Starsiege
Windows - 1999
Description of Starsiege
Starsiege, aka Big Robot Stomping game number 132, allows you not only to play as part of a human force, but as one of the Cybrids, a race of sentient machines, bent upon the destruction of all non-cybernetic life. These cybrids are breathlessly evil, sounding spookily like Star Trek'sBorg, and to top it all off, are the offspring of a man-made robot that fled earth many centuries ago. Why bother with honour and all that stuff when you can just cackle evilly and annihilate everything in your path? Besides, once you've played as the Cybrids, and heard the human forces yelling in total panic across the airwaves, you'll never go back. But first things first - the plot. The story behind Starsiege isn't all that complicated - an evil tyrannical emperor has ruled the solar system for donkeys years, and for his entire rule, has been making things rather unpleasant for many of his 'subjects'. So, after having the extraordinary luck to discover a cache of alien technology on Mars, a group of rebels rise up, arm themselves, and set out to kick the emperor's pickled and machine-sustained arse for all time. And if the potential casualties from that little conflict weren't high enough, the Cybrids, seeing the unrest amongst the humans, decided to rear their cybernetic heads and do their funky annihilation thing. It never rains, but it pours - bits of metal, giblets, limbs and so on.
Whomper Stomper
Playing as either the rebels or the Cybrids, you get to take control of a variety of giant robot machines and tanks and blast, duck, dodge, and zap your way through a variety of missions. These missions have various goals - usually involving defending an object or convoy, destroying a target, or just taking out every living thing in the area. But don't worry.. all the destruction and death is all in a worthy cause - rescuing people from oppression, or world domination, depending upon which side you're playing as. If you've played any of the Mechwarrior or Earthsiege games then much of this will be familiar to you since Starsiege retreads a fair bit of old ground covered in those titles. As in those games, you can choose your vehicle from a number of available ones, the range increasing as you make your way through the increasingly more difficult missions. You can also customize your vehicle, choosing the engine, weapons, armour and other bits, though you don't get to go into quite as much detail as you could in Mechwarrior: Mercenaries. Unlike Mechwarrior, the giant robots or 'Hercs' in Starsiege can't actually pivot their torsos left and right, meaning that you can't walk round a foe in a circle with your guns trained on him at all times. There are some tanks you can choose which do sport this feature, and you do have the ability to look around in the cockpit of your herc and train your guns on anything within your field of view, which goes some way towards compensating for this - but it does take a bit of getting used to.
Multiple Targets
Combat in Starsiege can get pretty heated in Starsiege, especially when you've got several foes on your tail and are running like the wind because you've used up all your missiles, you're low on energy (used to power your weapons and herc), and your damage display panel shows half of your herc in red, meaning you're in serious trouble. It's up to you to try and use your piloting skills to avoid this kind of situation, and keep your herc's head on its mechanical shoulders, especially since while your shields do regenerate, damage done to your herc cannot be easily repaired till the end of the mission. As far as the missions go, Starsiege is pretty linear - if you fail a mission you have to play it again till you succeed - compared to Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries which allowed you to fail some missions and still survive, an approach that works better than Starsiege's. Though having said that, Starsiege's plot is better than all the clan-related nonsense featured in the Mechwarrior games
Chocks away
Starsiege's herc-based action isn't confined to single player mode - you can also play Starsiegeover the Internet - I was able to find several perfectly playable games going, and so joined in. The general procedure seemed to be - kick someone's mechanical arse, laugh, then run like hell to the nearest repair post so you can get your herc repaired before they come after you, which was pretty entertaining. In multiplayer mode, you get to choose a herc from the entire range featured in the game, tool it up, and then head off into the battlefield - though even with a heavily customised herc you still need quite a bit of skill to see your opponents off, especially since each herc has its own advantages and disadvantages that can be exploited if you know about them, and none of them can walk over every single other herc with ease. Graphically, the game looks superb, though does run less than smoothly on a P233 with all detail on and is more demanding in terms of hardware than any of the Mechwarrior games.
Overall, Starsiege is an enjoyable if not brilliant, or original, mech game.
Review By GamesDomain
External links
Captures and Snapshots
Comments and reviews
Soultaker 2024-11-07 0 point
best download section
https://starsiege1.proboards.com/thread/1101/2024-winter-downloads
PLAYA 2024-05-07 1 point
I understand and agree about average discord "communities" and was just describing personal experience in single player(as I already said before...) that might be helpful to some. I know that you guys are OGs etc. but cybrid campaign was bugged for me from the beginning and "my machine problem" was automatically solved with their version of the game and was easier to install too. Also what about movies? They are working unlike on mercenaries version where you claim that some of them can't work.
ZooL 2024-04-05 2 points
The Mercs Discord server is currently found @
https://discord.gg/starsiege
JOIN US!
ZooL 2024-03-01 2 points
The Cybrid campaign has always had a problem in Mission 15 "Ticket to ride".
Its not the Mercenaries version per'se. Its just how the game is.
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The Mercs have a discord but don't Lurk on discords just to be in a discord. We aren't an anime chat group like the folks that run starsiegeplayers.com
Discord is used to organize games - not Memes.
