Source: Sega Force – Winter 1992 – – Starflight (Sega Genesis)
Starflight was one of the first truly open world video games. It is a space exploration game (including combat and trading of course) with role-playing elements. Starflight was initially developed for the PC (DOS) in 1986 but was soon ported to the Commodore 64 (1989), Amiga (1989), Atari ST (1990), and Macintosh (1990). An updated version also appeared on the Genesis several years after the original in 1991.
You as the player play the role of a starship captain exploring the galaxy. You can engage in combat and diplomacy, mine raw materials and perform other tasks. What you do is entirely up to you. As the game progresses, a larger plot becomes apparent involving an evil race of aliens blowing up stars and killing everybody.
As captain of your own starship, you are responsible for maintaining and updating your ship as well as hiring your own crew. You can purchase weapons, armor, shields and of course fuel. You can also buy and sell minerals which is where mining comes into play. Your crew must also be trained to increase their skill which is another thing that costs money. This would be such a great game to remake with NFTs or at least on a blockchain with its own token.
The Genesis version included all new graphics, various ship modifications and upgrades for the terrain to allow amphibious mining among other things. Instead of just a couple of available weapons available in the original game, the Genesis version many new weapons. There were also significant upgrades when it comes to Music and sound effects.
Starflight had a sequel, Starflight 2: Trade Routes of the Cloud Nebula. In addition, Star Control and Star Control II are spiritual successors of sorts with some of the same developers. Starflight is definitely a classic worth playing made back when Electronic Arts lived up to its name. I don’t think it has been re-released so you will have to track down an original or use emulation. All of the versions are pretty similar with the Genesis version having some upgrades that probably make it the best choice. Starflight always felt like it should be a computer game vs. a console game but being released later, the Genesis version managed to make a number of modest improvements without really making anything worse.
Screen shots and ads above are from the Sega Genesis version of the game. The ad is from the Winter 1992 issue of Sega Force magazine.
