Does anyone know of any games similar to Subspace?
July 4, 2011 10:47 PM Subscribe
Does anyone know of any games similar to Subspace? It is also called Continuum. It's basically an MMO that in my favorite zone(Trench Wars) doesn't have upgrades--it's just skill. The fact that it's space ships is a plus.
What do you like about it, specifically?
Altitude is a 2D multiplayer flying game which has team based modes. As players level-up they have access to different planes and abilities, though.
Transcendence is a game that's also top down and shooty involving spaceships, but aside from that is very different as it's single player and is all about the upgrades.
posted by ODiV at 11:10 PM on July 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
Altitude is a 2D multiplayer flying game which has team based modes. As players level-up they have access to different planes and abilities, though.
Transcendence is a game that's also top down and shooty involving spaceships, but aside from that is very different as it's single player and is all about the upgrades.
posted by ODiV at 11:10 PM on July 4, 2011 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I like that it is really simple, but there is a huge gap in skill levels. I also like that there is no grinding. That's just a waste of time to me. I wanted to see if you guys knew of anything before I checked out infantry. (I said space ships is a plus, but really, it's what's kept me from playing infantry. Running around as a guy just doesn't appeal to me.)
posted by vash at 11:14 PM on July 4, 2011
posted by vash at 11:14 PM on July 4, 2011
I'm not being facetious here, but have you tried chess or go? Incredibly simple rules, but amazingly huge gaps in skill levels.
posted by ODiV at 11:18 PM on July 4, 2011
posted by ODiV at 11:18 PM on July 4, 2011
Response by poster: Yes; I play chess, and I'm learning go. They don't have explosions, though.
posted by vash at 11:19 PM on July 4, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by vash at 11:19 PM on July 4, 2011 [2 favorites]
Frozen Synapse might be worth checking out. I only got it tonight, so I can't tell you much, except that it has a shockingly high Metacritic score of 88. It seems geared towards multiplayer, but I think just 1v1, not MMO. There's a campaign, too.
No space ships, but no upgrades or grinding. Definitely skill based. It's on sale on Steam for the next 8.5 hours.
posted by kprincehouse at 1:26 AM on July 5, 2011
No space ships, but no upgrades or grinding. Definitely skill based. It's on sale on Steam for the next 8.5 hours.
posted by kprincehouse at 1:26 AM on July 5, 2011
Best answer: Hm. It's not exactly what you're looking for, but I'd recommend Freespace 2 (also, because Wulfram 2 finally seems to have gone offline, which is a pity, because it seems almost exactly like what you were looking for).
posted by schmod at 7:44 AM on July 5, 2011
posted by schmod at 7:44 AM on July 5, 2011
Best answer: Registering for this after countless years of occasional lurking.
As far as I know there has never been a solid spiritual heir to Subspace. Very early on Infantry resembled it because the game was based around bouncy little jetpacks, and then we had Cosmic Rift, which (afaik) used the Infantry engine for an odd copy of SS. This quickly became very lame. The developers apparently caved to player demands that control & physics more closely resemble SS, and with CR's individuality stripped it died.
The closest thing we have to a modern iteration is a beautiful Xpilot client for iOS which very few people play. There is a 2 player competitive mode in Pixeljunk Shooter 2, and Gravity Crash has competitive local multiplayer iirc. Things are pretty bleak. The Pixeljunk games are great, but they are not in the same spirit at all.
To me, the magic of Subspace was the enormity of the arenas and the freedom we had to determine our own goals and victory criteria. Sure, you might be playing CTF, but to another guy and his friends the game was about shutting down your CTF match. For me it was about hunting those guys down, not to help you but because I didn't care for their attitude. Even in organized CTF you didn't have a base assigned to you. You picked up flags and hid them wherever you liked.
To my knowledge, the only games since that have captured this magic are Shadowbane, Urban Dead, and Minecraft.
Shadowbane was a 2003 MMO which died several years later, and is presently the subject of two emulator projects (Play to Crush and SBEmu) which have the apparent quiet approval of the owners. We'll see about that. The nearest things since are Eve and Darkfall, but both those games are genuine RPGs. Shadowbane had no story or quests whatsoever, it took only days to reach the level cap, and you didn't need max level to participate in PvP. The entire game was green & kill, so to speak. I miss it.
Urban Dead is still going. It's a grid-based web MMO which, like Subspace, owes its charm and its following to deep gameplay emerging from simple rules. It offers more freedom to players than any other online game I know of. Zombies and PKers collude in secret, human factions fight openly over barricading policy or quietly sabotage one another, friendly zombies scout for the humans, and much of it plays out in secret on forums or in explosions of drama on the wiki. One of my all-time favorite games, and the only game I've ever had to quit playing because it made me too angry. To this day I harbor a burning hatred for large groups of UD players.
Minecraft you probably know. What you might not know is that there are "deathban" servers which kick you upon death for anywhere from 15 min to 3 hours. What this does is allow open PvP without turning the spawn area into a gankfest. It encourages teamplay and underground base building, mobilizes the server community against cheaters, and creates IMO a more mature environment. Not for everyone, but personally it's the reason I play. The only active one I know of at the moment is Treepunch. (NSFW at that site since it's an imageboard.)
