My Top Ten: Spaceships

Let's go looking for hot alien women to have weird interspecies sex with! No? Just me and Shatner then...
Published 27/11/2009 at 13:00 by colossalblue
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Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship TSA. Its two-and-a-bit-year (so far) mission: to explore strange gaming subjects; to seek out new games and interesting news; to boldly go where no gaming blog has gone before.

Oh, and to be as funny as we can while we do it. Enjoy!

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  • USG Ishimura (Dead Space) – The huge mining ship provided an “Alien-esque” setting for one of the scariest, most atmospheric games in recent memory. I know the first few levels where you had to dick about fixing bits of it was mildly irritating but all in all it was a fantastic setting
  • SSV Normandy (Mass Effect) – This is the envy of the fleet. A prototype ship that’s fast and sleek. The case was also helped by the fact that it was wrapped around the best space-based RPG I can think of and is bound to feature in the sequel. Which I’m very much looking forward to…
  • Millenium Falcon (loads of Star Wars games) – This is the ship that made the Kessell run in less than twelve parsecs. It features in my favourite film series of all time and it’s piloted by Han Solo, who is the coolest guy in space and Chewbacca who is basically a cross between Mr T and the Honey Monster. What’s not to like?
  • Cobra MKIII (Elite) – Elite was one of the best games of all time and this is the iconic little ship you started out in. It was doing “open world” while Grand Theft Auto was still playing with Hot Wheels under the kitchen table. Not only that but it was more than just open world, it was open universe.
  • VIC Viper (Gradius) – Gradius is one of the most popular examples of a genre which has contributed many of the iconic spaceships in gaming history. The side-scrolling shoot-em-up is about speed and firepower which the VIC Viper had in abundance.
  • Dark Athena (Chronicles of Riddick) – This Mercenary ship is so cool that they named the game after it. Not to mention the fact that it sounds like the ill-fated early nineties chain of poster shops gone bad. Also, Riddick is hard as nails and he told me if I didn’t mention his name somewhere he’d come and knife me in the spleen. I like my spleen.
  • Geometry Wars ship – I don’t know if this spaceship even has a name but it’s bleeding mental. The original Geometry Wars was a funny little mini-game in one of the Project Gotham Racing games. Then it grew up and got an XBLA release and a sequel which is really rather special. It’s a very simple little white angular horse-shoe shape but it supplies us with some of the most manic visuals of space battle we’ve ever seen.
  • Söldner-X: Himmelsstürmer ship – Yes, it is only in the list because it has such a great name. I don’t know anything else about it other than it was a devilishly hard side scroller. Funny name though. Actually, due to my impressive work ethic I’ve researched it in depth (by spending fifteen seconds on Wikipedia) and discovered that it translates to “Mercenary X: Romantic Idealist”. Which is amusing and bizarre in equal measure. Smashing.
  • Hunter Class Gunship (Metroid series) – I’ve thrown this on the list simply for the fact that it was piloted by Samus Aran who was a kick-ass warrior with no fear and plenty of balls. Except Samus had no balls, the closing credits showed Samus shedding the power suit and revealing a rather curvey little pixelated lady. Which was ace!
  • Star Fox’s Ship (Star Wing/ Star Fox) – This was a pivotal moment in my childhood which shook my belief structure to the core. It was the moment when it first occurred to me that the Sega Meg Drive might not be as good as the Super Nintendo. It may not look like much now but back in 1993 the graphics and motion of this ship were, for a few months, what everyone was raving about. Luckily the Mega Drive was confirmed as being the best just a few seconds ago when I confirmed it. Confirmed!

P.S. Can we please have a remake of Elite with pretty HD visuals? Thanks.

Comments

Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.

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  1. colmshan1990 | 27/11/2009 15:50
    Member
    1101 TSA Points | Member since: Apr 2009

    You know that a parsec is a measure of distance, right? One parsec = 31 million million kilometres.


    • hazelam | 27/11/2009 18:44
      Member
      3920 TSA Points | Member since: Feb 2009

      you know they actually figered out a reason for that in one of the books.
      seems the kessel run is through a cluster of black holes called the maw, only the fastest ships can take the shortest route, slower ship have to skirt round it.
      can’t remember which of the star wars books it was but i think it was in the thrawn trilogy.


      • colmshan1990 | 28/11/2009 13:16
        Member
        1101 TSA Points | Member since: Apr 2009

        A.C. Crispin’s Han Solo Trilogy. What’s interesting to note is that, in “A New Hope”’s novelisation, Han Solo says it made the Kessel Run in 12 “standard time units.” (The mistake had been spotted)
        Even more interesting for Star Wars nerds however, is that, in the original draft of “A New Hope,” “Solo says It’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs!” The parenthesis reads “Ben reacts to Solo’s stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.”
        So it implies that what Solo says is a “misinformation” and not truth, and it has nothing to do with the nature of the Kessel Run in any respect. In the final version of the script, the parenthesis attached to Solo’s line states that he is “obviously lying.”
        Source: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kessel_Run


  2. clank250 | 27/11/2009 17:11
    Member
    648 TSA Points | Member since: Oct 2008

    Umm great list and all, but you forgot one very important tiny ship…

    THE ASTEROID’S SHIP! So what if it can’t survive hitting asteroids, but it hates them so much that he just wants to fly in a straight line popping out at the other end blowing them up into little pieces!

    Ah, good times.


  3. bunimomike | 27/11/2009 17:21
    Member
    4737 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009

    Is there a game version of Button Moon? If so… you know what gets my vote.


  4. JamboGT | 27/11/2009 17:27
    Member
    428 TSA Points | Member since: Jul 2009

    Opa-Opa from Fantasy Zone is my favourite! Also it was sentient and upgradeable. And had wee feet.


    • cc_star | 27/11/2009 17:28
      Team TSA: Writer
      7815 TSA Points | Member since: Forever

      Good call, I almost leapt with joy at the though of it’s little feet then


  5. hazelam | 27/11/2009 18:46
    Member
    3920 TSA Points | Member since: Feb 2009

    what about the cybernoid ship?


  6. modwyer | 27/11/2009 20:44
    Member
    228 TSA Points | Member since: Jan 2009

    Jehuty from Zone of the Enders was pretty damn awesome. Even though it was a giant robotic exo-skelton type thing it could still do its thang in space and for that reason I class it space ship!


  7. TctclMvPhase | 27/11/2009 22:04
    Member
    818 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2008

    The spaceship from Civilization.

    If only real world leaders realized you can win the game without killing everyone. All you have to do is build a spaceship.


  8. Sympozium Gro Mak | 28/11/2009 17:48
    Member
    1621 TSA Points | Member since: Aug 2009

    I have a game called Silpheed its ship is really cool how dare you leave it out!! :D
    What happened to all these kind of games they would be amazing on Playstation 3/Xbox 360 instead of mediocre American shooters


  9. omegaweapon1987 | 28/11/2009 21:13
    Member
    2 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2009

    What? no Ragnarok for FFVIII?


    • aerobes | 28/11/2009 21:22
      Member
      678 TSA Points | Member since: Aug 2009

      I thought of the FF series too but that particular unit (Ragnorak) is an airship frustratingly enough.


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