Stellar Assault: First Strike Operations
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 3:57 am
Part 1: What is Stellar Assault?
Long ago, in the glorious year 1995, a game was created for a doomed video game console that no one bought. And the Game was Good.
That same year, that very console; the Sega 32x was finally put to rest. Toy stores around the world dropped its price dramatically to quickly clear the wretched stock. Then, a young teenager discovered that console in a local Toys 'R' Us, sold for only 30$, and each game for only 8$. The system and a total of 11 games were bought. One of which was the poor unfortunate soul of a game, Shadow Squadron, the US Localized version of the Japanese game "Stellar Assault".
Being a hardcore space combat fan, this game was the first to be played on this teen's brand new 32x. The game was great. Spectacular even. That teen was me, and to this day, not a single Space Sim has ever been released that matches Stellar Assault in pure fun. The game was actually really simple, and it could be beaten in less than 30 minutes if you knew all the weaknesses of the enemy ships. (I did). There really wasn't much of a story to it either, (just a blurb in the manual). But it had so many gameplay features that made it perfect. It was pure capital-ship busting, nothing but. Every mission got more and more challenging. The options menu was massive for a mid-90s console game, and provided the the player a load different ways to customize the game, you could change the colors of the ships, there was a 3D model view for every ship in the game (excluding the final level ), and even ways to adjust how the throttle to your fighters functioned. For a game released on the 32x just before it was canned, this sucker was awesome.
And Sega knew it was awesome. In 1998, they released a full remake on the Sega Saturn called "Stellar Assault: SS", which improved the game in every way possible, Texturemapped Spacecraft, atmospheric flight, massive particle effects and subterranian maps, this game was simply awesome (I have it on a Saturn Emulator, still haven't been able to beat it), the game even had fully voice acted characters, mission briefs and cut scenes, the only problem was, it was never translated or localized for the States and is ONLY available in Japan.
Since 1999, the Space Sim genre has effectively been dead. Not a single worthwhile space combat game has come out since that year. And if anyone mentions Freelancer, I hunt you down and scalp you. For a long time, I have wanted to remake Stellar Assault on PC. With all of it's simplicity intact, no complicated controls, no bizzare item hunting, no retarded "cargo scanning" missions, no crazy Full-Motion-Video between mission environments, and no long boring way-points to nowhere.
Part 2: What does this have to do with Vega-Strike?
For a while now, there have been more and more Open Source game engines popping up. But unfortunately there are only two Space Combat Sim Engines. Freespace Open, and this one; Vega Strike. Freespace Open is pure combat only. While Vega-Strike is built for the Space-Trader Sub-genre (a genre, I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of), I do think that Vega-Strike as an engine, has a lot more promise than Freespace. I've been reading the wiki's for both Engines for along time now, and I've downloaded and played both. While Graphically, Freespace is the better looking engine, I think Vega-Strike can look just as good, and Vega-Strike from my perspective, looks far more flexible. The problem with Freespace is that no matter how hard TC developers work on their mods, they always end up looking like a Freespace Expansion pack. In general I have become disillusioned with the FSO Engine, AND the community around it.
In terms of moving my ideas over to Vega-Strike I have a few things I would like to know, because the wiki is really jumbled and confusing, is it possible to:
At this point, I'm still conceptualizing the main components of the game. I have the main gist of the plot figured out, and I'm currently modeling and UV Mapping the spacecraft along with designing the characters and the setting.
Links to Videos of the Original Game can be found below, there are a lot of good ones, for both the 32x and Saturn Versions. My own high opinion of the game is not Unique as many oldschool gamers agree that it was the only good game on the 32x. (Those who've heard of it at least, most people obsess about the 32x Doom, or Virtua Fighter, but Stellar Assault really makes both of those games look amateurish.)
Video Review of 32x Stellar Assault:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_9D_3IgeRg
Video of Stellar Assault's 32x Intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkNtFjx5gE8
Video of the Stellar Assault SS intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_4YTICDeeY
Video of Mission 4 Stellar Assault SS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sug5jUR6f8I
Video of Mission 8 Stellar Assault SS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d6s1kMsxyI
Part 4: What I've done so far... (Pictures!)
None of these models have been textured yet (Don't worry, they will be ).
I'm currently practicing up my UV Unwrapping skills and its been a slow process, but I am getting faster. There is not a large number of ships to model anyways, if manage to produce at least a model a week, I should have the entirety of them finished in under 4 months.
I have also produced an amount of concept work to go along with the models. Not all of it shown here simply because I don't immediately feel like scanning every page of my sketchbook.
I know this is a lot to throw into a single post, but I got a lot to say, that and post counts don't matter much to me, so why not put it all in one place.
I'm not sure how active the community is over here, so please reply when you guys get the chance.
Long ago, in the glorious year 1995, a game was created for a doomed video game console that no one bought. And the Game was Good.
