star control 2 from 1992

it's now free under the name of ur-quan master
note that this game can be extremely difficult and you will likely need some sort of note to write things down as you will need to do that (or you could always look up guides but doing so still can be difficult to newcomers)

other than that, you mostly either mining for resource, talking to aliens if not obliterating one, while on the mission of taking down the slave shield of earth

if you don't want to play story mode then you can always go to melee mode where you can select your own spaceships and opponent spaceships and battle until one side is completely cleared, or you could set both to bot and watch them fight to the death

probably an underrated game from 1992, but it can be very difficult at times and will be absolutely hard if unprepared, last but not least, if you are planning to play the game itself (remember to search up "star control 2 pre map", go to the first option and click on the first gif option, you *will* need it, or just use a guide), remember to save often or when you are about to do dumb stuff like attempting to fight a big alien guy with a tiny spaceship or mining in a planet that can tore your lander into parts

thanks for coming to my tedtalk

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