SGJ Podcast #73: Star Command: Revolution and Other Frivolities

It's a Classic and It's Cray!
It’s a Classic and It’s Cray!

Hello my friends, and welcome back to the Space Game Junkie Podcast! After a couple of weeks off so that I could prepare for and recover from my recent move, we’re back! Yay! This week, Jim, guest cohost Todd “Nack” and I discuss Zombo.com, some new space games such as Transverse, and then jump into our main topic, the classic 1996 RTS Star Command: Revolution, which was recommended by reader Timmaigh! (thanks Timmaigh!). My copy of the game had no manual, but even with that issue, I had actually a great time with the game.

Now that I’m back in the saddle, we have a passel of guests and topics coming up, which you can see in the right sidebar, along with several irons on the fire, so stay tuned as I’ll continually update the schedule as I get new guests and topics. If you have a guest or a topic you’d like to suggest, please say so in the comments below or hit us up at hail@spacegamejunkie.com. Thanks for listening/watching, and we hope you enjoy the show! :)

Author: Brian Rubin

11 thoughts on “SGJ Podcast #73: Star Command: Revolution and Other Frivolities

  1. Transverse seems like an amazingly similar setup to Star Citizen. The big negative of course is that PGI has a very bad reputation with their release of MWO and the current state that game is in. PGI is also famous for their utter contempt of the MWO community and rampant censorship of any negative comments regarding MWO. So make of it what you will.

    1. I know little of that situation, but wow I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Jim so mad…

  2. Hey, thanks for the video and mentioning me, my 5 minutes of fame, haha.

    Anyway, its a bit of a shame you played this without a manual or being familiar with the game, cause as you said, its truly unique (in a good way) and i can tell that you sadly missed most of what makes it so. At times it was literally frustrating for me to watch how you were at loss about what needs to be done, lol – like when you tried to send your units into one of those green vortexes at the edge of the map – but NOT the mothership, which was actually the only unit to do so! And if you did, you would understand why and how the game is non-linear. And there are multiple things like that, its not really that complicated game, its just not run of the mill C&C clone.

    BTW you can save the game, but always into the same slot unfortunately.

    I hope this does not look ungrateful from me, i truly appreciate you dedicated the podcast to this game. Just want to ask, if you by accident at some time in the future decided to spend some more time playing it to fully understand it (since you said you kinda liked it), would you consider to look at it once more? Hope its not too much to ask, but i truly believe that game does deserve it, its akin to Freespace of space-RTS genre IMHO – despite the antique graphics or weak pathfinding.

    Thanks again

    1. Of course not, man, I totally understand. I’ve added it to the list of games I’ll be starting new Let’s Play series’ on soon, because even with the barest idea of what I was doing I was having a great time. I’ll definitely be snagging a version with a manual soonish, so no worries at all. :)

  3. Oh, splendid! Thats really nice to hear. You are my hero! :-D
    Looking forward to it.

    1. Also…

      YOU CAN’T TELL ME I CAN SAVE THE GAME THEN NOT TELL ME HOW TELL ME HOW TO SAVE THE GAME NOW DAMMIT NOW

      1. Oh, sorry, hahaha

        you need to move the mothership through that green vortex – to move another level/sector – it does save automatically at this moment into that single save slot. So be careful not to do that if you are unhappy with how your game went – like if you lost way too many units,your mothership suffered irepairable damage, etc… cause there is no load to previous state of the game.

        I recommend reading this as a manual>

        https://takegame.com/oldgames/htm/starcommandrevolution.htm

        the important thing is that you can build units of all 4 races, if you have appropriate resources. Every race specializes at one type of damage (shield,control, tech, engine) and has few special units without which it may be impossible to win the game. Like Nomad Point Lasers, which shoot down figthers and projectiles, Computron Shield Docs, which repair shield damage, Terran Switchers, which can switch position with other units, Teleportal, Omni Fighter, etc…

        Since the resources are FINITE throughout the campaign and you cant take your army from one level to another – only the mothership, be sure not to build wrong units or armies too big, cause at some point later you may lack those resources to win and therefore finish the campaign successfully. Gotta love how old games were hardcore like this.

        Good Luck!

  4. Guys, this episode’s sound quality has gone to shit. Was it Brian’s mic? Whatever it was, fix it. I skipped half of it because it was just unlistenable.

    1. Hey SpaceHulkCultist, sorry to hear you didn’t like the sound quality! Can you help me out here a moment and do me a massive favor, please? Were you having issues with the audio file, or the video? Also, would you listen to one of the recent videos I did by myself and let me know if you have audio issues there as well? That would help me out IMMENSELY. I just moved to a new place, so it’s quite possible something in the new environment is causing issue, and I’d love to narrow it down, and your help would be tremendous. :) Thanks!

      1. Podcast 75 Ancient Space didn’t have any audio problems.

        You can listen to it yourself starting at 37 mins and it goes atleast 30 seconds. There are several instances when this “wind” came into the mic.

        1. Ah yeah, I hear it. I think the problem is that the new place has no AC and at the time we were in a heat wave, and so I had to have the window open to keep the office at least bearable, and the mic picked that up, sadly. I have to work on a solution for that. Thanks for pointing it out to me man! Really appreciate it!

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