Once you’ve played Star Control II, it sticks with you. That’s not something you forget. Human frontrunner Fred Ford and left-of-center Paul Reiche III of Accolade Games engineered a space workup that, in 1992, was laughably beyond our reach. More than that, they found a way to inject so much more into a game than what you’d have to reasonably expect. Its equivalent today, in terms both monetary and human, would easily stand up to something like Mass Effect 2. Working with many of the same frontiers, narrative forces, and basic gaming experiences, the entrepreneurial “two guys in a garage” somehow managed to create a follow-up that surpasses the original (whose 25th anniversary celebrates the history of video games we know).
My experience with Star Control II started when a friend, who was in love with the universe and the game’s system, let me borrow it. As soon as I pushed the power button on my old 386, I was instantly addicted. The game puts you in the driver’s seat of an enormous starship that is not quite ready for spacefaring but, in the hands of the player, is soon to become a force with which to be reckoned. It sends you out—on your own, no less—into an uncharted region of the galaxy; your single and straightforward purpose is simply to make it by any “your way” means, and you might say that’s the player’s choice.
The universe of the game is massive, with hundreds of star systems and planets to poke around. Think of each star system you visit as a new chapter in an epic, never-ending space saga. The space you can explore is crammed full of resources to collect, new aliens to meet, and, most importantly, for the more curious of space wayfarers, secrets to sniff out. Nothing beats the sense of pure, epic-scale freedom and possibility that just living in the universe affords you in the game.
What really hit me about Star Control II was the rich and varied array of extraterrestrials. Every race in the game was imagined from the ground up. They all had meticulously crafted backstories and unique personalities. Some of my favorites included the cowardly, hilarious Spathi, who communicated with your character through an Earth-based delegate; the Thraddash, who were always trying their half-cocked cultural revolution ideas and never thinking through the consequences; the Pkunk, who kept getting killed (by you, if necessary) but, true to their name, always coming back to life; and the Zoq, the Fot, and the Pik, who conducted such delightfully insane conversations amongst themselves that they were truly entities from another form of erotica.
One aspect of the game that was really a cut above was its system of dialogue. Conversations with alien life forms were not just something one had just before shooting started but were, in fact, a much-vaunted aspect of the game experience itself. The writing for the conversations was some of the most energetic and humorous in the game world. Each conversational partner had a very distinct personality and choice of words. Yet not only have developers placed this galaxy teeming with different life forms, but for the most part, they’ve also managed to make it practically sparkle with good humor. And, at least with the Pkunk, you can definitely sense a vibrant and fertile fantasy life just behind the reach of their conversation.
Navigating the enormous universe of Star Control II was not only for the purpose of encountering friends or foes. Each decision carried the potential to either further unfold the engrossing plot or to open a universe for exploration. A choice I made not only required careful management of my resources—how one managed minerals, fuel, and crew members was of the utmost importance, and not just inside combat. The resource management meta-game took a hold over everything else I cared to do.
Acquiring resources meant touching down on planets and using one’s lander to collect minerals and biological specimens. Each planet came with its own collection of dangers be it wild temperature swings, quakes that might cause tectonic tantrums, or even unfriendly fauna, that risked not only the delicate business of procurement but also, if one were downright unlucky, the lander itself and the very valuable crew inside it. Indeed, I recall in my mind’s eye and even in what amounted to my stomach lining far too clearly on a few occasions the sheer, dense nervousness just before touchdown on a high-risk planet, too many of which offered no safe harbors, no clement weather, plenty of quakes, and a few predators to boot.
The minerals you gathered were vital for leveling up your ship and keeping your armada in good repair. Leveling up your ship not only makes you more formidable in combat but also means that you move more quickly between the stars, have more hit points to weather attacks, and can distribute more power to the ship’s systems so that your weapons deliver even more of a punch.
You pull in more powerful reactors, build better power substation distribution (the better to withstand hits), and harden your hull against enemy fire with minerals your fleet has collected in your travels. Which again feels intensely earned because you never know what is going to happen next.
Melnorme bought biological data. They were a mysterious group of merchants with various technological gadgets. They sold fuel, guns, and, above all, information. If the human player ran into them, they might upbraid him for what various races of the Alliance of Free Stars used to call “crimes,” such as trading in “slave” labor. (The human in the game was not much of a slave driver—unless the player made him one.) The Melnorme put a good face on technological and informational capitalism. They didn’t conquer any planets. They didn’t live on the suffering of any citizens. And they were enthusiastic about what they did.
Another crucial part of the game was fuel management. When your fleet ran out of gas, your units were stuck. This meant the only way to save them was to call for a very costly and slow “rescue” mission. But since even that option also put the player’s resources at risk, in many ways, it was a situation best avoided. And to avoid it, the player needed to do some major “spacetime calculations” about how to get from point A to point B using the least amount of fuel—which, of course, was also a situation best avoided by not venturing too far from home base in the first place.
One of the most exciting and difficult-to-master aspects of Star Control II was its combat system. The designers took a step back from the 1-2-3-style combat of the original. In Star Control II, the player side usually only fights on the left or right side of a 2D top-down playfield, in a much more involved and elaborate (and also more fun) combat system. When fighting against an enemy race, the player’s flagship can order any combination of friendly race ships picked at the start of the fight (during hyperspace) to assist in battling the unique enemy ships.
