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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Part of the Following Groups

Merchant	Title	Platform	Price
	Star Control	Genesis
	Star Control
	Star Control 1+2		$5.99
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User Reviews

Stellar battle at its finest	DOS	Chris Wright (101)
Great concept, painful implementation.	DOS	Vaelor (377)
I think this game is one of the most entertaining stragedy games and creative	DOS	Aj Hege (6)
A solid game worth playing.	DOS	Tomer Gabel (4418)
Great game for its day	DOS	WizardX (116)
I still can't believe its not really that good of a game!	DOS	Yeah Right (57)
Space Wars revistied and turbo-boosted	DOS	Tony Van (2692)
It's easy but it's fun. Two player games are memorable.	ZX Spectrum	Emlyn Hughes (10)
A great game bested by its sequel.	DOS	Fafnir (72)

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The Press Says

Mean Machines	Genesis	Jul, 1991	86 out of 100	86
Sega-16.com	Genesis	Aug 14, 2006	8 out of 10	80
CU Amiga	Amiga	Mar, 1991	79 out of 100	79
Power Play	DOS	Jan, 1991	77 out of 100	77
Computer Gaming World (CGW)	DOS	Nov, 1992		70
Computer and Video Games (CVG)	Amstrad CPC	Apr, 1991	69 out of 100	69
Power Play	Genesis	Oct, 1991	68 out of 100	68
Computer and Video Games (CVG)	ZX Spectrum	Apr, 1991	40 out of 100	40
Amiga Joker	Amiga	Jan, 1991	35 out of 100	35
The Video Game Critic	Genesis	Oct 27, 2007	F	0

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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: