History VideoGame / Starlancer

*** More specifically, WorldWarII mixed together with the ColdWar proper mulched together with (if you squint) the VietnamWar RecycledInSPACE!

* DifficultButAwesome: With it's sharp learning curve, TrialAndErrorGameplay.

As the product of the creators of one of the most acclaimed Spaceflight SimulationGame franchises in history, you'd think this game would have got somewhere. It was released simultaneously on the {{Dreamcast}}; it had decent graphics (even today); it had non-crappy voice acting, sound and music; and—a big deal at the time—it boasted online connectivity for not just CompetitiveMultiplayer but CoOpMultiplayer through [=GameSpy=], one of the first flightsims to offer either. Despite this, it met a tepid reception, possibly due to questionable gameplay decisions made due to the game's [[RecycledINSPACE World War 2 IN SPACE]] setting. Planned sequels, linking the property to ''Freelancer'' more overtly, were scrapped.

* CreatorKiller: Chris Roberts would leave the gaming industry for a time, [[http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/ before returning in 2012.]]
* DifficultbutAwesome: With it's sharp learning curve, TrialAndErrorGameplay.

* ImprobableAimingSkills: If your aim is terrible, be sure to stick to ships with the Blind Fire ability. The fire systems on such ships have a greater tracking scope and will automatically correct your aim when you're shooting at a target.
** However, Blind-Fire only works for ''one'' set of guns at a time. Select single-weapon on the most powerful gun on your ship and enjoy! It is a trade-off, guns that don't have this mode do a lot more damage.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Further games in the series, and stronger links to the ''Freelancer'' property, were planned. See [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/VideoGames the trope entry]] for more details.

** To a lesser extend, while ships with the Blind-Fire ability are always useful, they are all but mandatory when you need to protect friendly ships from incomming torpedos, which happens every other mission. Although any mission briefing that promises escorting capital ships or having your [[TheBattlestar carrier]] duke it out with a Coalition capital ship is a clear signal that torpedo defense will be necessary, a few missions briefings [[GuideDangIt give no warning you're going to need to intercept torpedos]].

* HitAndRunTactics: The Coalition torpedo bombers make a lot of use of this, warp in at opposite sides of their target, fire all their torpedos, and warp out. If you go after one of the bombers, you won't be back in time to shoot down the torpedo's from the other side. Sadly, your own torpedo bombers use this tactic only about a third of the time. [[EscortMission At all other times...]]

* IAmNotLeftHanded: A captured Coalition admiral reveals there is an [[WaveMotionGun Ion Cannon]] in the final stages before completion, and you're send in to destroy it before it comes online. Only... well, Alliance inteligence didn't watch [[StarWars Return of the Jedi]] apparently.

* MacrossMissileMassacre: your hardpoints can accomodate both single missiles and multi-round pods. The pods fire basically as fast as you can pull the trigger.

* MoralMyopia: While the Coalition seems to have a villain only hiring policy, your squadmates' anger over the cruelty of the enemy seems a bit dishonest when they will actively mock and taunt enemy pilots about their friends they just killed, and how much they screamed while dying.

* NumericalHard: DifficultyLevels only change how much damage your guns do. Wingmen are just as stupid, EscortMission victims are just as frail, {{Timed Mission}}s are just as short.

* PointDefenseless: The captial ship's WeakTurretGun will shoot down the occasional torpedo, but for the most part there's only one decent anti-torpedo defense in this game: You.

* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: The 45th Volunteers, later nicknamed "The Flying Tigers" after a RealLife equivalent; the ArtificialStupidity of your wingmates is [[FridgeBrilliance suddenly kind of justified]] when you realize that they consist of anyone the Alliance can find with a pulse and a pilot's license.

* RedShirt: anybody in your squadron who ''isn't'' CO or Science Officer can get blown out of the sky. And will. [[VideoGameCaringPotential Screaming for mercy]]. [[NightmareFuel And not getting it]]. Fortunately, friendly pilots often eject, and get recovered by Nanny Ships.

* StupidityIsTheOnlyOption: It's game over should you kill the enemy admiral before your allies capture him. Even though the only thing he does before escaping admidst the corpses of Alliance personnel is give inteligence that sends you into a trap.

** To a lesser extend, while ships with the Blind-Fire ability are always useful, they are all but mandatory when you need to protect friendly ships from incomming torpedos, which happens every other mission. Although any mission briefing that promises escorting capital ships or having your [[TheBattlestar carrier]] duke it out with a Coalition capital ship is a clear signal that torpedo defense will be neccesary, a few missions briefings [[GuideDangIt give no warning you're going to need to intercept torpedos]].

* DirtyCommunists: played in deadly earnest, to the "amusement" of some reviewers. While there are Middle-Eastern and Chinese forces involved in the Coalition, almost every enemy character is a Russian (including the {{Mooks}}, if you trust the voice-acting).

* NintendoHard: the complexity of the missions in themselves isn't really that bad. It's just that you always have about five seconds to accomplish an objective before you run out of time. Additionally, making certain decisions can lead to a mission being Unwinnable (such as when you're called upon to [[EscortMission defend allied bombers]] from a gunship, all three of whom just spawned five seconds ago. ...300 klicks away). That and it's a flightsim. Add it all together and we're down to [[LuckBasedMission Luck-Based]], TrialAndErrorGameplay.

*** Or you.

** And very useful against the sentry satalites. They're tiny, so you need to be very close to hit them anyway, and they have no armor or shields so ramming them is an insta-kill that doesn't dent your own armor.

* RedShirt: anybody in your squadron who ''isn't'' CO or Science Officer can get blown out of the sky. And will. [[VideoGameCaringPotential Screaming for mercy]]. [[NightmareFuel And not getting it]].
** YouALLLookFamiliar: Of course, this is somewhat undermined by someone else with the very same callsign and voice actor getting killed in the very next mission.

* StupidityIsTheOnlyOption: It's game over should you kill the enemy admiral before your allies capture him. Even though the only thing he does before escaping admidst the corpses of Alliance personel is give inteligence that sends you into a trap.
** Your squadleader will order you to destroy two Kurgen ships with Alliance prisoners on board, saying they have 'no choice' as the Kurgens are attacking a rescue vessel. It is in fact not difficult to destroy their [[WeakTurretGun 3 turrets]], leaving the ships harmless. But the mission won't proceed untill you destroy them.

* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Sadly averted. If anyone else is busy talking over the radio, your co-pilot will wait untill they are finished talking before warning you that, for instance, the enemy WaveMotionGun is targeting you and you should have cloacked 5 seconds ago if you wanted to survive.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: further games in the series, and stronger links to the ''Freelancer'' property, were planned. See [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/VideoGames the trope entry]] for more details.

*** There's a bug in one mission where, after a certain point, if your wingmates die from hitting a mine, ''you'' get blamed. Cue Moose standing you down, and hauling you back to the Reliant. That's right, glitch in the game gets your character arrested and ''shot for treason''. Mix in the artifical stupidity mentioned above, and, well...

** GameBreakingBug: when an enemy ship is disabled by an EMP, it will start tumbling through space in a straight line. Blind Fire calculates via the nose direction and speed of the enemy ship, as opposed to its velocity. HilarityEnsues. (Fortunately, there is a keystroke to turn it off.) Not to mention the trouble you'll have if you ever start flying ships that don't ''have'' Blind-Fire...
** However, Blind-Fire only works for ''one'' set of guns at a time. Select single-weapon on the most powerful gun on your ship and enjoy! However, learn to shoot straight without it and you have much, ''much'' MoreDakka at your disposal.
* InterfaceScrew: On default settings, the keystrokes for looking around in your cockpit and for using the radio are the same, except that you press "C" to pull up the comms menu first. It takes about a full second to scroll into view, meaning that if you're in a hurry, you can end up looking out the left window and ''unable to look forward'' until you manage to make the comms menu go away again.

