SW3 acts like it wants to be Freelancer or X-Series, but was designed by Square Enix - It proposes this vast world and great background, but then you realize that shops only sell items depending on how far you are in the story (machineguns for sale during the tutorial, howitzers in the same shop at level 3), and that the story forces you along a rather straight path. There's no real time to loiter and make money or enjoy the universe or anything. The game poses a TON of divergent paths available... but none of them are consistent with the others. For instance, I recall in one mission that you're escorting a convoy. Someone interrupts you and says "I have word that there's an ambush ahead, you should follow me this way." If you do follow him, he's like "aha I was a spy, I just lead you into an ambush!" but if you make another choice, he actually turns out to be a devout police force guy and helps defend your convoy. And even with the divergent plots and the "you're given options on what path to take" you still end up being shuffled down a fairly straightforward path. You get told "the only way to get through here is to avoid that blockade and sneak through the dust cloud." The blockade consists of a megaship with a Motion Wave Gun that insta-kills you, so you have no choice except to take the dust route. Or there's some places where you get told "Come back this way, the objective is over here!" and the game turns your ship around.
It's X-3 done by Square Enix - good idea, great universe, and then ruined by gameplay and story.
NINJA: Redking - Homeworld is a 4x, and I dunno about Oolite, but OP seemed to be asking for games where you own a ship or a squadron and carry through more RPG or Sandbox gameplay. Homeworld is very RTS, although still a game that I would encourage people to play.
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Topic: Any space ship games? (Read 15861 times)