What I enjoyed about the combat system was that it always seemed to have an undercurrent of strategy, using the right ship for the right job. Each spaceship had its own unique strengths and weaknesses, some more extreme than others. My favorite was always the top-of-the-line Ur-Quan Behemoth, which was just as heavily protected, armed, and costly as it sounds. I’d often pit it against my other favorite, the Pkunk Fury, a maneuverable little number that systemically dodged and deflected until its shields were worn down. Once I learned the ropes and experienced what the different spaceships could do, I found a rewarding experience waiting for me at every showdown.
The various enemy spacecraft kept the warfare intriguing. Every foreign species had its own unique fighting style. They all required us to devise fresh tactics with which to approach them, let alone defeat them, and the actual moments of engagement were white-knuckle intense. To this day, nothing has been as nerve-wracking as my first rendezvous with the Slylandro Probe. Here was an enemy that could and did move faster than anything else in space, and if it managed to get within a certain range of my ship, it was well-nigh undefeatable.
In Star Control II, combat was much more than isolated duels; it was an essential part of the game’s plot. Critical battles against the Ur-Quan and their Hierarchy of Battle Thralls unfolded the drama of the story. The very opposite was the case in the first Star Control, which was largely an exercise in Space Wars with a bunch of different ships, which is why I’m not really talking about it here. While it was released with the subtitle The Ur-Quan Masters, the extent of the Ur-Quan’s villainy makes the title in the reflected ROM seem downright clumsy today.
The combat system’s high point was the multiplayer option. The game’s Super Melee mode lets us assemble our fleets and then fight them out in strategic combat. My friends and I sat with this mode for hours on end, assembling different crews, revising our strategies, then going straight back for another round of this, not just because it was a lot of fun (it was), but also because it was fun in a way that nothing else really could be in the closest substitutes, even less so than Control’s predecessor. Star Control II has stood the test of time and retains the classic gameplay that made it a top hit when it was originally released, and the game’s simple yet effective design has made a huge impact on the space opera genre in the years since it came out.
The rich and compelling narrative is what truly sets Star Control II apart from other games of its time. The story isn’t just something that’s strung together to serve as a pretense for the game’s mechanics. The game’s dialogues, with an abundant number of code lines were really clever, and I found myself laughing a lot at the pure logic of the game’s humor, which I thought was really funny. Something that appeared to be a plot twist wasn’t always a plot twist, and the player wasn’t always right in what they assumed was going to happen because reason often took a backseat.
How the player interacted with the many different aliens drove the story forward in ‘Star Control II.’ Every conversation, every interaction, and every race across the vastness of the galaxy was a totally unique experience that could fill a book on its own. You learned something new every time you played, and I think many people still have and cherish their own ‘private book’ of what happened in Star Control II. And what made the resulting narrative so compelling? Again, character and tension are first and foremost.
The game’s main villains, the Ur-Quan, were far from the typical, mono-dimensional bad guys so common in video games. There are two types of Ur-Quan: the Kzer-Za and the Kohr-Ah. The Kzer-Za are the “enslavers”; they defeat races and conscript them into their service. The Kohr-Ah, on the other hand, simplify; they take the direct route to genocide. This Ur-Quan duality was a great setup for meetings and confrontations with enemies. The Ur-Quan were most fascinating when you could choose to ally with one of these two evils.
The further the protagonist got into the game’s narrative, the more they started to expose the antiquated tale of the Precursors. And it was a doozy. The humanlike figures that ghost through what we know of as “Salvare’s massive installation art projects” may have been the cause of the first human conflict. They might have been around for a much longer duration, accumulating a wealth of experience that they were willing to put down in the stone-mycelium versions of cuneiforms. This, as one theory tells us, was what they were. They were terrible figures, invariably. But they were incredibly powerful, too.
The art of storytelling reached its peak at the game’s climax. All the narrative threads, all the character journeys—they all lead up to this. The final confrontation with the Ur-Quan. This is not a mere final fight. This is the culminating point of a massive struggle, with far-reaching history built up around it. The commanding figures of the Ur-Quan (and the oaths to them anyone in this universe unfortunate enough to be in the player’s shoes is with all likelihood going to be taking) are not resolved in a finale until many hours (perhaps?) into the game.
When I look back at Star Control II, the game’s impact seems lasting, its sway is never-ending. It pulled us in not with one single quality but with a slew of them. At the time, the game was unlike any other in terms of its depth, detail, and variety. It pushed the medium forward in a way that few other games did, all while remaining secretly the best on the unserious stage that 3DO offered. And for that reason and a few others, the title was and always will be a special, venerated experience for any player.
The all-time favorite classic game, Star Control II, can be an inspiration for not only modern games but also the world of science fiction at large. Unfortunately, the problematic release of the game’s source code and 3DO assets by some of the original developers has resulted in an ongoing legal dispute with the publisher, Stardock. Despite all this, fans continue to hold Star Control II close to their hearts and even pay homage to it in various projects.
In the end, to play Star Control II is to journey into a universe that has no equal in terms of being memorable, engrossing, or just flat-out fun. It’s a universe with limitless potential the kind that has fired imaginations and dreams since we first looked up and saw that faint, white fuzz spread out before us in that ever-expanding void. For me, and for many of us, I think Star Control II is a special game because it gave us those first moments, real moments worth remembering in a video game. It’s a game that, thought about during moments of reflection, makes you want to play it again.
