Fwiffo's SPOOOORE TRAIN

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SporeKeith got the Spore Creature Creator and decided to create a race modeled after one of the most memorable characters in Star Control 2:  Fwiffo!  He shows off his Fwiffo creation, and it plays the Spathi theme music and shows different Spore creatures dancing to the music.

The resemblance to Fwiffo is just uncanny.  I believe the title Spore Train is taken from the name Soul Train.

Nice work, SporeKeith.  You can find him on Sporepedia as ThatKeith.

This makes me want to get the Spore Creature Creator and full game now…

Chmmr vs. Androsynth

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Spazzer has made a video of an Androsynth Guardian defeating a Chmmr Avatar.  I’m not sure what difficulty the AI is at since the Avatar seems to only go up or down.  Regardless, it’s still an interesting video that shows that the player doesn’t always have to destroy the Avatar’s zapsats in order to inflict any damage to it.

Basically the Guardian saves up energy to fire a few bubbles and to blaze away whenever the Avatar closes in with a tractor beam.

Nice tactics, Spazzer.

3D Ur-Quan Fighter

Zenzmurfy has been creating 3D images and videos for a few years.  His latest video is the Ur-Quan’s fighter, the look like little red pixels in the Star Control games.

He describes this animation as one of the “first attempts at using lightwave’s hypervoxels and particles in lw 8.5 this test includes using envelopes to control the exhaust plume.”  To be honest, I really don’t know what that means because I know absolutely nothing about animation.

Thanks Zenzmurfy.  Here’s his YouTube page.

Admiral ZEX Plushy!

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ZarlaSheenaza has a one of the best friends in the world:  A person who is able to take a character from the Star Control Universe and convert it into plush form.  Apparently, they’re at a convention of some kind.

I’d choose this over the Portal cube any day!  Speaking of video game merchandise, it can be very expensive to buy toys from video games at times.  Usually toys inspired by video games are manufactured and sold exclusively in Japan and to have them shipped to North America can greatly increase the price and can even cost more than the toy itself.  Sometimes, a toy can have royalty fees added to the cost of each toy, because the designer of that particular item may influence how they profit from sales.  That means that there are small plush toys out there the size of my fist that cost $95 USD.  In addition to that, sometimes the manufacturers will intentionally produce a set number of these collectibles.  For example, there may be only 500 blue Ryu (Street Fighter) action figures in a rare fighting stance in the whole world, and because of their rarity, they will be worth more.  In summary, when someone pays for an official collectible video game item, that person will pay for more than just the materials sometimes.

If there was a voice chip inside, it probably wouldn’t say anything nice because the VUX think that humans are the ugliest creatures they’ve ever seen.  I’d rather hear “You are hideously ugly” over “Hello… I am Tinky Winki…” any day!

Thanks for making the video of ZEX, ZarlaSheenaza and hang on to that plushy.  It’s AWESOME!

A Very Interesting AI Glitch

Veke99 was fighting a Chenjesu Broodhome with a Mycon Podship and suddenly, the Broodhome kept firing its crystal shards in such a way that the explosion doesn’t even touch the Podship.

I myself, have never encountered this, but it’s still really funny to watch.  I don’t know why it didn’t move off to fire a DOGI instead.

Thanks for the video, Veke99.

Pkunk Fury Defeats Chmmr Avatar

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gaeamil recorded a video of him playing against a Chmmr Avatar and winning with only one crew member at the end.  He writes on his YouTube video page, “I actually did it once without dying at all, but the Law of Recording came into play: Perfection only happens when you can’t prove it happened.”

Whenever I play against the Chmmr Avatar, the only way that I can beat it with confidence is with the Utwig Jugger.  That ship is a life saver.  If I don’t have the Jugger, I can use a Shofixti Scout to self-destruct to take down some of the zapsats, then use another ship that is faster than the Avatar to take it down completely.

Nice work, gaeamil.

Melee Stunt Videos: Ur-Quan vs. Alliance

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"There seems to be a right way for Ur‐Quan to trounce each individual Alliance vessel without getting beat up too badly. This test of endurance can be a lot of fun once you get the routine for every Allied ship down. If I had to rank them in order of which ships piss me off the most, the list would be Yehat, Chenjesu, Arilou, Earthling, Syreen, Mmrnmhrm, Shofixti."
‐ Shiver

Shiver has created a series of videos called “Melee Stunt Videos” on Viddler.

