Traveller is a science fiction role-playing game first published in 1977 by Game Designers' Workshop. Marc Miller designed Traveller with help from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman. Editions were published for GURPS, d20, and other role-playing game systems. From its origin and in the currently published systems, the game relied upon six-sided dice for random elements. Traveller has been featured in a few novels and at least two video games.
Star Control: Famous Battles of the Ur-Quan Conflict, Volume IV is an action-strategy video game developed by Toys for Bob and published by Accolade. It was originally released for MS-DOS and Amiga in 1990, followed by ports for the Sega Genesis and additional platforms in 1991. The story is set during an interstellar war between two space alien factions, with humanity joining the Alliance of Free Stars to defeat the invading Ur-Quan Hierarchy. Players can choose to play as either faction, each with seven different alien starships which are used during the game's combat and strategy sections.
Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters is a 1992 video game, the sequel to Star Control. It was developed by Toys for Bob and originally published by Accolade in 1992 for MS-DOS. The game includes exoplanet-abundant star systems, hyperspace travel, extraterrestrial life, and interstellar diplomacy. There are 25 alien races with which communication is possible.
Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity is an adventure game by Spectrum HoloByte, based on the Star Trek universe. It was released in 1995 for DOS and later ported to the Macintosh. It puts the player in control of Captain Picard and his crew of the Enterprise D and features traditional point-and-click adventure gameplay as well as free-form space exploration, diplomatic encounters and tactical ship-to-ship combat.
X-COM: Terror from the Deep is a strategy video game developed and published by MicroProse for the PC in 1995 and for the PlayStation in 1996. It is a sequel to X-COM: UFO Defense and the second game of the X-COM series, this time taking the war against a renewed alien invasion into the Earth's oceans.
Renegade Legion is a series of science fiction games that were designed by Sam Lewis, produced by FASA, and published from 1989 to 1993. The line was then licensed to Nightshift games, a spin-off of the garage company Crunchy Frog Enterprises by Paul Arden Lidberg, which published one scenario book, a gaming aid, and three issues of a fanzine-quality periodical before reverting the license.
Space Hulk is a 1993 real-time tactical video game for MS-DOS, Amiga and PC-98. The game was based on Games Workshop's 1989 board game of the same name. Set in the fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe, the player directs squads of Space Marines, genetically enhanced armoured soldiers, in their missions to protect the human race from deadly aliens. Space Hulk was developed and published by Electronic Arts, with support from Games Workshop.
Aliens Versus Predator is a 1999 science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Rebellion Developments and published by Fox Interactive for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and Mac OS X. It is a part of the Alien and Predator crossover franchise, Alien vs. Predator. A sequel, Aliens Versus Predator 2, was developed by Monolith Productions and released by Sierra in 2001.
Aliens Versus Predator 2 is a science fiction first-person shooter video game developed by Monolith Productions and co-published by Fox Interactive and Sierra On-Line for Microsoft Windows in October 2001, and for Mac OS X in July 2003. The game is a sequel to Aliens Versus Predator (1999); both games are based on the characters of the Alien and Predator media franchises as well as the Alien vs. Predator crossover series. It is set on the fictional planet LV-1201, which houses a vast series of ruins infested with Aliens that is routinely visited by a clan of Predators who hunt the creatures for sport.
War of the Monsters is a fighting video game developed by Incog Inc. Entertainment and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. Santa Monica Studio assisted on development, The game was released on the PlayStation 2 in January 2003 in North America and in April in Europe. An emulated and upscaled version was re-released on the PlayStation 4 in December 2015.
The Creative Assembly Limited is a British video game developer based in Horsham, founded in 1987 by Tim Ansell. In its early years, the company worked on porting games to MS-DOS from Amiga and ZX Spectrum platforms, later working with Electronic Arts to produce a variety of games under the EA Sports brand. In 1999, the company had sufficient resources to attempt a new and original project, proceeding to develop the strategy computer game Shogun: Total War which was a critical and commercial hit, and is regarded as a benchmark strategy game. Subsequent titles in the Total War series was built following the success of Shogun: Total War, increasing the company's critical and commercial success.
Alien is a 1982 maze video game for the Atari 2600 published by Fox Video Games. The game has the player control a human moving through the hallways of a space ship avoiding the adult alien and destroying the small alien eggs.
