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Genre (s) Action, strategy. Mode (s) Single player, multiplayer. Star Control: Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV is an action - strategy video game developed by Toys for Bob and published by Accolade. It was originally released for MS-DOS and Amiga in 1990, followed by ports for the Sega Genesis and additional platforms in 1991.
- In space it's a great adventure, but on the ground it's a drag.
- Star Control: Origins Screenshots
- Verdict
By Dan Stapleton
Updated: Apr 21, 2020 1:50 am
Posted: Sep 20, 2018 5:00 pm
By introducing an entirely new and mysterious universe full of colorful, hilarious aliens and bringing back the intense arcadey space battles, Star Control: Origins gets about two thirds of the way toward recapturing the magic of Star Control 2, the revered 1992 adventure about forming an interstellar alliance against a greater threat. If it weren’t for the tedious chore of gathering resources from planets’ surfaces, it’d be a revival to celebrate.
As humanity takes its first step into the stars we find we’re not alone, and that many of our neighbors are delightfully stupid. There’s the pathetically needy Tywom banana slugs, the obsessively bureaucratic Measured, a sleazy race of con artists who’re basically Watto from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace with longer necks, and plenty more – each stranger and more surprising than the last. All the major aliens have a distinct style and personality that’s brought to life by diverse character models and fun voice acting.
The absurdist and occasionally laugh-out-loud humor of Star Control: Origins’ dialogue is its greatest asset, and it uses it effectively to cover up some of its deficiencies – there are various jokes about why every member of each alien race looks and sounds exactly like the others, for example. Listening to aliens casually discuss interstellar fish genocide or the proper number of ears to everyone should have is usually well worth taking the time. Dialogue could’ve used a bit more variety for common interactions, though: having every conversation with the malfunctioning starbase AI end with “EXCEPTION - CIVIL FAREWELL NOT FOUND!” and every rescue when you run out of fuel come at the cost of listening to the Tywom’s god-awful Star Trek fanfic gets old pretty quickly.
Once I hit the point about two-thirds of the way through the story where money no longer seemed to matter as much because I was able to get all the resources I needed from running the story missions instead of landing on planets, things improved considerably. The story became much more interesting and expansive, and boss fights and new enemy types made space battles even more diverse and challenging.
Space is where the real action is, and the punchy, top-down arcadey space combat is the most fun I had in Star Control: Origins.
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Space is where the real action is, and the punchy, top-down arcadey space combat (which is almost directly lifted from the original games) is the most fun I had in Star Control: Origins. These one-on-one arena battles have a lot of variety thanks to a wide selection of offensive and defensive abilities. There are straightforward missiles, beams, and laser bolts, but also mines, area-of-effect attacks, shields, cloaking devices, speed bursts, and many more. Each ship gets a combination of two abilities in addition to its own speed, acceleration, turn rate, recharge rate, and durability, and that keeps dogfights interesting as you bounce off of planets’ gravity wells, warp through wormholes (which can also teleport projectiles), and pick up stat-boost items. Judging a target’s trajectory well enough to peg it with a relatively slow-moving missile by while simultaneously shifting your own ship’s movement to avoid incoming fire is a good challenge, and outmaneuvering a slow, heavy-hitting ship with a nimble but fragile fighter craft feels great. It makes a lot of sense that this head-to-head combat was what Stardock chose to break out as its Fleet Battles multiplayer mode, which can be played against the AI (which actually gets tough!), online, or in local two-player mode.
Like with Fleet Battles, in the campaign you can collect a fleet of ships to send into combat before you endanger your flagship (which must survive or it’s game over) but the vast majority of those I found felt pointless. If I was up against an inferior opponent it made the most sense to send in my much more powerful flagship to destroy it quickly; if I was facing a strong enemy, like a Scryve battlecruiser, the weaker ships in my fleet would be destroyed comically quickly with area-of-effect attacks and my flagship was the only one that stood a chance. It doesn’t help that Star Control: Origins doesn’t give you a view of the capabilities of your ships or your opponent’s ships at the moment you’re selecting which one to use, so it’s extremely easy to pick one that has no chance at all against the attacker.
Though the ships are in general creatively designed, I found it weird that even though this is a game about bolting alien tech onto your human-built spacecraft to dramatically improve its speed, capacity, and combat abilities, the look of your flagship doesn’t change at all from start to finish no matter how many fancy engines and weapons you acquire. That’s especially bizarre considering that since this is a game that includes a highly customizable ship-builder tool for use in Fleet Battles that allows you piece together a custom craft from a healthy assortment of parts. When the technology is built in already, why would Stardock would completely miss this important, rewarding aspect of an action-RPG upgrade loop?
Star Control: Origins does a great job of creating a new universe and stocking it with a diverse range of weird and funny aliens to fight in intense arcadey space battles. But everything you’re forced to do on a planet’s surface is boring at best and an annoying chore at worst, and that kills a lot of momentum. Because of that, I didn’t really star...
About This Game The classic action adventure game Star Control II is here. Take command of the Vindicator, a prototype ship with endless upgrade potential. Discover new stars, explore new worlds, meet colorful alien races, wage wars and experience one of the most influential games in PC gaming history in its original form. About: Star Control 1
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- Stardock Entertainment
- Toys for Bob
- Nov 17, 1992
Sep 20, 2018 · But this game isn't a sequel. Or a prequel. It's a standalone Star Control game that on its own would make a good Star Control if it weren't for all its problems. But the problems with this game aren't the fault of his most hated evil "SJW" conspiracy on Twitter, or the fault of the creators of Star Control (oh darn, ****! I said it!
- (16)
Jun 11, 2018 · Star Control: Origins was an absolute joy for me. Its story and characters were utterly charming and unique. Its combat is a ton of fun. Exploring the galaxy and trekking along the surface of planets, while not much of a challenge once your lander is fully upgraded, does get tedious, but once you are picking up valuable elements and leaving the less rewarding materials behind, it becomes less ...
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Star Control: Origins begins in the year 2088, where the human space agency Star Control launches Earth's first interstellar-capable ship to investigate an alien distress signal. The player assumes the role of the captain of that ship. [ 1 ] The game follows the template of original Star Control series as an action-adventure game, [ 2 ][ 3 ...
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Star Control: Origins takes place in a huge living universe just waiting to be explored. Players will find their time split between exploring distant solar systems, landing on exotic planets, navigating hyperspace, and interacting with alien species. Encounter exotic alien civilizations. Explore strange new worlds.
