🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi

> Anyway, can anyone tell me if there is a game currently on the shelves
> that comes anywhere close to the flavor of Universe?

Sounds a bit Elite-like. Privateer 2 is coming out in a few weeks (we
sincerely hope) and that looks like it's going to be the new standard for
space combat and trading games.

I have Universe III, which was a fairly standard space RPG, for the PC on
5.25 disks somewhere (w. box and manuals) It doesn't sound as good though.
> 
> I guess what I'm looking for is a game that has a lot of depth to it 
> -- not one of those "go to a planet and buy some stuff, go to another 
> planet and sell some stuff" games.  I want the feeling of exploration,
> I want to encounter alien races, I want to solve mysteries, I want to 
> amass fortunes, I want to blow things up, 

Star Control II? It has everything you've mentioned and is one of the top
ten games of all time IMHO.

> (There was some other game I played
> where you could carry spare parts with you, and you could pop them into
> your engine to repair damage, and some of the parts could be used for
> different things, so even if you didn't have any spares, you could
> always rearrange what you did have so that if engines were more
> important to you than your weapons, you could swap a damaged engine
> part for a functioning weapons part.  

Sounds like LightSpeed or HyperSpeed from Microprose. The swapping parts
around really just had the same effect as Star Trek style power
distribution, but it was definitely more cool. 

My reccomendation is Star Control II, based on what you've said - it's
marvellous, and you might find it cheap on some dealer's back-catalogue.

Will