StarCon Released.

This title should make no sense at all.

Now, you're probably thinking: "StarCon" sounds like it refers to Star Control, which it does. Star Control was, obviously, released... many times in fact, including sequels and ports. So WTF is Martin going on about?

First, a history lesson: Star Control was a really, really good pair of games (SC and SC2) released back in the '90s. The first was a boardgame/duel game hybrid, the second was a space-adventure/duel game hybrid. Both of them excelled at their 1 on 1 action and their outer-game components. Star Control 2 in particular is remembered as one of the best games of all time. They were made by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford, AKA Toys for Bob. Star Control II is available for free online, thanks to TFB releasing all content to the 3DO version of the game under an open license. If you haven't played it, get it. Now. Like, stop reading this post and go download it and come back later.

The third game was not. Accolade (the publisher) retained many of the rights to Star Control, particularly the name, but not specific characters, so they hired a third party company to make a sequel to SCII. It flopped.

The fourth game also was not made by Toys for Bob. It was a PS1 game that was heavily divorced from the series - a behind-view shooter based on the Colony Wars games, instead of a top-down adventure game. Even the name was changed - instead of Star Control 4, it was simply called StarCon. Or at least, it would have been, if it had been released. But really, nobody wanted a confused sequel to a series that had obviously become utterly aimless and was also long-past it's sell-by date (SC2 was originally a DOS game).

At least, until now. I stumbled upon this news while looking for a way to get SC2 music as a ringtone (I suck, I know).

StarCon Released

It was a sequel nobody wanted that the company decided to can, so it probably isn't any good... but I'm downloading it now with bewildered curiosity.