Anyone else have this game or even see it on their radar? It came out last week and it's getting praise everywhere.
Developed by a small company with the help of Stardock, they basically took a 4X TBS game and made it work as an amazing RTS instead. It's Masters of Orion / Galactic Civilization where you colonize planets, research technology, explore the stars and destroy your enemies-- but all under a different model. Planets are connected by hyperspace "lanes" so you can only travel to connected worlds and have to escape a planet's gravity well to do so first. 3 races each with their own advantages. You'd think it's too crazy and "twitch" response to play but they keep it at a pace that makes it pretty easy to play. They make it pretty streamlined and research is easy to do. Strategy is a must; gotta have the right compliment in a fleet and place them correctly or you're screwed. Fleets consist of frigates, cruisers, and capital ships. Capital Ships are identical to Warcraft III heros (first one's free, each level up lets you upgrade 1 of 3 abilities... hell even at level 6 you get an ultimate ability) but they're not nearly something that can tip the scale and they're expensive to get extras of. They also threw in pirates which is interesting... most maps have a pirate base and they will regularly attack whomever has the highest bounty at the time. Pirates can turn the tide in a game as they attack in pretty big numbers and hurt, but as long as you keep up on your bounty prizes they're more than worth the money.
My only complaint is the time a game takes to play. I've had single player games last 4.5 hours and multiplayer (2v2v2) games last 2.5 hours. Saving is easy even in multiplayer though so it's easy to pick up again later. If any of you are RTS fans and like 4X games (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) I'd DEFINITELY recommend picking this up. $40 retail, $45 for the CE online for instant download through Stardock (which is a very slick system).
Comeon, I need peeps to play with
Penny Arcade's even been raving about it.
Developed by a small company with the help of Stardock, they basically took a 4X TBS game and made it work as an amazing RTS instead. It's Masters of Orion / Galactic Civilization where you colonize planets, research technology, explore the stars and destroy your enemies-- but all under a different model. Planets are connected by hyperspace "lanes" so you can only travel to connected worlds and have to escape a planet's gravity well to do so first. 3 races each with their own advantages. You'd think it's too crazy and "twitch" response to play but they keep it at a pace that makes it pretty easy to play. They make it pretty streamlined and research is easy to do. Strategy is a must; gotta have the right compliment in a fleet and place them correctly or you're screwed. Fleets consist of frigates, cruisers, and capital ships. Capital Ships are identical to Warcraft III heros (first one's free, each level up lets you upgrade 1 of 3 abilities... hell even at level 6 you get an ultimate ability) but they're not nearly something that can tip the scale and they're expensive to get extras of. They also threw in pirates which is interesting... most maps have a pirate base and they will regularly attack whomever has the highest bounty at the time. Pirates can turn the tide in a game as they attack in pretty big numbers and hurt, but as long as you keep up on your bounty prizes they're more than worth the money.
My only complaint is the time a game takes to play. I've had single player games last 4.5 hours and multiplayer (2v2v2) games last 2.5 hours. Saving is easy even in multiplayer though so it's easy to pick up again later. If any of you are RTS fans and like 4X games (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) I'd DEFINITELY recommend picking this up. $40 retail, $45 for the CE online for instant download through Stardock (which is a very slick system).
Comeon, I need peeps to play with
Penny Arcade's even been raving about it.
