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Meet Starflight, one of the first great space opera adventures, available here on GOG.com for just $5.99.

Some of you may not know this game but that’s why we write these fascinating articles, right? [url=http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/starflight_1_2]Starflight 1 begins on the planet Arth, when your civilization discovers that they were, in fact, a colony planet of Earth. Excavations into the ancient colony landing sites enable humans to build starships, and set course for new life and new civilizations. You are set to embark on a mission to re-explore space and discover why the Old Empire collapsed. As time goes by and you discover new planets ready to be colonized, discover new lifeforms, and eventually build yourself a proper battleship, an old threat emerges and will humans triumph this time over the mysterious Crystal Planet which endangers the galaxy, or will it all fall to ruin and ashes again?

Gameplay consists of oddly familiar features for the genre, in part because Starflight defined a number of standard elements space opera adventure games. For example, you start out with a ship that is held together with duct tape and baling wire. Most of the cool features aren’t available yet--like weapons. Initially, you will need to get by with mining and trading, but after you’ve paid your dues, things start to get more interesting. When you’ve earned a little cash through hard work you can enroll a crew to man six different posts (each has a direct correlation to your ship’s performance) and upgrade every part of your spaceship. You can also land on planets (but not all of them, some are so high gravity that you will crash if you try). After you touch down safely, you can send a terrain vehicle to travel around the planet for minerals, artifacts, or alien lifeforms (that ring a bell for anyone? :).

The Starflight universe consists of over two hundred stars and several hundred planets to explore, and the Starflight II universe is even bigger. No RPG can be good without random encounters, and you’ll meet aliens of all kinds and shapes. Some will be belligerent, and some will be friendly, and you’ll rarely know until after they’ve fired at you.

Starflight 2 basically takes all the good things from it’s predecessor and improves on it drastically. Following the events of the first game, the galaxy is at relative peace but a race of cowardly, gelatinous blobs gain access to superior technology and it’s your mission to find out how to stop them! The story may start a bit ordinarily, but it definitely ramps up to an exciting finale! If you’re a fan of Starflight--or another game in our catalogue that has you flying around the stars and talking to aliens--you should definitely pick up this incredible two pack for just $5.99 today!
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gyokzoli: the engine looks similar
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Lexor: Engine is probably the last thing when it comes to rights holder. ;)
Yes, I know. I thought EA holds the rights for the very first AD&D games too but apparently not. Strategic Simulations Inc. is now owned by Ubisoft.
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gyokzoli: Yes, I know. I thought EA holds the rights for the very first AD&D games too but apparently not. Strategic Simulations Inc. is now owned by Ubisoft.
And since rights to d&d titles are now back with Hasbro, and Atari is not the exclusive licensee, there are no obstacles for GOG to make a three party deal with GOG, Ubisoft and Hasbro included.

And about EA - some games, like Eye of the Beholder, were developed by Westwood and published by SSI. Now, who has rights to publish them now, I don't know.
Post edited November 24, 2011 by SLP2000
Oh. My. God.

Yes. So many times yes. I think Starflight II was the first game I ever bought and the hours I spent playing it. This is the happiest I've ever been since joining GOG and I've been really happy on many occasion with this place.
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gyokzoli: Strategic Simulations Inc. is now owned by Ubisoft.
Do not forget that SSI used AD&D license which was TSR, later WotC, and now is Hasbro ;)
Post edited November 24, 2011 by Lexor
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!

SF1 was the 2nd PC game I ever purchased (Bard's Tale 1 was the first).

During the week I defended and completed my dissertation, I was holed up in a hotel in Terre Haute, IN with my PC-XT. When I wasn't using Wordstar 5 to edit "the bitch" (the dissertation), I played SF2 and logged most of the planets in the game (looking for habitable planets). I think I may even have those notes somewhere :-)

These may be my favorite games of all time!

Thank you GOG!
Putting the Good Old Games in Good Ol' Games. :P Does not look like my kind of game, but the Caninrok's comment above me is wonderful.

This must be the third or fourth oldest game on here; I believe there's some Ultima from 1985 and King's Quest or something else from 1986.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCQe-qMSQ24 Top comment here says he was the designer for the game, Greg "Big Earl" Johnson. ;)
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SLP2000: Well, nice to see oldies like this.

Though I hope you guys are working hard at the next agreement with EA.
Most definitely I hope so too. :)
Post edited November 24, 2011 by tfishell
Thanks so much for adding this series. I have been wanting to play it for a long time. The only series I wanted to see more on GOG is Quest for Glory.

It is also stated on the Starflight wiki page that Starflight was big inspiration on the Mass Effect series.

Phillip.
Post edited November 24, 2011 by ColdSteelKid
How much is StarForce II similar to these two games? I didn't really like it, finding some places seemed just too much random given the sheer size of the galaxy.
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Fel1: StarForce II
???
Why do we have to accept EA's EULA and what is this online client thing mentioned in the EULA?
wow! 1986!

A release from 25 years ago? now that's awesome :)

Looks pretty cool, wishlisted
tenths of alien races? small typo there on the main page :P
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Fel1: StarForce II
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grviper: ???
Oh, StarControl II, whoops! I knew it felt weird, I should have checked the name on my shelf after all.

(Wow, you're from Russia, would you be willing to trade some games on Steam for GOG gifts?)
Ooh, tempting! I missed this one first time around. Wish you could get the Genesis version, though, it's 1000x prettier.

Hey, if you're looking this far back, see if you can get ahold of Sentinel Worlds.
Post edited November 24, 2011 by wvpr
The games I heard lots about, but never got around to play.

So which platform has the best version of these? I presume PC versions probably don't have any sound card support and at least SF1 is CGA graphics (ack!!!), so how about the Amiga and Sega Genesis versions? Bugginess, graphics, sounds?