Discover the secrets of the Ur Quan Masters to stop their war machines before they enslave the galaxy! Change the course of interstellar history! Fight, chat, and finagle your way toward the salvation of sentient life!
- Gigantic galaxy to explore
- Intriguing history to discover
- Ancient, one-of-a-kind starship to customize to fit your needs
- Dozens of unique alien species to deal with
- Exceptionally fun dialog that shimmers with the brilliance of a thousand suns
- Diverse ship-to-ship arcade battles
The designers obviously loved making Ur-Quan Masters! Visit their website at Toys for Bob and they're still going on about it. The graphics are expressive and bold. Tragedy and delight jostle for position as the plot unfolds. The games-within-games keep the play experience fresh. There are so many little touches that set it apart.
I love the history of the galaxy, told from different perspectives of the many alien races. Ur-Quan Masters takes the best of 80's science fiction and makes a grand space opera out of it -- with lots of great dialog and characterizations, to boot.
The community of players and programmers keep UQM vigorous. The remixed music and updated graphics engines are labors of true love.
Download Ur-Quan Masters for free from Sourceforge.net!
- Precursors website, home of the remixed music.
- Bob the Angry Flower - a web comic with a lot to say about Ur-Quan Shock Troops and how not to escape them, it seems. By Stephen Notley, whose name I'm afraid I misspoke.
- Toys for Bob Official Petition for more Star Control games
- Star Control wiki: The Ultronomicon (Warning: Spoilers)
- Page of Now and Forever - a fan site with news and mods
- Wikipedia entry: Star Control II
- A funny comment on Slashdot: Why do we name our servers the way we do?
- [EDIT] Ur-Quan in '08 : Don't blame me, I voted for Kzer-Za.
- [EDIT] Star Control Photoshops
- [EDIT] Star Control Discussion Board at GameSpy
- [EDIT] Star Controller: "To this day, I still dream of that Star Control sequel." Amen, brother. Tons of great news and unique points of interest here, including Star Control II in Japanese.
Remember to cast your vote for the game to feature on the next Long Tail Gamer!
Sat, 11 Apr 02009 - 10:38
I remember walking to a friends house, we will call him "Crumbs" or maybe "Pierre" anyway... after school to play Star Control. We would spend hours battling it out against each other and debate the merits of the various ships. Tons of fun.
Thanks Cameron for reminding me of some good times with a fun game and a great friend.
Great job with the premiere of The Long Tail Gamer show. Très gentiment fait!
Vaclav.
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Sat, 11 Apr 02009 - 17:39
I'm glad you enjoyed the show, Vaclav!
The first time I played Star Control -- the original, mark you -- I had walked over to a friend's house. I met him on a local BBS dedicated to Commodore computers. He had an Amiga, and invited me over to play on it. I didn't have a car, and my bike had a flat, so I had walked the 4 or 5 miles down to his house.
We sat down and I was instantly in love with the game. It was beautiful on the Amiga. Hell, everything was.
My friend played an Ur-Quan, because he knew what he was doing. I played an Arilou, because it was the first ship I saw and I didn't know better. He kicked my ass three ways from Sunday.
Later, once I'd learned the controls, I delighted in picking away at Ur-Quans with my little ship, popping in and out, impossible to zero in on.
Good times, good times.
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Sat, 05 Dec 02009 - 02:14
Yes.. a great game combined with a great friends is the amloust perfetct thing in the world.
Mara,
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add url link
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Sat, 11 Apr 02009 - 11:39
Marvelous first post!
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Sat, 11 Apr 02009 - 18:05
I guess it is time for me to finally play this after hearing about it for years [:o )
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Fri, 17 Apr 02009 - 07:18
I finally had time to watch (go live for it was during my kid's birthday party and then I forgot). That was really well done. Both content and technical editing. Great wipes and captures, dialog and soundtrack. I'm going to download the game now and play all weekend :-)
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Sat, 18 Apr 02009 - 05:06
I've posted pretty much ... This on GoG topic you've created as well, but I guess it's a bit more fitting to post it in here:
Great review! Seriously, I've had a crappy mood before watching it... After watching it I'm eager to play the game and crappy mood is gone :D
Your language is 'clean', therefore even we, non-natives, can easily understand it, review is engaging, funny... Well, pretty much everything I miss in most other videorevs :D
Keep up the good work. You're in my RSS!
