If you get a Nintendo DS I would recommend checking out Infinite Space.

Planet's Edge - an old dos game from New World Computing.

I loved this game, well until a game breaking bug forced me to quit playing entirely(At one point the game just booted to desktop when I reached a certain point and tried to go further.). I dunno if the bug was only for my playthrough choices or happened on other playthrough types as well, but I didn't want to play other ways at that time so I never bothered replaying. It'd be a good game if they could ever get that bug fixed, though.

BTW, I'd really like to see a proper Sci-Fi RPG sometime soon!
Even Mass Effect got toned down to mostly having assault rifles and being a standard cover based shooter.
(As a side note, if that takes your fancy, maybe Gears of War or Killzone on consoles would fit the bill)

But I'd want something with big ships, bug eyed monsters with alien weapons, lasers and other weapons shooting twinkly light beams. Long discussions of morality and evolution, ancient evil and robots and god-like old wise beings. Space Princesses and romance and betrayal, smartass cigar smoking combat pilots, altarian brandy from ursa proxima.

Dammit! Some publisher has got to see there's a gaping hole in the market waiting to be filled.
Shouldn't be too hard? Not with the success story of Mass Effect?

I wonder what CD Projekt's doing next? I would love to see a space RPG like you describe made by them ;)

As a kid, I had been very impressed by "Sundog", on a friend's Atari. Unfortunately (for that, and that alone), I had an Amiga.

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunDog:_Frozen_Legacy]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunDog:_Frozen_Legacy[/url]

Anyway, you had a few sci-fi RPGs on the Amiga. BAT and BAT2. Chaos in Andromeda. Captive. Brattacas, Elite anf Frontier could be seen an RPGs, at least they were totally free-roaming, with autonomous open worlds.

Today, there are RPG elements in many space RTS games. But I can't think of any space opera, apart from "Kotor" and "Mass Effect" (even though "Mass Effect" is an RPG in the same way as "Alpha Protocol" : they both are basically linear arcade shooters with some branching parameters in the missions). You may want to try out the 10 minutes sessions of "Weird Worlds : Strange Adventures in Infinite Space". Cheap, indie, and quite fun.

Geralt bringing neutrality to space

b2t
I will mention MegaTraveller: The Zhodani Conspiracy if you like old games

In many ways Alpha Protocol is more faithful to todays pen & paper RPGs than most non-action CRPGs. Most P&P RPGs are more rules light, and focus more on interaction with the world and player choices

Not necessarily. Majority of people on RPG codex still consider Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura the best RPG out there. Not to mention Fallout 1 and 2. I wouldn't call that a fantasy setting.

I reccomend Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and it's sequel. Great games.

Agreed, great game that gets a bad rap for some strange reason. Personally I have never had any problems running the game and it has some great characters you can interact with.

Actually, there are a lot of people on RPGwatch that want games from different settings. Steampunk seem to be pretty popular, though personally I would love a good cyberpunk CRPG (and not a shooter/CRPG hybrid)


I understand why. The game was released in a pretty bad state. It was buggy, the combat mechanics were poorly thought out, the game had some pretty odd animations and the stealth mechanics was not up to par either. Also, until you are out of Saudi Arabia, the game just feels like a bog standard "ME TOO!" game, that had looked a bit too much in the direction of Mass Effect. The only thing the game really has going for it is how it handles choices & consequences, but it handles this really well. I love Alpha Protocol for this very reason, and often praise it, but it is not a perfect game.

I can't believe that I had to scroll all the way to the final post on page 1 before Space Control II came up.

This is the game you want, mr. op. It is _the_ interactive space opera.

- Battletech: The crescent hawk's inception -

That one was quite fun :)

Borderlands is - I guess - a sci-fi RPG (maybe more MadMax-ian sci-fi) which I found to be a heap of fun.

Final Fantasy VIII is definately sci-fi and a great romp. Some people say negative things about it, but then, some people say negative things about bacon. Just goes to show, you can't always trust 'some people' :)

Can we reach out to the console-only market for titles? If so, as has been mentioned, many JRPGs have sci-fi elements (though mostly it's soft sci-fi - Star Ocean, Xenogears/Xenosaga, that kinda thing - rather than the 'harder' sci-fi that Western audiences see). Incidentally, Xenogears is awesome :)

And finally, if we're prepared to go back in a time a bit more, SSI did a couple of Buck Rogers RPGS in the 'gold box' series (Countdown to Doomsday and Matrix Cubed) that I enjoyed at the time but might feel distinctly 'old' now.