them in super-melee against the new ships even if they weren't available in the full game.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: September 19, 2008, 03:50:41 am by Terrell »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
waywardoctagon
*Many bubbles*
Offline
Gender: 
Posts: 142
More information...
|
Did you judge the game on its own merits , or stick to the fanboi credo of judging everything by comparing it to your "standard" favorite game?
No, it's probably not fair to compare every game to one's favorite. It would be bizarre to hold, say, Quake or Sims 2 or Smash Bros or whatever, up against SC2 and find it lacking; they're too different for a meaningful comparison of that type.
But. SC3 isn't just any game; it was SC2's sequel. A direct continuation of the same story. I think it's entirely fair to compare the two; if you're going to explicitly build off of something that already exists then it's going to be compared to what went before, in terms of overall quality, preserving continuity and not contradicting existing canon, keeping everyone in-character, whether mysteries from previous canon are resolved in a good way or a lame way, game mechanics (or special effects, or writing quality, or art, depending on the medium) being at least as good, etc etc.
Plus, it's not just a matter of, "This isn't as good as SC2, therefore it sucks." There's a hefty dose of, "They changed it and made it suck!" There's a sense of wasted potential. (See Exhibit A: Star Wars Trilogies.)
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shiver
Guest
|
K'tang - useless ships and not very good dialogue (except when they misused words sometimes that was pretty funny)
Speaking of which, if the precursor battleship is equipped with a universal translator then why are the K'Tang misusing words in the first place? You know those guys aren't speaking English to you. Their "crushify" is going to come out of the translator as "crush", it's not as though their slang is as incomprehensible as Orz speak.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
Dabir
*Smell* controller
Offline
Posts: 291
|
But then why would the Spathi abuse names as much as they do? Because it's funny! Remember that SC2 and, to some extent, SC3, have comedy in them, and when the comedy takes over anything can happen as long as it's part of the joke. You can explain a surprising amount of plotholes with this logic.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Pages: [1] 2
|
|
|
|
|
. their ships were ridiculously overpowered though.