Description
Star Control is a science-fiction wargame which pits the forces of the Alliance of Free Stars against those of the predatory Ur-Quan Hierarchy. The games are designed so that you can ease into play, familiarizing yourself with menus, options and player controls. The Alliance and Hierarchy each possess different types of warships. Each vessel has its own maneuvering and firing characteristics, plus a unique special power that you can employ when circumstances dictate.
The game has two modules: the Melee, in which you can simply blast the computer or another player to smithereens using one of 16 different ships, in either Hierarchy or Alliance fleets; or, should you wish for a more challenging game, lets you play one of 9 preset scenarios.
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Trivia
Inspiration
The "special thanks" in the manual list off an equally large number of sci-fi authors whose work in some way influenced the game. It's fairly rare for game designers to be so rigorous in documenting their inspirations.
References
The vast majority of captain names in the game were taken from various famous and semi-famous sci-fi sources. (far too many to list here. For example, there's a Syreen Captain Alia (from
Dune) and an Earth Captain Pike (from
Star Trek))
Title
From almost the very beginning of his video game design career,
Paul Reiche III has revisited the theme of pitting varied teams of carefully balanced but widely varied opponents against each other, first in 1983's
Archon and most recently in 1998's
The Unholy War (and its Japanese analogue,
Little Witching Mischiefs).
Star Control also falls in the middle of this chain, and its heritage is plainly spelled out phonetically in its abbreviation:
__Archon
Star_Con
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #127 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
Information also contributed by
Pseudo_Intellectual
