Ur-Quan Masters - Is It Really That Good?

[skeezix]

Post your review here

Ive never played a Star Control game im afraid; some classics are classics forever, even tonew retrogamers. But some are only classic to previous players reliving their glory days.

Which is ur-quan?

I see a lot of praise heaped on it, so perhaps time for me to raid the local used game ahop- he has a bunch i noticed

Jeffphone

 

[Esn]

I think it's a fantastic game, although overall, I prefer Star Control III a tiny bit more (which will be heresy to most SC fans ). SC3 was the first one in the series that I played, then I played SC2 and found that some things were nicer and some weren't (I liked being able to have different colonies in SC3).

It does require a time commitment, although its learning curve is very gradual - it feels very welcoming at first.

You don't actually have to "raid a used game shop" - the game is now free. (although Ur-quan masters is based on the 3DO version - I prefer the PC version interface somewhat, but the source for that was lost)

 

[pferguso]

Yes, it is that good.

Star Control 2

Star Control II is possibly the best game of all time. It is a space exploration game where you mine planets for resources, converse with several different alien species, each with a distinct look and personality. Your mission is to recruit aliens to join your fight against the UR-Quan, an alien race trying to enslave the universe. The space combat is some of the best 2D spaceship combat ever, and the game allows you to just do the combat if you like, in a Melee mode.

Now that it is free, and you can also download it for PC as well, you can't go wrong with this classic masterpiece.

 

[atomicthumbs]

Hell yes. It's awesome. I treated it like Mass Effect, though, and tooled around. Be aware that there is a time limit.

 

[skeezix]

The game data is released to public now? I always thought it akin to quakes - open sour e for the codebut not the data

For our pandora port, is it just good to go and self contained then, no data needed? If so i should jump right in

Jeffphone

 

[urjaman]

I've never played the original SC II, but i still like Ur-Quan Masters. It does eat a lot of time, though (something i no longer have a lot of).

 

[Esn]

For our pandora port, is it just good to go and self contained then, no data needed?

That should be the case. The creators of the game open-sourced the game itself. The name "Star Control 2" still belongs to Apogee (now Atari), but everything else was owned by the original creators, who decided to be generous. "Ur-Quan Masters" is the version made on the basis of the code that was released. I believe it also has some features that the original games didn't, such as online multiplayer.

There's actually now an unofficial fan sequel being made that looks like it could be impressive if it gets finished...

 

[gruso]

I suppose the thing with this game is that it'll have its hooks into you 15 minutes in, or it won't. It's not one of those "oh it gets really good about 4 hours in" things, so you don't have to sink a lot of time into it to see if it's your thing.

I do find random deaths annoying while searching planet surfaces, but crusing around the universe talking to / shooting other life forms is ace. Intelligence, depth, atmosphere, action, great dialogue, it's all in there.

[edit] I still owe Senor Quack a dozen beers or so for porting it to GP2X.

 

[skeezix]

Ah, so its no FF13 - total ass for 30 hours *flamesuit on*

Damnit, methinks i should fire it up soon

And sam n' max..

Jeffphone

 

[Pickle]

Ah, so its no FF13 - total ass for 30 hours *flamesuit on*

Damnit, methinks i should fire it up soon

And sam n' max..

Jeffphone

chexk out the readme for the links to the data

 

[skeezix]

yeah, noticed that.

Pickle -- why not include them in the pnd file, if they're public data now?

(if you're worried about folks getting new versions of the files or something, in case of content updates, then just have it look for (say) content.uqm (or something, for example), and then if you find new data files in appdata, have the run-script rename them or something, so they overshadow the ones built-in, or something. Strikes me they shoudl be build in=able without any bad effect?)

Nomatter, I'm just nitpicking; not sure how you keep up with all the threads about all the ports your'e doing.. I can't keep up with all the threads I need to, and I've only got about 10 ports going

jeff

 

[Esn]

I agree, I don't understand why the PND doesn't just include everything.

There hasn't been a new version since 2008, so there's little chance of more new versions...

 

[mafia-man]

Ah, so its no FF13 - total ass for 30 hours *flamesuit on*

Damnit, methinks i should fire it up soon

And sam n' max..

Jeffphone

Ass would be an under statement for any FF game. Stephen Fry had the perfect analogy when describing the Da Vinci Code and I think it fits for FF games "Complete loose-stool-water. Arse-gravy of the very worst kind."

 

[gruso]

Shots fired!

 

[Pickle]

I agree, I don't understand why the PND doesn't just include everything.

There hasn't been a new version since 2008, so there's little chance of more new versions...

there are a couple of reasons i didnt include it, mainly the size and my upload speed.

 

[skeezix]

hmm, I'll have to tool around; dropped the 3 files into /pandora/appdata/uqm/content/packages/addons (note that the doc link in the pnd forgets the .../uqm/... part, just says /pandora/appdata/content/packages/addons) and it still doesn't find it; unless its actually looking for the path without 'uqm' in it, which would be _Weird_

Hmm.

jeff

 

[skeezix]

Ah, wait, that old problem.. had to create a 'version' file in /pandora/appdata/uqm/content for it to do anything

(now I get a blank screen .. maybe it takes awhile to load?)

Can you just do something like 'cp README.txt content/version' in your runscript or something?

jeff

Hangs forever; hmm

 

[urjaman]

Replicate this:
pandora:/media/mmcblk0p1/pandora/appdata/uqm# ls -lR
.:
total 4
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 4096 Jun 25 16:36 content

./content:
total 4
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 4096 Jun 25 16:36 packages
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 0 Jun 23 21:06 version

./content/packages:
total 141988
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Jun 25 16:36 addons
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18980071 Jun 22 21:12 uqm-0.6.0-3domusic.uqm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11580000 Jun 22 21:10 uqm-0.6.0-content.uqm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 114823409 Jun 22 21:17 uqm-0.6.0-voice.uqm

./content/packages/addons:
total 0

EDIT: h34r: 'd...

 

[Pickle]

Ah, wait, that old problem.. had to create a 'version' file in /pandora/appdata/uqm/content for it to do anything

(now I get a blank screen .. maybe it takes awhile to load?)

Can you just do something like 'cp README.txt content/version' in your runscript or something?

jeff

thought i fixed it with the pnd, should copy a file from the pnd into the appdata location

 

[skeezix]

Wait, the doc link says to put the files into content/packages/addons .. do they instead go to content/packages and not in the addons?

So two typos in the doc link

jeff