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Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters is a free updated [open source port releasing on Steam, of the classic The Ur-Quan Masters released into open source on PC in 2002, which in turn is a port of the extremely classic Star Control 2 (The arguably better 3DO version).
SC2 on 3DO released in 94' and was developed by studio, Toys for Bob. The original SC2 released on PC in '92.
I played the original Star Control on PC back in the day, versus CPU, over and over and over again. Nobody really talks about SC1 these days. Then Star Control 2 came out on PC and it ruled.
Plot (Wikipedia):
" Star Control II continues the (Star Control 1) story with a rich in-game experience, playing through events after the Alliance is defeated by the Hierarchy. In the last phase of the war between the Alliance of Free Stars and the Hierarchy of Battle Thralls,
an Earthling ship discovered an ancient Precursor subterranean installation in the Vela star system. A massive Hierarchy offensive forced the Alliance fleets to retreat beyond Vela, stranding the science expedition, who went in to hiding.
Decades later, with the help of a genius child born on the planet, the colonists activated the Precursor machinery and found out that it was programmed to build a highly advanced but unfinished starship, which could be piloted only by the now grown genius child, who alone could interact
with the Precursor central computer. The new ship set out to Sol to make contact with Earth, but shortly before reaching Sol the little fleet was attacked by an unknown probe; The expedition commander, captaining the expedition's Earthling Cruiser, intercepted the alien ship before it could
damage the defenseless Precursor starship, but was killed in the short fight, leaving the genius young man in command.
The player begins the game as the commander of the Precursor starship, who returns to Earth to find it enslaved by the Ur-Quan. The Captain gains the support of the skeleton crew of Earth's caretaker starbase and ventures out to contact the other races to find out what's happened since
the end of the war and try to recruit allies in to a New Alliance of Free Stars against the Ur-Quan. The Captain quickly discovers that the rest of the humans' allies in the war against the Ur-Quan have either been eradicated, put under slave shields, or put into service as Ur-Quan battle thralls. "
Star Control 2/The Ur-Quan Masters is really funny, it's got great music, it's got an epic story, the ship to ship combat is arcadey and fun, tons of legendary developers site that SC2 was hugely influential and it inspired their games and careers and it's generally rated as one of the top games of all time.
So in summary, this game is still cool as hell and i'm a boomer and I think you should play it now that it's coming to Steam on the 20th of February for the masses. 'I'm excited'.
Edit: The original PC versions of Star Control 1&2 @ GOG are still available at time of writing for $1.99 (67% off) for those curious.
I used to love Star control… Thanks OP