<story><title>Star Control II</title><url>https://www.filfre.net/2018/12/star-control-ii/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mratzloff</author><text>When I look back at my favorite games of all time, they all evoke this feeling of &amp;quot;I can go anywhere and do anything. There&amp;#x27;s so much to do and see, and I&amp;#x27;m a little nervous to venture out because I&amp;#x27;m not sure I&amp;#x27;ll be able to find my way back.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Star Control II is that game. So is Ultima VII, and several Infocom games that filled my
imagination and seemed bigger than they were. Before the era of a complete walkthrough a click away that will lead you by the nose.&lt;p&gt;The turning point was voiced dialogue. Once that became the norm, content became exponentially more expensive to produce, and so the size of the worlds shrank.</text></item><item><author>evdev</author><text>Yes, it&amp;#x27;s my favorite game of all time. No, I&amp;#x27;m not sure you can really &amp;quot;get&amp;quot; the experience today. One thing older games were able to do was use time and boredom(!) for effect in a way that mostly doesn&amp;#x27;t exist nowadays with so many more well-made games with &amp;quot;optimized&amp;quot; reward systems.&lt;p&gt;I think of Grim Fandango, where a lot of the effect of the narrative comes in the way scrounging for clues by trial and error makes it feel as if you &lt;i&gt;really were&lt;/i&gt; stuck in that town for a year. Play through quickly with a strategy guide and you won&amp;#x27;t actually get the effect of the environment.&lt;p&gt;Or take the difference between the original Zelda and the later games: I&amp;#x27;d say the fact that the original completely lacked the well-marked trail of where you were supposed to be going and what you were supposed to be interacting with made it seem as if you had &amp;quot;found&amp;quot; a smaller part of a wider world, and you were reacting to its logic.&lt;p&gt;Star Control II did both of these things as well as any game has. The reasons for your actions were always intrinsic (not to make &amp;quot;1&amp;#x2F;5&amp;quot; go to &amp;quot;3&amp;#x2F;5&amp;quot; and then &amp;quot;5&amp;#x2F;5&amp;quot;, quest completed!) and your course through the game was meaningful because it took place in an economy of choice, effort, and time that was consistent and weighty.&lt;p&gt;Beyond navel gazing, I think the real upshot is when something like Breath of the Wild is so universally adored, part of what you&amp;#x27;re seeing is all the potential being left on the table by the current paradigm of gerbil wheels with scrolling backdrops.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hjek</author><text>Star Control II &lt;i&gt;has&lt;/i&gt; voiced dialog[0].&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;packages.debian.org&amp;#x2F;jessie&amp;#x2F;uqm-voice&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;packages.debian.org&amp;#x2F;jessie&amp;#x2F;uqm-voice&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Star Control II</title><url>https://www.filfre.net/2018/12/star-control-ii/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mratzloff</author><text>When I look back at my favorite games of all time, they all evoke this feeling of &amp;quot;I can go anywhere and do anything. There&amp;#x27;s so much to do and see, and I&amp;#x27;m a little nervous to venture out because I&amp;#x27;m not sure I&amp;#x27;ll be able to find my way back.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Star Control II is that game. So is Ultima VII, and several Infocom games that filled my
imagination and seemed bigger than they were. Before the era of a complete walkthrough a click away that will lead you by the nose.&lt;p&gt;The turning point was voiced dialogue. Once that became the norm, content became exponentially more expensive to produce, and so the size of the worlds shrank.</text></item><item><author>evdev</author><text>Yes, it&amp;#x27;s my favorite game of all time. No, I&amp;#x27;m not sure you can really &amp;quot;get&amp;quot; the experience today. One thing older games were able to do was use time and boredom(!) for effect in a way that mostly doesn&amp;#x27;t exist nowadays with so many more well-made games with &amp;quot;optimized&amp;quot; reward systems.&lt;p&gt;I think of Grim Fandango, where a lot of the effect of the narrative comes in the way scrounging for clues by trial and error makes it feel as if you &lt;i&gt;really were&lt;/i&gt; stuck in that town for a year. Play through quickly with a strategy guide and you won&amp;#x27;t actually get the effect of the environment.&lt;p&gt;Or take the difference between the original Zelda and the later games: I&amp;#x27;d say the fact that the original completely lacked the well-marked trail of where you were supposed to be going and what you were supposed to be interacting with made it seem as if you had &amp;quot;found&amp;quot; a smaller part of a wider world, and you were reacting to its logic.&lt;p&gt;Star Control II did both of these things as well as any game has. The reasons for your actions were always intrinsic (not to make &amp;quot;1&amp;#x2F;5&amp;quot; go to &amp;quot;3&amp;#x2F;5&amp;quot; and then &amp;quot;5&amp;#x2F;5&amp;quot;, quest completed!) and your course through the game was meaningful because it took place in an economy of choice, effort, and time that was consistent and weighty.&lt;p&gt;Beyond navel gazing, I think the real upshot is when something like Breath of the Wild is so universally adored, part of what you&amp;#x27;re seeing is all the potential being left on the table by the current paradigm of gerbil wheels with scrolling backdrops.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>malkia</author><text>Sierra Quest games were like this - one pixel to the left, and you have to reload your last save :)&lt;p&gt;In contrast with Lucasart ones - but both were fun, just in different way!&lt;p&gt;Then came... &amp;quot;The Day of the Tentacle&amp;quot; - OMG!!!</text></comment>