I discovered this fantastic 4X RTS game a few weeks after it was
released on TotalGaming.net, Stardocks digital distribution service. I
always enjoy sci-fi games, and it looked pretty cool on the
screenshots. And the fact that it's realtime was good for me as I'm not
a huge fan of turn-based games. (with the exception of the Jagged
Alliance games, which are brilliant)
If you've played such games
as Master of Orion, Space Empires and Galactic Civilizations, you know
what 4X is all about. eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate! And as
with all great games, it's easy to learn but hard to master.
The
story of the game is interesting, but unfortunately there is no single
player campaign, only skirmishes against the AI. The game's main focus
is definitely multiplayer, but then again this is where the game really
shines.
The goal of the game is of course to conquer the entire
solar system. You have three different races to choose from, the TEC
(Trade Emergency Coalition), descendants of early human explorers, the
Vasari, an alien race running away from their home seeking new worlds
to conquer, and the Advent, religious freaks out to convert everyone in
the galaxy to the "Unity". All the races have different research
capabilities and things they are good at, so you can easily find the
one you like to match your playstyle. The research tree is one of the
great features of the game, it has two main branches, empire and
military, each with three subclasses ranging from armor, weapons,
trading, culture etc.
When you start the game you start with a
single planet, and very little resources. To acquire resources you must
build metal/crystal extractors on asteroids around the planet. You can
build research stations (either military or empire, depending on what
you want to focus on), as well as trading ports, refineries,
broadcasting satellites, as well frigate factories which lets you build
all the ships in the game. You can also build capital ship factories,
which let's you build large vessels that deals alot of damage, as well
as having useful abilities to augment your own fleet or cripple your
enemies. And while we're on the subject of capital ships, each race has
five different kinds of battleships, ranging from colonization ships,
planet bombarding and support ships. Another cool feature is that the
capital ships gain experience points in battle, and when you gain a new
level you can spend a point on 4 different skills, each unique for all
five of the capital ships and the races. There are alot of different
strategies that you can use when combining the different ship types,
which adds great depth and variation to the gameplay.
As for the
planets and exploration, each planet has a set number of slots (either
tactical or logistical) that you can use for construction. You can
upgrade your planet, to allow for more buildings to be constructed. If
you upgrade the logistical slots, you can build more research stations,
trade ports etc, and if you upgrade the tactical slots you can build
planetary defenses such as planetary shields, flak cannons and defense
platforms which can deploy a squadron of fighters. As your planet grows
so does the population, and you gain more income from taxes. You can
upgrade the planet's infrastructure, making it stronger against
bombardment, and you can also explore the planets surface giving you a
chance to find powerful rare artifacts that give you bonuses to for
example ship building speed, resource income, combat damage etc.
Aside
from planets you also find asteroid belts, plasma storms, dead
asteroids and gas giants, some of which can't be colonized, only
exploited for resources.
Each planet also has a ring around it,
called the gravity well. This is where you build all your structures
and where the fighthing happens. You cannot jump away from within the
gravity well, so you have to retreat beyond it if you are traveling to
another planet.
Movement between planets takes place on phase
lanes, that connect all the planets/asteroids in a huge web. Each star
can have any number of planets, and each game can have more than one
star, leaving the possibility for huge games with hundreds of planets.
These games are rarely playable though (on current hardware) because
when you start exploring and colonizing the game gets really slow with
having to calculate everything. This is not a huge problem though,
since it's more fun to play shorter games with more intense fighting,
in my opinion.
The AI is decent, and will give you a challenge,
but it tends to get a little easy when you play several human players
against other AI players. Overall though, it's definately not bad, and
there are several behaviors you can set them too so they behave
differently.
While dealing with your human or AI enemies, you may
also have to deal with NPC pirates marauding the solar system. The
pirates will randomly attack players, depending on the bounty system.
Every payer can place bounties on each others heads, "directing" the
pirates to attack them. This can lead to an unfortunate bidding war
among players, causing them to spend all their money trying to get the
pirates off their backs. While slightly entertaining, this becomes
tiresome in the long run.
You also have a dynamic black market at
your disposal where you can buy and sell resources. If one player buys
alot of crystal increasing the price, another player can sell all his
crystal and make lots of money. This can be fun at times, deciding when
you buy or sell you resources. You can also lend money to you allies.
Another
feature worthy of a mention, is the achievement system. There are lots
of small achievements you can do such as having the most capital ships,
winning the game as each of the races, having the most resources etc.
Though it has no impact on the actual gameplay it's a little addition
that adds to the wholeness of the game.
Upon finishing the game,
you are taken to the stats screen. This is really good, as it has
graphs and stats that cover everything in the game, ranging from most
ships destroyed, most planets colonized, most resources mined... the
list goes on. It is easily the most comprehensive stats I have seen in
a game, there is ALOT of stats, every strategy game should have this
kind of stats. It's always fun to see who did best at certain things
after playing a long round.
The game is also very mod-friendly
and already has a large active community contributing to the game. As
of 23.02.08, the game was the top selling PC game in the US with over
100.000 copies sold, leading over Call of Duty 4, WoW: The Burning
Crusade and The Orange Box.
So, if you like strategy games and
sci-fi, this game is a MUST for you. It's easily learned yet deep
gameplay will keep you busy for many hours until your boss calls you
wondering why the hell you didn't show up for work!
