Poll: Which is videogames best sci-fi universe?

[Tanis]

Homeworld fans are so rare, it warms my heart whenever I find another one...

You you heard there's a 'complete collection' coming out for the PC?

 

[soren7550]

Mass Effect. The story, environments, aliens, characters, and the science of it is all awesome.

I support a real FemShep & Kaidan reunion!! Xp

My second choice would be Perfect Dark.

 

[repeating integers]

Homeworld fans are so rare, it warms my heart whenever I find another one...

You you heard there's a 'complete collection' coming out for the PC?

Sounds interesting, but I already have Homeworld, as well as Homeworld 2 - but the latter doesn't work on my rubbish PC, due to graphics card issues. Still, I'm glad they haven't completely forgotten Homeworld.

 

[MarsProbe]

So much wrong in this thread...There is no such thing called Science Fiction. You can define pretty easy a fantasy story, but you can't define a science fiction one. That's why there's a lot of subgenres to it. Those subgenres all share certain SF elements(Like aliens, time travel, space travel, different planets, silly science, plausible science etc) to each other, but each is unique, while occasionally blending together.

You can't say something isn't a tree because it has branches.

It's like saying Rock don't exist, but Symphonic Metal exists.

Sub genres (in a sane world) are only as useful as narrowing down interests. The instant you start to take them seriously, you might as well stop expecting people to take YOU seriously.

Hahah, nice way to annihilate someones argument in a single sentence. Seriously though, saying there's no such thing as science fiction, then going on to list subgenres of that nonexistent form, while even using the term "science fiction" at certain points? Nonsensical viewpoint is nonsensical.

Also, Mass Effect, just to be different. Not to put down other games I like such as Halo, Half-Life, Deus Ex and the like, but although their universes (be they planets, solar systems, galaxies or even just cities) are good, the amount of detail that has been put into Mass Effects universe wins it for me. Yeh, I basically read more or less all the codex entries.

 

[PureIrony]

Mass Effect is like Star Wars with better writing, better aliens, a better overall universe, and no George Lucas.

 

[thebighead01]

Mass Effect, all the way. It has everything that any sci-fi fan of any niche would like. It's the most fully formed and well thought out of all the video game sci-fi universes (even better then some film or tv universes).

I have to say that Half-Life and Metroid (particularly the Metroid Prime series, it helped to create a very big universe with nothing but noted on the wall) come a close second. Having played Halo I have to say that it's universe is quite shallow, never understood the hype around its story.

 

[Tips_of_Fingers]

So much wrong in this thread...There is no such thing called Science Fiction. You can define pretty easy a fantasy story, but you can't define a science fiction one. That's why there's a lot of subgenres to it. Those subgenres all share certain SF elements(Like aliens, time travel, space travel, different planets, silly science, plausible science etc) to each other, but each is unique, while occasionally blending together.

SCIENCE FICTION SUBGENRES:
SPACE OPERA(Mass Effect, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica)
CYBER PUNK(Deus Ex, Blade Runner, The Neuromancer)
ALTERNATE HISTORY(Man in the High Castle)
HARD SF(The Mars trilogy)
SOCIAL SF(1984, The Man in the High Castle)
APOCALYPTIC(Fallout, The Road, Mad Max)
TIME TRAVEL(Doctor Who, The Time Machine, Day of the Tentacle)
MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION(The Forever War, Ender's Game)

There's still, superhuman, western science fiction, soft SF, biopunk, Spy-fi, science opera fiction and a lot of other SF subgenres.

Star Was IS Science Fiction, cause it belongs to a subgenre OF Science Fiction named SPACE OPERA! In science fiction you don't always need to explain the science part. That's a tip for you.

I wasn't going to comment on this thread because a lot of what people were saying seemed to be a load of bollocks. Seriously, someone at some point said that Deux Ex can't be considered Sci-fi because it's cyber-punk!? *sigh* And whoever started the whole "Star Wars isn't sci-fi, it's fantasy" bullshit is a retard. I did a university module last year called "American Science Fiction" whereby we looked at all genres of sci-fi, texts within those genres and talked about conventions of said genres. Every sub-genre in that quote above is what we talked about. The only thing missing is (and this is where I disagree with Oliveira8 despite their commendable post on this matter) FANTASY.

"WTF" I hear you angrily cry, "Fantasy is fantasy blahblahblah". Most Sci-fi criticism places Fantasy as a sub-genre of Sci-fi. Science Fiction is now most often abbreviated from Sci-fi to simply SF, which stands for "speculative fiction". Ever wonder why bookshops cram Sci-fi and Fantasy together?? Because they're very fucking similar in themes and ideologies. They both speculate about alternate realities, worlds of the past/future and even just whole different universes.

phew...I knew university was good for something.

EDIT: sorry, I have to correct myself. THIS is the most sense someone has made so far (including my own comment)

Spoiler

So much wrong in this thread...There is no such thing called Science Fiction. You can define pretty easy a fantasy story, but you can't define a science fiction one. That's why there's a lot of subgenres to it. Those subgenres all share certain SF elements(Like aliens, time travel, space travel, different planets, silly science, plausible science etc) to each other, but each is unique, while occasionally blending together.

You can't say something isn't a tree because it has branches.

It's like saying Rock don't exist, but Symphonic Metal exists.

Sub genres (in a sane world) are only as useful as narrowing down interests. The instant you start to take them seriously, you might as well stop expecting people to take YOU seriously.

When you were talking about Rock and symphonic metal I thought you were referring to rocks in the ground lol. I imagine symphonic metals to be things that resonate a beatufil harmony when struck.

OT: I'm probably likely to say Fallout or Starcraft...maybe even Half-Life to some degree.

 

[FalloutJack]

The meaning to life is 'bucket'.

And also, I call Fallout's universe out on this. It's funnier.

 

[spoonkick]

My favorite Sci-fi game would be Xenogears.

Though I am surprised you didn't include FFVII or FFVIII in your poll they are both sci-fi, (FFXIII too I guess....)

 

[Retardinator]

I'm saying Half-Life. I like the concept of "very near future", it gives it a dose of realism of sorts.

 

[Darknacht]

Shadowrun.

 

[Bullfrog1983]

Since Wing Commander isn't on the list... a huge oversight in my opinion - I will go with Deus Ex.

 

[LongMuckDong]

Necro re-ignite for this old thread...


EASY FIRST - Mass Effect - Definitely the best fictional universe in my opinion, only gaming world I've read novels/comics and fiended for big time.

CLOSE SECOND - Dreamweb AGA for Amiga 1200.. so good.

SEMI CLOSE THIRD EQUAL - Deus Ex & Warhammer 40k universes, both host great games, albeit being completely different to each other.


Fallout would be in there, but Post-Apocalyptic nearly is it's own genre no?