Convicts in Space

Back in the 90s, the conventional industry published a series of excellent space shooters with considerable depth of story--games like the Wing Commander series and Privateer. They seem to have gone out of fashion at retail, but if you remember them fondly, Cellblock Squadrons may be just the ticket.

Turn Extraterrestrials Extra-Crispy

Remember the Wing Commander series? Space sims, fast action, evolving story line... How come they don't make games like that any more?

Well, turns out they do, at least in Poland. Space Interceptor really satisfies the space sim jones, features great graphics (albeit wooden voice acting), and its only flaw, really, is its short playtime. But for $10 bucks, who can complain?

Life Aboard the International Space Station

There have been a number of space station sim games over the years, but in the past most have been firmly of the tycoon game style--that is, primarily about building modules and expanding your station, with some notional flow of dollars increasing if you do it well. SpaceStationSim takes a somewhat different approach; it's more of a hybrid of a life sim (the granddaddy there being The Sims) and a tycoon game. You create an astronaut, and the gameplay involves both building out your station and satisfying the needs of your crew. Which includes, naturally, things like making sure they have enough to eat and time for potty breaks--and also enough to breathe. Life on the final frontier isn't always easy.

Space Trading Goes Gonzo

Take an Elite-style game like Flatspace II. Set it in a cartoony universe where Zombies and Ninjas are waging an interstellar war. Tool around in a "starship" that's more like a Buick with a stardrive and lasers. Wage space battles against, among other things, space-going galleons and pterodactyls, and trade goods like cheese, paper, and kittens--no "industrial goods" or other boring stuff here. All to a loud, frenetic neopunk score--that's Ninjastarmageddon!.

As far as the gameplay goes, Ninjastarmageddon is familiar: You control a single ship, and tool around the galaxy, trading goods, fighting battles, going after pirates as a bounty-hunter, going pirate yourself, and finding and looting derelict ships.