Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters

Great game. Get the freeware version, don't play it on Steam, as some of the music was cut out.

IMPORTANT EDIT: This game is amazing, one of the best games I ever played, but I just found out that as of 20th June, 2025, some songs were removed from the game... One of the original composers working on the game, Riku Nuottajärvi, pulled back by claiming some of his compositions, despite being 30 years later, for some reason. Do not take my word for it, it is possible that their licenses just expired... But the songs were removed from the game as a result: * Hyperspace Theme * Intro Theme * Commander Hayes Theme * Mycon Theme * Thraddash Theme * Yehat Theme These themes encapsulate the game, the experience does not feel the same without them. Many sections of the game are now songless, as the Devs are too focused working on their new game to replace them... I hope eventually the composer reverses that change, or the songs become public domain, because currently it's out of the developers' control. I am still leaving my review to a "Positive", because this game truly is a good game when all is well, but I cannot recommend this version in its current state with some of the songs completely removed. This game is masterful in every regard, so I will still urge anyone who is reading this to find a version of this game where the songs are still intact. Luckily, the game has been out a long time to where there are many sources where you can download The Ur-Quan Masters, especially given it became open source. I still do highly recommend the game--Just do not play this version that's currently on Steam given the current situation. The following section of this review was my old review, before finding out about the removal of the songs: It's sad that it's now called Free Stars instead of Star Control (Star Control 2 rather) but I think it's for the best, given the latest entries ranged from bad (Star Control III) to mediocre (Star Control: Origins). This game is one of the best Sci-Fi space exploration games I ever played. I never played the game in the 90s, I simply discovered the Ur-Quan Masters (the PC port of Star Control II) some 15 years ago on my grandparent's computer on download.com (now called CNET.com) when I randomly searched for good Sci-Fi games. It was one of the best discovery I did, as I wouldn't have known about this game otherwise. I highly recommend this game, for anyone who happens to have yet never played Star Control II/The Ur-Quan Masters.

Posting this as this was a BS move by the composer for a game that was made free by 2002 and is over 30 years old. "The following pieces of music have been removed from Free Stars: The Ur-Quan Masters: Hyperspace Theme Intro Theme Commander Hayes Theme Mycon Theme Thraddash Theme Yehat Theme These changes were made at the request of the composer who retains their rights to the music." On the one hand yes I get it copy rites are there to protect the IP however to bring it up after all these years and after a full release of this game into free/fair use. To the publisher on Steam "Pistol Shrimp": Thanks for making the effort to port this game into steam for free as it has been in open-source domain for more than 20 years. While it breaks my heart to say this maybe try to work with the composer(s) to see if they are willing to take as small as they can of royalties and simply update this game to be bought for that amount. Until then you can add this to a long list of people who will probably be joining me in saying "Whelp just I just wont play this port version on steam" The negative review is solely as a petition to this move by the composer(s) action. This game still deserves all the praise and accolades it has earned over the years. Other post have shown how to obtain this game in its full content (at least for now at this time of post, who knows how far reaching this will go to) I highly recommend getting those versions. Also simple google searches should yield you what you need to find. TL:DR; IMO An Absolute D*ck Move by the Composer(s).

Classic game composer moment happened where they remove their contribution to a beloved thirty year old game's soundtrack for no immediately perceptible reason. Don't play it on steam, instead download The Ur-Quan Masters version v0.8.0 from their website to the keep five [strike] incredible [/strike] integral tracks. You can find it by looking it up on google or, if steam does not remove the link, here: https://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php ----------------------------------------- The lost tracks include: Hyperspace Theme Intro Theme Commander Hayes Theme Mycon Theme Thraddash Theme Yehat Theme ----------------------------------------- If nothing else, do it for the Yehat.

One of the best games I've ever played. Don't play it on steam. Get it from sourceforge, which has ALL of the original music plus the option to get the (free) HD remaster.

One of the best games ever made. Just play The Ur-Quan Masters instead of this version.

This is one of the best games of all time, but this version is wonky and a lot of the music is just missing. The Intro cinematic, the hyperspace music, and the Yeehat music to name the ones i have encountered so far.

Wow this game is good. I was shocked about how quickly I got sucked into the gameplay. its surprisingly simple but very hard to master. The main loop of the game is exploration. Your ship has fuel and crew, you must manage both as you explore and replenish them at the star base using resources. You will quickly meet a few different alien races, participate in fully voice acted dialogue trees and engage with the other main systems. The second main system you'll experience is the lander segment. You have a lander in your ship you can use to land on planets and pick up resources on them as well as shoot life forms/hostiles you might find. The big thing about this is that each planet has a heat rating, a lightning rating, an earthquake rating, and gravity. If your lander gets hit, you take damage and lose crew which translates to hp. Gravity cost your fuel on landing. Everything is kind of a trade off as you try to maximize your return and minimize your losses. Shortly after you experience that aspect, you'll experience the final aspect which is imo the highlight of the game. The combat. It is truly difficult and surprisingly well balanced. Not the individual ships, but the cost vs specialization vs viability against other ships. Some ships are kind of overpowered but you can take them down with much weaker ships if you are good at combat, others are super weak and fast, some are basically space snipers, one has missiles it fires out of its butt and is fast so its strategy involves running away and firing said missiles as you get chased. Overall the combat is very fun and I really enjoy the experience, even as I get my butt kicked most of the time. My absolutely favorite aspect of the game is just how weird and hard sci fi it is. it goes all in on being weird and using alien jargon. it is super unfriendly as old games tend to be. You have to pull out a notebook and write down all the random coordinates and everything to have any sense of where to go and what to do. You need to make strategic choices on where to mine or what to upgrade before you make each excursion or else you might find yourself without fuel or having to go back too often to get more when you could've been mining exotic materials and getting super rich. Overall, extremely fun and nerdy and I'm a huge fan of the game.