** The presence of CoOpMultiplayer for its single-player campaign might go some distance towards explaining the game's challenge level. (Though not excusing it. TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything: EpicFail.)

* LazyBackup: Oh yes very so. Your wingmen are good at defending themselves, to the point of even being able to KillSteal at times, but ''attacking'' something that isn't actively bothering them seems to be beyond their grasp. So if you happen to drop out of warp far enough away from the objective...

* CoolShip: The Yamato is a definite upgrade from your previous [[TheBattlestar home carrier]], the reliant. Even the interior is much sleeker, as you can see when you walk from your bunk to the briefing room.

* BackFromTheBrink: inversion, as the player character's efforts on behalf of the Alliance turn out to be a delaying action to allow colony ships to escape to [[strike:the next game]] the Sirius system.

Don't even bother trying to play it (at least on the PC) now; even setting up a retro computer from scratch won't run it for more than a few minutes.

* CreatorKiller: Erin Roberts hasn't made a game since, and Chris Roberts would leave the gaming industry for a time, [[http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/ before returning in 2012.]]

* CreatorKiller: neither of the Robertses have made a game since.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Everyone in the Coalition, from the Top Brass and Government to the lowliest {{Mook}} are, to a Man, CompleteMonster war criminals. The closest thing to a moral compass any of them shows is a Communication Officer giving a shocked raised eyebrow when [[BigBad Admiral Kulov]] orders the mass execution of prisoners of war.

* MoralMyopia: While the Coalition seems to have an CompleteMonster only hiring policy, your squadmates' anger over the cruelty of the enemy seems a bit dishonest when they will actively mock and taunt enemy pilots about their friends they just killed, and how much they screamed while dying.

** Actually, the so-called "Deimos Betrayal" that kick-starts the plot comes over more like a shameless rip-off of ''BattlestarGalactica''.

* ForgotAboutHisPowers: In the final mission, your allied torpedo bombers turn out to have an InvisibilityCloak, just like the Coalition bombers. In every EscortMission of those torpedo bombers up to this point (and there've been a few), you tried and often failed to shoot down half a dozen enemy fighters within the minute it takes for one of those fighters to tear your slow, fragile torpedo bombers apart. The bomber's pilots do nothing but insult you or scream as they died instead of, y'know, cloacking.

** Many overlap with LuckBasedMission, since there's no quick way to figure out, much less target, fighter going after the ship you need to escort. Your best bet is to fly close to them, hammer away at 'Target nearest' until a fighter comes closer than the closest enemy capital ship (which you can't destroy and is rarely a threat but counts as your closest target all the same) and hope for the best.

* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: Torpedos are the only weapon that can destroy capital ships (not counting the WaveMotion gun). When in battle, capital ships will fire at each other with fancy looking energy projectiles, but their only use is the occasional OneHitKill of the player if you fly between the two ships and didn't check your blind spots.

* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Sadly averted. If any plot NPCs are busy talking over the radio, your co-pilot will wait untill they are finished talking before warning you that, for instance, the enemy WaveMotionGun is targeting you and you should have cloacked 5 seconds ago if you wanted to survive.

* MoreDakka: just about every fighter in the game has multiple rapid-firing guns, and is expected to use them for everything. Poo on missiles.

* WhatTheHellPlayer: too many friendly-fire incidents and Moose forcibly stands down your plane. (A friendly-fire incident includes accidentally shooting a ship that was already going boom.)

* WeakTurretGun

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Mixed with StockFootage. One of the post-mission news reports that crops up features footage from the WingCommander film. It's easy to miss if you're not looking.

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Mixed with StockFootage. One of the post-mission news reports that crops up features footage from the WingCommander film. It's easy to miss if you're not looking/