In this Hierarchy vs. Alliance video, he showed us that the Ur-Quan Dreadnought is not as much of a slow “banana boat” as some people may believe.  The 14 ships shown in this video are the ones that are only seen in the first Star Control game, with 7 ships on each side.

He’s done a great job editing this, with a text introduction that cuts to clips of other Hierarchy ships being obliterated by the Alliance ships, leaving the Dreadnought with the sole responsibility of avenging their deaths and showing that the Ur-Quan has a few advantages.  He even does some cool tricks such as blasting the Earthling Cruiser’s missile and using the fusion blasts as a form of defense to push the opponent away instead of constantly moving away with his back facing the enemy.

Nicely done, Shiver.  Thanks for sharing these videos.

More info: Melee Stunt Videos 2: The Quickening

Hyperspace Star Control Devised

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Alex O’Neil brings us a very unique remix to the hyperspace theme to Star Control II.  He writes:

"Ok, so I can't play it, but I'll mess around with the sound."
- Alex O'Neil

When I first listened to this remix, I did not understand how it is a remix to the hyperspace theme, until I started to listen more carefully to the background music behind the slow ambient synth sounds.  The hyperspace melody is being played softly as the drums and chords play over it.  It even reminded me of the theme music to the original Star Trek series with William Shatner.

Nicely done, Alex.

Happy Birthday to Me...

Spathi High Council

As you tell from the title of this post, it’s my birthday today!  I am now 21 years old.  In addition, I just finished my last class in college yesterday, where I had to do a 20-minute presentation with some friends of mine with some application we worked on for the past 14 weeks.

So, what does this mean for Star Controller?  Well, since I no longer need to worry about classes, exams, tests and assignments, I have much more time to do things that I enjoy doing, such as working on this blog.  Thank you to everyone who has visited, commented, subscribed to my RSS feed, linked to my site, e-mailed me and especially those who replied to me and gave me feedback about various things about the video game industry.  Without you, this blog wouldn’t be as active as it is now.  I do read every comment and I appreciate each one.  I learned so much from getting this blog set up and this is definitely something I would like to keep working on.

Now that I have more time, I can start brainstormng things to write about and not be reduced to posting once a week.

Again, thanks to everyone out there for all the support.  It fires me up and makes me want to do more for the blog and if it can make at least one person care more about Toys for Bob and Star Control, then Star Controller has done its job.

Happy holidays and don’t give up on convincing Activision to make a new Star Control.  It’s no easy task, and we need to stay strong as a fan base and do what we can to show our support.  This is one “cult following” I am proud to be a part of.

Star Control

I was looking through the PC Games section of IGN.com, when I found an article titled “The Wednesday 10: Franchises We Want Resurrected”.

"It's not unusual to be reflective at the end of the year. As the IGN team looks back, we realize just how many games we would've loved to see, but didn't, in 2008. We all have games that we adored playing years ago, and there are plenty of franchises that we'd love to see resurrected. So, we came up with a list of games that we think deserve to come back. In fact, in some cases we demand it."
- IGN PC Team

As I read down the list, they listed the first Star Control game as #4 and had plenty of good things to say about it:

"With a title like Star Control: Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV, you had your first hint that this was a special game, and it was. With its colorful universe and superb combat system, Star Control and its sequel burrowed a place in many gamers' hearts. Based on Spacewar!, one of the earliest computer games ever made, Star Control let you participate in an interstellar war where you commanded a starship. What made the game great was the design system, which let you customize your starship's components. Star Control II introduced space exploration, as you had to explore alien worlds as well as interact with a wide range of alien species. Star Control let you feel like you were exploring an incredible galaxy full of both danger and wonder."
- IGN PC Team

The reason why Star Control has the subtitle “Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV” is explained by Fred Ford:

"Yes, we were just giving ourselves plenty of elbow room to torture you guys with sequels and prequels."
- Fred Ford

This is actually an ingenius idea because the Star Control series still has many unanswered questions which can be only be answered by true Star Control games made by TFB.

It’s great that there are people working at IGN who love Star Control and were able to put it on the list.  Ever since Alex mentioned wanting to make a new Star Control with Activision in 2006, people have been written thousands of fan letters supporting the sequel.  As of this writing, there are no new updates on the TFB website, so I’m still crossing my fingers for good news in the future.  IGN is a popular video game website and by placing Star Control very close to the top of the list, it might grab Activision’s attention and show that it’s not just the UQM community that wants to see a new Star Control game.  There’s more fans out there!

A special thanks to the IGN PC Team for including Star Control.  You can read the full article here.