That same year, that very console; the Sega 32x was finally put to rest. Toy stores around the world dropped its price dramatically to quickly clear the wretched stock. Then, a young teenager discovered that console in a local Toys 'R' Us, sold for only 30$, and each game for only 8$. The system and a total of 11 games were bought. One of which was the poor unfortunate soul of a game, Shadow Squadron, the US Localized version of the Japanese game "Stellar Assault".
Being a hardcore space combat fan, this game was the first to be played on this teen's brand new 32x. The game was great. Spectacular even. That teen was me, and to this day, not a single Space Sim has ever been released that matches Stellar Assault in pure fun. The game was actually really simple, and it could be beaten in less than 30 minutes if you knew all the weaknesses of the enemy ships. (I did). There really wasn't much of a story to it either, (just a blurb in the manual). But it had so many gameplay features that made it perfect. It was pure capital-ship busting, nothing but. Every mission got more and more challenging. The options menu was massive for a mid-90s console game, and provided the the player a load different ways to customize the game, you could change the colors of the ships, there was a 3D model view for every ship in the game (excluding the final level ), and even ways to adjust how the throttle to your fighters functioned. For a game released on the 32x just before it was canned, this sucker was awesome.
And Sega knew it was awesome. In 1998, they released a full remake on the Sega Saturn called "Stellar Assault: SS", which improved the game in every way possible, Texturemapped Spacecraft, atmospheric flight, massive particle effects and subterranian maps, this game was simply awesome (I have it on a Saturn Emulator, still haven't been able to beat it), the game even had fully voice acted characters, mission briefs and cut scenes, the only problem was, it was never translated or localized for the States and is ONLY available in Japan.
Since 1999, the Space Sim genre has effectively been dead. Not a single worthwhile space combat game has come out since that year. And if anyone mentions Freelancer, I hunt you down and scalp you. For a long time, I have wanted to remake Stellar Assault on PC. With all of it's simplicity intact, no complicated controls, no bizzare item hunting, no retarded "cargo scanning" missions, no crazy Full-Motion-Video between mission environments, and no long boring way-points to nowhere.
Part 2: What does this have to do with Vega-Strike?
For a while now, there have been more and more Open Source game engines popping up. But unfortunately there are only two Space Combat Sim Engines. Freespace Open, and this one; Vega Strike. Freespace Open is pure combat only. While Vega-Strike is built for the Space-Trader Sub-genre (a genre, I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of), I do think that Vega-Strike as an engine, has a lot more promise than Freespace. I've been reading the wiki's for both Engines for along time now, and I've downloaded and played both. While Graphically, Freespace is the better looking engine, I think Vega-Strike can look just as good, and Vega-Strike from my perspective, looks far more flexible. The problem with Freespace is that no matter how hard TC developers work on their mods, they always end up looking like a Freespace Expansion pack. In general I have become disillusioned with the FSO Engine, AND the community around it.
In terms of moving my ideas over to Vega-Strike I have a few things I would like to know, because the wiki is really jumbled and confusing, is it possible to:
- remove the "Trading" part of the VS Engine completely
- remove the open-ended "roam everywhere" portion of the game
- add "Computer Assisted Targeting" (along with a lead reticle)
- create a character driven game; styled almost like a Japanese Visual Novel between missions
At this point, I'm still conceptualizing the main components of the game. I have the main gist of the plot figured out, and I'm currently modeling and UV Mapping the spacecraft along with designing the characters and the setting.
Links to Videos of the Original Game can be found below, there are a lot of good ones, for both the 32x and Saturn Versions. My own high opinion of the game is not Unique as many oldschool gamers agree that it was the only good game on the 32x. (Those who've heard of it at least, most people obsess about the 32x Doom, or Virtua Fighter, but Stellar Assault really makes both of those games look amateurish.)
Video Review of 32x Stellar Assault:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_9D_3IgeRg
Video of Stellar Assault's 32x Intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkNtFjx5gE8
Video of the Stellar Assault SS intro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_4YTICDeeY
Video of Mission 4 Stellar Assault SS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sug5jUR6f8I
Video of Mission 8 Stellar Assault SS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d6s1kMsxyI
Part 4: What I've done so far... (Pictures!)
None of these models have been textured yet (Don't worry, they will be ).
I'm currently practicing up my UV Unwrapping skills and its been a slow process, but I am getting faster. There is not a large number of ships to model anyways, if manage to produce at least a model a week, I should have the entirety of them finished in under 4 months.
I have also produced an amount of concept work to go along with the models. Not all of it shown here simply because I don't immediately feel like scanning every page of my sketchbook.
I know this is a lot to throw into a single post, but I got a lot to say, that and post counts don't matter much to me, so why not put it all in one place.
I'm not sure how active the community is over here, so please reply when you guys get the chance.