>It was called Mantis and
>it was ghastly, as one might expect of a space combat game
>utilizing Newtonian physics and "realistic" weapons-in-space
>expectations (beyond-line-of-sight targeting etc). Unplayable
>and boring, which is not a combination many games have managed.

I'm reminded of two separate space combat games now. One of them was the Babylon 5 Starfury game in development around 2000 or so. Like all Babylon 5 items beyond the original series, it choked and died, and that might well have been a good thing in this case. The only thing I remember about it was a preview I saw in a PC Gaming magazine, where the reviewer said he started at the jump gate, pointed the fighter at B5 and hit full acceleration. And was delighted when nothing happened. He claimed that the fact it took twenty minutes to fly to Babylon 5, because REAL PHYSICS, was proof that this was going to be the greatest space fighter sim of all time.

The other thing I'm remembering is from an article on Star Citizen, where the developers commented that they're making it 'realistic, within reason'. They commented that, when experimenting with earlier builds, they went overboard, and found the end result to be too complicated and boring as all hell.

Matrix Dragon, J. Random Nutter