Star Cruiser is one of those games that makes you wonder how the heck it even existed in 1988. You boot it up, and suddenly you're staring at this chunky, polygonal spaceship cockpit—way before Wolfenstein or Doom made first-person 3D a thing. The controls take a minute to get used to (good luck figuring out the radar at first), but once you do, it's wild flying around star systems, trading goods, and blasting pirates in full 3D.

The story’s got that classic space opera vibe—evil empires, rogue AI, the works—but what really sticks with you is how open it feels. You can just… wander off and ignore the main quest if you want, which was basically unheard of back then. The Mega Drive port smoothed out some of the PC version’s rough edges, though it’s still janky in that charming early-3D way. If you’re into retro gaming deep cuts, this is a fascinating time capsule.