Star Control (1990)

Star Control is an attempt to give a strategic element to Spacewar - by moving across planets, building ships, and having dogfights amidst the stars between a variety of quirky and interesting alien races, this should by all means be fun. However, if you don't have a human by your side to fumble along with you, this game is either vicious, agonizingly slow, or both.

The Alliance of Free Stars is battling the Hierarchy of Battle Thralls! That's pretty much all you need to know. Whether it's the fungal Mycons, the fashionable Androsynths, the plucky Earthlings, or the dreaded Ur-Quan, there's a wide variety of ships at play, giving an illusion of depth. What it mostly comes down to is that there's a couple of ships that'll absolutely destroy other ships and the actual space combat (again, Spacewar) is so slippery and frustrating that you'll wish a computer did it for you. Star Control has the option of modes that have the computer take over either action or strategy, but it's not the most fun seeing a dogfight play out between computers. Human players are a little more fun in that regard.

The strategy can be a bit clunky. The player usually starts out with a starbase and can construct units with starbucks. They can replenish their crew by colonizing certain planets for two turns, and can establish mines or fortifications for two turns. They can also find upgrades on certain planets they jump onto for better advantages in combat. It's a bit of a tedious process and the way movement is done throughout the galaxy (moving between a constantly rotating axis of 3D points) can get kind of confusing and nauseous. Again, the computer can always take over these actions but with neither strategy nor action that misses the point of playing.

Star Control is really looking to jazz up Spacewar, but if you don't have a friend or aren't a big fan of tedious strategy elements, you might be best just grabbing a friend for Spacewar.