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Mon, 20 Apr 02009 - 17:38
Thank Fenixp! I tried my best to make the show accessable -- I guess it worked!
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Sun, 19 Apr 02009 - 11:42
Very nice review, I remember playing Star Control II on my 486 back in the day. I never knew it was open sourced and retouched until I saw this video review. I'll be downloading it immediately :D
I love retro gaming and emulation though, no stranger to the emulation scene, somehow I just managed to miss this. Now if only I could find 'my' Starmap from back then :P
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Tue, 21 Apr 02009 - 19:00
wow, thanks so much for doing this! I have loved SC2 since I was a kid and seeing a video like this makes me think that new users will have an easy time getting into this game.
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Fri, 24 Apr 02009 - 15:18
This was fabulous! Really well put together and super-informative. Damn you for tempting me to get this game and lose myself in a vast new galaxy of geek-o-matic fun. I'm curious if there are any comparable games on the market today and how they compare to Ur-Quan Masters (I'm guessing newer is not necessarily better). I've been occasionally glancing around for a "galactic exploration & expansion" sort of game but haven't really found anything.
Looking forward to the next review...
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Fri, 24 Apr 02009 - 23:10
Not exactly a ... Comparable game, but game that gives you this explore-ish feeling (thou it's linear as hell) and is very close to shows like Battlestar and likes is Nexus: The Jupiter Incident. Thou linear, it has an engaging story and the best darn space-ship fights ever
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Sat, 25 Apr 02009 - 22:22
I've looked on and off at this game, but haven't committed to it yet. Maybe it's time.
Ur-Quan Masters is a great adventure game, but when it comes to Galactic 4X games -- eXploration, eXpansion, eXploitation, and eXtermination, that is -- I reach for Masters of Orion 2.
It's a shame nobody is selling the game any more. I'd do a show on it in a heartbeat. (Are you listening, GOG?)
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Thu, 14 Jan 02010 - 14:12
Free Orion is an open source 4X game inspired by Master of Orion. I'm determined to check it out.
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Sun, 26 Apr 02009 - 20:14
Awesome video. Star Control rules!
Duke Nukem loves Star Control: http://starcontroller.com/?p=373
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Mon, 27 Apr 02009 - 14:49
Cheers for getting new Duke Nukem gaming footage out ... AT LONG LAST.
Which will come out first: a Star Control sequel from TFB, or Duke Nukem Forever? Bets? Bribes? What will it take?
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Thu, 07 May 02009 - 06:15
A really great game, I had tons of fun playing it the first time... And the second, and the third :P
I really do hope they make a sequel one day, these kinds of games are exactly what I like: gameplay and addictevness. And nice oldschool graphics.
I mean, what do I need all the brand new graphics techniques for if the game isn't any fun? Like, all these new games are fun for a week tops, later on they just become too repetitive and boring to play. We need the quality of old games back.
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Sun, 28 Jun 02009 - 20:33
Thank you a lot for reviewing this game. I must admit your review was my first exposure to it. Having downloaded and played the game myself, finally, I must agree with you that it is one of the best games of all time. The finely tuned melee system, the colorful and creative alien races and ships, the freedom given to the player, and the humorous dialogue all work together to make this a very entertaining game that I'm sure to play through many times. Thank you again for your review and opening my eyes a little further to the great games I missed out on as a kid.
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Fri, 16 Oct 02009 - 19:52
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
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Mon, 21 Dec 02009 - 09:22
Yup!
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Wed, 30 Dec 02009 - 09:46
I tried the game a few years ago. Fun, but I could NOT handle the combat (not having grown up with this twitchy stuff), so I didn't get very far. But you say the arcade part is optional? Maybe I should check it out again.
Parts of it remind me of Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula. Now THAT is a game I'd like to see re-made. Then again, it had "real-time" space combat, too. It was easy enough that even I could survive it, but I suppose any remake would change that.
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Wed, 13 Jan 02010 - 11:00
Starflight II was a crowning achievement in the space-faring RPG, that's for sure. I know there have been a few attempts by the fan community to bring the game back, but I haven't come across anything yet that really captured it.
Rest assured: I'll keep on it.
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Thu, 14 Jan 02010 - 14:14
The arcade part is optional, yes. You can turn it off in the Options screen, even while playing the game. Nice for those battles that you think you could win, if it weren't for those treacherous stubs you call fingers screwing everything up for you.
Not that that's happened to me. Not at all.
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