Re: CRAP Poll # (Infinity - 6): Bring It Back!

rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca (Ross Ridge) looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

Anssi Saari  <anssi.saari@usenet.mail.kapsi.fi> wrote:

Something a little more obscure: Microprose's Lightspeed. The idea was
simple, prep an area of space for refugees from earth, make alliances
and murder off whoever you don't like. But in practice the game was
pretty simple and silly. But done right it might be something a little
more approachable than a full 4X game.

>
I remember playing it's sequel, Hyperspeed, back in the day.  Even at the
time I thought it was a bit shallow.  I also think it's quite a stretch
to call it a 4X game.  It was an open-world space-sim, like Elite,
but with more of a story and structure.
>
I'm not sure what you liked about Lightspeed but you can find a
fair bit of that game in X: Beyond the Frontier and it's sequels.
Make friends/enemies while expanding your (business) empire.  The X
series doesn't have the "silliness" of Lightspeed/Hyperspeed, but I
think that's a good thing as it was rather juvenile at times.

Downside of X-BTF, was that one of the main enjoyments in space games
(upgrading to a new ship) was entirely lacking, since the ship you
started with was better than anything you could buy.

Regarding later games, not sure if they are still for sale, but you do
not want to pirate them as the Devs put a very nasty trap in them;  All
works perfectly at first and then the economy goes completely batshit
later making the game basically unplayable _after_ you'd put 30hrs or so
in it.

Still have fond memories of lurking on the official forums and seeing
the same complaints posted over and over, with them not knowing they
were telling everyone they stole the game and then expected Dev help.

Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr