Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters is a 1992 video game, the sequel to Star Control. It was developed by Toys for Bob (Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III) and originally published by Accolade in 1992 for MS-DOS. This game features exoplanet-abundant star systems, hyperspace travel, extraterrestrial life, and interstellar diplomacy, with the game featuring 25 different alien races with which communication is possible.
Released to critical acclaim, Star Control II is widely viewed today as one of the greatest PC games ever made, and has appeared on numerous publications lists of the greatest video games of all time.
The game was ported to the 3DO by Crystal Dynamics in 1994 with an enhanced multimedia presentation, allowed by the CD technology. The source code of the 3DO port was licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later in 2002, the game content under CC-BY-NC-SA-2.5. The 3DO code was ported to PC as The Ur-Quan Masters. A sequel, Star Control 3, was released back in 1996.
Gameplay
Star Control II is an action-adventure science fiction game, set in an open universe. It features ship-to-ship combat based on the original Star Control, but removes the first game's strategy gameplay to focus on story and dialog, as seen in other adventure games. The player's goal is to free Earth from the evil Ur-Quan, by recruiting aliens to help. The main gameplay elements are exploring the galaxy, gathering resources, building a fleet, defeating enemy ships, and conversing with aliens.
One-on-one spaceship battles take place in real-time, based on the core gameplay of the original Star Control. Each ship has unique weapons, maneuvers, and secondary abilities, and winning a battle requires a combination of ship selection and skill. This combat mode can be played separately in a two-player battle mode called Super Melee. In the story mode, the player is limited to the ships they can gain from sympathetic alien races, whereas Super Melee includes every ship in both Star Control games. The only ship unique to the story mode is the player's capital ship, which is upgraded as the player gains new technology and resources.
After a brief opening sequence, the player is given near total freedom to explore the galaxy at large. Exploration often involves travelling to stars, landing on planets, and gathering resources. The player navigates their star map, with over 500 stars and 3800 planets to potentially visit. Players must manage their risk as they explore, as planets with more dangerous hazards usually feature more valuable resources, which are vital to upgrade the player's fleet. More rarely, a planet will feature an interactive alien race, who the player can engage with as a potential friend or foe. The interactive dialog options help advance the story, with branching conversations similar to other adventure games. These conversations also reveal secrets and information about the galaxy. The game vastly expands on the characters and backstory from the first game, with each species having their own characteristic conversational quirks, music, and even display fonts.
Plot
Whereas the first Star Control stores most of its lore in the instruction manual, Star Control II continues the 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.