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The Mercs organize multiplayer games every friday and saturday as can be seen on
https://www.youtube.com/@starsiegemercenaries4687
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the Version of the game that the Mercs host at https://starsiege1.proboards.com/thread/1101/2024-winter-downloads
Runs on windows 11 and everything prior.
If this is not running for you on windows 11 - its a "your machine problem" not a "game running on win 11 problem".
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With all due respect to the "starsiegeplayers" group, they are a discord group and a nostalgia group for all intensive purposes. You WILL find games through the MERCENARIES weekly. You will NOT find any through "Starsiegeplayers".
Those are the differences between the 2 groups
playa 2023-12-28 0 point
Almost forgot: Cybrid campaign was bugged and unplayable on mercenaries version.
playa 2023-12-28 0 point
Most of my original comment was soemhow cut off...
https://starsiegeplayers.com/download version is better*. Just use newer Starsiege_1004.exe and in settings set:
Full Screen Mode: OpenGL
Full Screen Resolution: your actual screen resolution
3D Hardware type: Other
*Why(at least for me on win10):
- Screen resolution in menu is kept to your screen resolution and pillarboxed instead of just being in lower resolution.
- Music is properly set up and working in game and not only in menu.
- All movies are working unlike on mercenaries version where they claim that some of them can't work...
-Multiplayerwise their discord server is bigger, but I'm not interested in that so I didn't check further.
Ed Straker 2023-08-14 1 point
Installs fine but when i start the game, it simply drops to desktop.
ZooL 2023-03-11 1 point
StarSiege Mercenaries are still here in 2023
Go here
https://starsiege1.proboards.com/thread/1096/2023-winter-downloads
Get the *updated game then Download the updated Master server file.
We're usually on later in the night @ 11:00 est
-=ZooL=- 2022-10-05 1 point
link to the Master server installer so you can come play with the Mercenaries
We have Over-run type games usually everynight but almost every friday and saturday. It spills over to a Team death match if we get enough players.
Download and come play.
drive.google.com/file/d/1dLopBH6OsGxJBqkuLaF6mUE1p6NFQHcL/view?usp=sharing
oursite
https://starsiege1.proboards.com/thread/1090/spring-downloads-2022
Duck 2022-03-27 0 point
This is the most active Starsiege crew right here
https://starsiege1.proboards.com/
I play every night with these Blokes. They have a discord over here
https://discord.gg/weW2dK6gg3
StarsiegePlayers.com 2022-03-01 4 points
HEY! NEW Discord invite at https://discord.gg/ZR7ZH7RBdU
This is a new server, ignore any invite links posted prior to 2022 as they will NO LONGER WORK. You must use the new link of discord.gg/ZR7ZH7RBdU
You can also find patches for the game at the new starsiegeplayers.com or o the Discord if you have questions.
Looking forward to seeing you!
--SSP staff
ZooL 2021-06-08 2 points
Come Join us. We are the most active Starsiege squad left. We infact are the only Starsiege Squad left.
https://starsiege1.proboards.com/thread/1079/starsiege-downloads-2021-summer
If you want to play regularly with people that actually play starsiege go here
and download the install. If you grab other downloads you won't get to play with people as those other
people don't actually play the game anymore.
ZooL 2021-06-08 1 point
No need to miss this game
we play all the time fridays and saturdays there is always a group
https://starsiege1.proboards.com/
We play every weekend at night
Download to the game is in the forum and has the updated master.cs file you need to play on servers.
Shadow 2021-02-01 2 points
400+ people are in the discord, if you want to play multiplayer online, or need help installing the game. Just letting you know. We also have a patched version for Windows 10.
Ashen 2020-10-08 1 point
I gather this runs pretty well via nglides current glide wrapper, gonna give it a go.. my disk is... nolonger readable... (found it and... well ended up here... owned dual and single disk versions but gave the dual disk ver away to a buddy so he and his son could both play.
Magepalm 2020-08-24 0 point
I'm excited to give this one a try. I don't think I ever played Starsiege, I know I definitely played Earthsiege either 1 or 2, and no clue which or how many of the mechwarrior games. The newest MW I played was on the first xbox, probably around 2004 or so, was kinda cool but the one I really loved when I was a lil kid was one of those older ones, admittedly... mainly for the stomping on buildings and people. Sure, I had some fun clearing the map..... but the best part really was going back and destroying EVERYTHING lol. Really looking forward to revisiting these and properly playing them..... ehh, and stomping on stuff :D
Come join us 2020-08-07 0 point
https://starsiege1.proboards.com/
We play every weekend at night
Some Merc guy 2020-05-11 1 point
Community is still into murdering robots
Link to community files and the updated windows 10 compatible game files are here
https://starsiege1.proboards.com/thread/1046/starsiege-game-downloads-2020
people getting on and games usually take place friday and saturday nights..mostly
Creamy dumpling 2020-03-30 1 point
One of the least appreciated masterpieces of the big stupid robot genre. It had a tiny community of like weirdos that would get way to into murdering robots. It's difficult to get running on modern hardware but worth the effort. As a side note the music is just tits. Play this immediately.
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