I would like to see what people's views are on the lack of new space-simulations for the 32-bit range.
Several prospective ones have been mentioned - karma, the Galileo project (PC only?) and a possible game by Artex in the long-term. Black Angel was the last in depth space sim AFAIK, but I feel it was let down by being rather too complicated and perhaps a bit tedious. There are some who may even feel it was restrictive. My fears for Karma are that it may be similarly complicated and if possible I would think it would be a great idea for it to include an option to deactivate physical laws to perhaps the level of Elite or thereabouts. Coupled with the games reputed depth and detail, this freedom of movement would be very attractive to the potential buyer (like myself).
The galileo project mentions multiplayer support to create a 'society' within the game. This would truly be a great feature but very hard to implement IMO. Perhaps this feature could be added later following the initial release of a game such as Karma or galileo.
Also I would await the prospective artex space game with much anticipation. Although we are yet to see Iron dignity and TEK and it is thus 'early days' I would hope personally that any plans for the space game have the freedom of movement and involvement of Elite, Black Angel etc.
Thanks for listening to my views - I hope they can provoke the voicing of other peoples opinions.
Andrew Weston 4/8/99
Personally I'm a great fan of space games - Élite style games in particular - and would love to see an updated version of something in this genre.
However, a lot of programmers seem to be concentrating on the simulation aspects of space, which might sound impressive and even look pretty but Newtonian physics don't make for great adrenalin-pumping gameplay.
A new Élite with light sourcing, texturing mapping, lots more missions, weapons, ships etc. - yes please. But try and devlop it a little quicker than TEP...
Richard Goodwin 9/8/99
Richard wrote: "Newtonian physics don't make for great adrenalin-pumping gameplay" I don't know about that - it would depend how you designed the ships. For example, consider the (eternally) forthcoming Babylon5 game (unfortunately now cancelled - ed). The StarFury is a realistically-designed space fighter, with the result that you can do strafing runs by accelerating forwards, turn to face the side and fire as you continue moving in same the direction you did before, rather than turning as an atmospheric fighter would.
All I'm saying is that it takes a little bit of thought about ship and mission design. Still waiting for the B5 game, though.
John Pettigrew 9/9/99