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game is a role-playing game set in the Star Wars universe, written and published by West End Games (WEG) between 1987 and 1999. The game system was slightly modified and rereleased in 2004 as D6 Space, which used a generic space opera setting. An unrelated Star Wars RPG was published by Wizards of the Coast from 2000 to 2010. Since 2012 the official Star Wars role-playing game is another unrelated game, published by Fantasy Flight Games.
Alien Soldier is a side-scrolling run and gun video game developed by Treasure and published by Sega for the Mega Drive. Retail copies were released in Japan and PAL territories while in North America it was only available exclusively via the Sega Channel cable service. The story follows a powerful being named Epsilon-Eagle, who after being nearly killed becomes determined to avenge his near death and save his planet. The character has a variety of weapons and moves that the player must master to complete the game. Many gameplay ideas are borrowed from Treasure's earlier Mega Drive release, Gunstar Heroes (1993). However, Alien Soldier puts an emphasis on challenging boss fights with short and easy levels serving as downtime in-between.
RoboCop Versus The Terminator is a run and gun game released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Master System, and Game Gear in 1993, with later ports to the Sega Genesis and Game Boy in 1994. It is based on the 1992 four-issue comic book mini-series of the same name, which is a crossover between the RoboCop and Terminator franchises. Two characters from the films are portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger from 1984's The Terminator and Peter Weller from 1987's RoboCop and the 1990 sequel, although both actors did not reprise their roles in this game.
Mission Critical is a sci-fi adventure game, created by Legend Entertainment for MS-DOS, written by the company's CEO Mike Verdu, and released in November 1995. The game consists of 3D graphics and features live-action scenes, with the cast including Michael Dorn and Patricia Charbonneau. The games storyline focuses on the player taking on the role of a single crew member, who is left behind on their ship after their captain feigns a surrender to ensure a vital mission can continue. The player's goal focuses on repairing their ship after a recent battle, and then getting to the surface of a planet to complete a secret scientific mission that could provide the means to ending a war over technological advancements and artificial life.
Protostar: War on the Frontier is a 1993 science fiction video game produced by Tsunami Media that blends elements of role-playing, space exploration, space combat, and strategy. The player commands a spaceship from a first-person perspective in real-time capable of traveling to the various planets in the game world and launching an explorer vessel to traverse their surfaces. Several sentient alien races inhabit the region with whom the player interacts through friendly conversation, intense spaceship combat, or barter at their planetary trading posts. One of these races, the Skeetch, is aggressively threatening to conquer the Earth; the player has been recruited to convince the other sentient races in the region to join humanity in an alliance against the Skeetch. A secondary goal of the game is to earn money by performing actions such as selling alien lifeforms and minerals collected on planetary surfaces to obtain the funds needed to upgrade the player's spaceship and improve the odds of survival in confrontations with the Skeetch and other hostile entities. Computer Gaming World criticized the game for failing to break new ground and for its "muddled" blend of science fiction themes, but did recommend it to players new to this genre.
A first-person shooter (FPS) is a video game centered on gun fighting and other weapon-based combat seen from a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action directly through the eyes of the main character. This genre shares multiple common traits with other shooter games, and in turn falls under the action games category. Since the genre's inception, advanced 3D and pseudo-3D graphics have proven fundamental to allow a reasonable level of immersion in the game world, and this type of game helped pushing technology progressively further, challenging hardware developers worldwide to introduce numerous innovations in the field of graphics processing units. Multiplayer gaming has been an integral part of the experience, and became even more prominent with the diffusion of internet connectivity in recent years.
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness is a fantasy real-time strategy computer game developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows in 1995 and Mac OS in 1996 by Blizzard's parent, Davidson & Associates. A sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, the game was met with positive reviews and won most of the major PC gaming awards in 1996. In 1996, Blizzard released an expansion pack, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, for DOS and Mac OS, and a compilation, Warcraft II: The Dark Saga, for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. The Battle.net edition, released in 1999, included Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, provided Blizzard's online gaming service, and replaced the MS-DOS version with a Windows one.
Armor Command is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by American studio Ronin Entertainment and published by Ripcord Games for Windows in 1998. Set in the early 30th century, the game revolves around two factions, the United Terran Federation led by humanity, and the Vrass, a feudal slaver empire led by aliens. Armor Command was designed by Edward Kilham, known as the co-designer of ‘’Star Wars: TIE Fighter’’. Armor Command released to generally positive and lukewarm reviews, although seen as obscure in comparison to more notable games in the genre.