I'll add my votes for Transcendence (which I'll note is actually a thinly disguised roguelike) and (the absolutely wonderful) Altitude, and throw in some old Gravitaralikes: Solar Jetman (my favorite NES game), Sub-Terranea for the Genesis, Gravitron 2; and for iOS you have the Space Miner games, the clever but aggravating Pew Pew (also for Android), and though it's more of an Asteroids/Robotron clone I'll also mention Alien Space because it's the best straight-up arcade shooter I've ever played. God I wish this guy would take up the Subspace mantle.
Starport is a 2D space MMO with some surface activity, which to me resembled the old Starflight games. While rooting around in the dark underbelly of mmodom just now I tripped over Armada Online and Outer Galaxies, neither of which looks at all promising but may be worth a try.
I'm sure I've got more to say, but I'm not sure where I put it. Chaos West, perhaps, where I left my heart and a pack of smokes for those we lost to the void.
posted by einexile at 8:07 AM on July 5, 2011 [10 favorites]
As far as I know there has never been a solid spiritual heir to Subspace. Very early on Infantry resembled it because the game was based around bouncy little jetpacks, and then we had Cosmic Rift, which (afaik) used the Infantry engine for an odd copy of SS. This quickly became very lame. The developers apparently caved to player demands that control & physics more closely resemble SS, and with CR's individuality stripped it died.
The closest thing we have to a modern iteration is a beautiful Xpilot client for iOS which very few people play. There is a 2 player competitive mode in Pixeljunk Shooter 2, and Gravity Crash has competitive local multiplayer iirc. Things are pretty bleak. The Pixeljunk games are great, but they are not in the same spirit at all.
To me, the magic of Subspace was the enormity of the arenas and the freedom we had to determine our own goals and victory criteria. Sure, you might be playing CTF, but to another guy and his friends the game was about shutting down your CTF match. For me it was about hunting those guys down, not to help you but because I didn't care for their attitude. Even in organized CTF you didn't have a base assigned to you. You picked up flags and hid them wherever you liked.
To my knowledge, the only games since that have captured this magic are Shadowbane, Urban Dead, and Minecraft.
Shadowbane was a 2003 MMO which died several years later, and is presently the subject of two emulator projects (Play to Crush and SBEmu) which have the apparent quiet approval of the owners. We'll see about that. The nearest things since are Eve and Darkfall, but both those games are genuine RPGs. Shadowbane had no story or quests whatsoever, it took only days to reach the level cap, and you didn't need max level to participate in PvP. The entire game was green & kill, so to speak. I miss it.
Urban Dead is still going. It's a grid-based web MMO which, like Subspace, owes its charm and its following to deep gameplay emerging from simple rules. It offers more freedom to players than any other online game I know of. Zombies and PKers collude in secret, human factions fight openly over barricading policy or quietly sabotage one another, friendly zombies scout for the humans, and much of it plays out in secret on forums or in explosions of drama on the wiki. One of my all-time favorite games, and the only game I've ever had to quit playing because it made me too angry. To this day I harbor a burning hatred for large groups of UD players.
Minecraft you probably know. What you might not know is that there are "deathban" servers which kick you upon death for anywhere from 15 min to 3 hours. What this does is allow open PvP without turning the spawn area into a gankfest. It encourages teamplay and underground base building, mobilizes the server community against cheaters, and creates IMO a more mature environment. Not for everyone, but personally it's the reason I play. The only active one I know of at the moment is Treepunch. (NSFW at that site since it's an imageboard.)
I'll add my votes for Transcendence (which I'll note is actually a thinly disguised roguelike) and (the absolutely wonderful) Altitude, and throw in some old Gravitaralikes: Solar Jetman (my favorite NES game), Sub-Terranea for the Genesis, Gravitron 2; and for iOS you have the Space Miner games, the clever but aggravating Pew Pew (also for Android), and though it's more of an Asteroids/Robotron clone I'll also mention Alien Space because it's the best straight-up arcade shooter I've ever played. God I wish this guy would take up the Subspace mantle.
Starport is a 2D space MMO with some surface activity, which to me resembled the old Starflight games. While rooting around in the dark underbelly of mmodom just now I tripped over Armada Online and Outer Galaxies, neither of which looks at all promising but may be worth a try.
I'm sure I've got more to say, but I'm not sure where I put it. Chaos West, perhaps, where I left my heart and a pack of smokes for those we lost to the void.
posted by einexile at 8:07 AM on July 5, 2011 [10 favorites]
Response by poster: I've considered playing Frozen Synapse; it looks pretty cool. Wulfram looked like it would have been a lot of fun. PvP Minecraft sounds awesome.
posted by vash at 5:16 PM on July 9, 2011
posted by vash at 5:16 PM on July 9, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by zer0render at 11:09 PM on July 4, 2011