Interesting, I always thought of Mass Effect as a spiritual successor to Sentinel Worlds 1: Future Magic. Never played Star Control though, may need to check it out.
Both Star Control II and Mass Effect create this sense of alien-ness, where you feel like you're really trying to deal with alien races using human concepts and, unless you can break out of that mold, you won't succeed. In SC2 this is quite literal, since the game runs on a clock of sorts, and it's possible to get into an unwinnable state.
The best part of SC2 is that it is impossible to know ahead of time if your encounters will result in making loyal allies or barbaric enemies. The only way forward is to keep exploring the galaxy.
If you like that feeling, you might enjoy the old game Vangers. It's not quite ‘take these completely foreign things and do barely understandable tasks with them’, but the mood is definitely there.
