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A picture history of videogame spaceships

From 1961 to 2008, there's a wealth of futuristic finery to behold

Words: GamesRadar UK

If there's one thing you can bet your bottom dollar on it's that there will be at least one game about spaceships each year. It's the law, or an old tradition or a charter or something. It's been that way since games began - in fact the very first videogame featured them back in 1961.

But we're not complaining - in terms of awesome, interstellar craft are right up there with pirates and ninjas and robots. So to celebrate gaming's ongoing romance with booster-powered, warp-fast, proton-firing, wormhole-dodging vehicular imaginings, we thought we'd take a look back at almost 50 years of spaceships in games. Using the attractive medium of in-game and box-art imagery, we've gathered a mighty collection of galaxy travelling vehicles and other futuristic flyers for your visual enjoyment. Appreciate the craftery, admire the design, reminisce about the spaceships you've piloted or blasted with laser death. Prepare to enter hyperspace...


 
9 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
GamesRadarJoeMcNeilly  - 1 year 3 months ago 
wish they would make a decent battlestar game! viper ftw!!!
Z-man427  - 1 year 3 months ago 
if only these ships were scientifically possible

my captcha was "Humperdink Blood". now i want to watch the Princess Bride
signal2noise  - 1 year 3 months ago 
Where's the Descent series or EVE Online ships??? And you call yourself 'gamers'!? Sheesh!
Da-Ku  - 1 year 3 months ago 
He Has A Point...
An MMO Bout Space Etc. (From What I Read) And Nothing About It Here
Schuultz  - 1 year 3 months ago 
Normandy ftw! loved Mass Effect
ZoSo4  - 11 months 18 days ago 
lol eve online isnt for gamers, its for stockbrokers.
oh and they shulda put in the gummi ship from kingdom hearts. cos everyone hated it
grandinquisitor  - 3 months 15 days ago 
you should have put in the rogue shadow from force unleashed, that thing was cool and star wars has the best spaceships
animeaddictoid  - 3 months 14 days ago 
I'm surprised Freelancer isn't mentioned I mean the whole game is about spaceships
QuestionMarc  - 29 days 14 hours ago 
I can understand why they may have left out spaceships from games based on things like Star Wars and Battlestar etc because they are not unique to our medium (even though some ships may be). But they keep switching between the actual in-game ship and the concept art (which deprives us of any sense of evolution) and some series have MANY ships (No Great Fox or Star Wolf team ships?). Lastly some other people have mentioned games like Eve and Freelancer that are all about ships, nothing but ships, and have tons of them yet no mention. I imagine a game like Eve may be a lot harder to pick a single representative ship than say Arwing or Normandy, but at least try!
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