#1 Endless Space: For scratching that MOO itch
Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 11:06 pm
If you love the old 4X games, Endless Space just sort of pops up out of nowhere. Kind of like how Gal Civ emerged from the fallout of the MOO3 debacle, Endless Space has caught on among those who felt screwed over by the clusterfuck that was the SotS II release.
What to say about it? You do all the exploring, expanding, exterminating and so on just like in any other 4X game. The interface is nice and clean, the music is nice and atmospheric. The graphics aren't going to blow you away- this is a 4X game. But they're clean and crisp and generally work well with the UI (one minor complaint about seeing your worlds against a starry background.)
Combat is... different. I'm still mulling over how much I care for it, and I think a lot of that will depend on the finished product. As it stands, your ships come in and are matched up against the enemy fleet. You have three phases, and for each phase you select a tactics card. Now, the card might nullify your enemy's card, it might be nullified by it, or they might just match up even. You can change cards for the next phases before they kick off, if for example you notice your precious dreadnoughts are getting their shit hammered and decide that you really need to throw down some repair in the next phase. In any event, during each phase the ships fire in grand cinematic style, sort of emulating the battle scenes of BSG with lots of cuts and off-angles as the ships toss massive amounts of ordinance at each other.
My main issue there is that as it stands the cinematics do tend to get repetitive in a hurry, which means if you insist on managing each battle a war can get somewhat tedious.
However! All of this is subject to change because the game just rolled over from paid alpha to paid beta. Yeah, it was stable and very enjoyable in alpha state, and they're still adding, polishing, tweaking, and bugfixing.
Now, onto the backstory: the story itself is pretty standard science fiction boilerplate. Ancient race wandered about, doing ancient race shit, then said 'Fuck it' and buggered off to the next dimension or whatever. Said race was called 'The Endless', hence the title of the game.
Now, some of the specific races are pretty damned cool. They are as follows:
(Some of these descriptions may not be entirely fluffy)
United Empire: Evil human empire that makes lots of money, ironically tends to work best when you get all the good liberating friendly techs to make your population happy. Make lots of money.
Hissho: SPACE FUCKING DINOSAUR-BIRDS. The game description is that they're avian, but avian in the sense that dinosaurs were somewhat avian. They're your standard kill shit militaristic types.
Cravers: Reavers. They burn out worlds but get huge production bonuses in the process. They use these production bonuses to spread like a plague.
Horatio: One dude. Named Horatio. Formerly a subject of the UE, he was insanely rich and insanely insane. He found Endless tech on a forgotten moon and used it to alter himself to his image of perfection. Having done so, he decided that the galaxy was best off if it was populated by Horatio. So he cloned himself endlessly and created a whole race of Horatio. Bonuses, obviously, to reproductive rates. And they can clone their heroes, which is a huge edge.
Amoebas: Fucking giant sentient amoebas. Not as big as the ones who tried to eat the Enterprise. Mostly diplomatic. Very old and stuff.
Pilgrims: Goody-goodies who ran away from the UE. Found religion and sell flowers at starports. Want to find the Endless and probably pester them incessantly. Haven't really looked at their bonuses yet, I think they're diplomatic too.
Sowers: Terraforming bots left behind by the Endless. Tasked to terraform a world to Endless spec, they did so, then sat around playing robot poker for a while as they waited for the Endless to come move in. Eventually when the Endless didn't show up, they decided to move on and fix the next world. And the next one. And the next one. Tend not to care if the world they're 'fixing' is occupied and whether or not the occupants want it fixed. They start out with a speed nerf and lower 'food' production, but they can colonize any world, which nobody else can do at start. Fucking cool shit.
What to say about it? You do all the exploring, expanding, exterminating and so on just like in any other 4X game. The interface is nice and clean, the music is nice and atmospheric. The graphics aren't going to blow you away- this is a 4X game. But they're clean and crisp and generally work well with the UI (one minor complaint about seeing your worlds against a starry background.)
Combat is... different. I'm still mulling over how much I care for it, and I think a lot of that will depend on the finished product. As it stands, your ships come in and are matched up against the enemy fleet. You have three phases, and for each phase you select a tactics card. Now, the card might nullify your enemy's card, it might be nullified by it, or they might just match up even. You can change cards for the next phases before they kick off, if for example you notice your precious dreadnoughts are getting their shit hammered and decide that you really need to throw down some repair in the next phase. In any event, during each phase the ships fire in grand cinematic style, sort of emulating the battle scenes of BSG with lots of cuts and off-angles as the ships toss massive amounts of ordinance at each other.
My main issue there is that as it stands the cinematics do tend to get repetitive in a hurry, which means if you insist on managing each battle a war can get somewhat tedious.
However! All of this is subject to change because the game just rolled over from paid alpha to paid beta. Yeah, it was stable and very enjoyable in alpha state, and they're still adding, polishing, tweaking, and bugfixing.
Now, onto the backstory: the story itself is pretty standard science fiction boilerplate. Ancient race wandered about, doing ancient race shit, then said 'Fuck it' and buggered off to the next dimension or whatever. Said race was called 'The Endless', hence the title of the game.
Now, some of the specific races are pretty damned cool. They are as follows:
(Some of these descriptions may not be entirely fluffy)
United Empire: Evil human empire that makes lots of money, ironically tends to work best when you get all the good liberating friendly techs to make your population happy. Make lots of money.
Hissho: SPACE FUCKING DINOSAUR-BIRDS. The game description is that they're avian, but avian in the sense that dinosaurs were somewhat avian. They're your standard kill shit militaristic types.
Cravers: Reavers. They burn out worlds but get huge production bonuses in the process. They use these production bonuses to spread like a plague.
Horatio: One dude. Named Horatio. Formerly a subject of the UE, he was insanely rich and insanely insane. He found Endless tech on a forgotten moon and used it to alter himself to his image of perfection. Having done so, he decided that the galaxy was best off if it was populated by Horatio. So he cloned himself endlessly and created a whole race of Horatio. Bonuses, obviously, to reproductive rates. And they can clone their heroes, which is a huge edge.
Amoebas: Fucking giant sentient amoebas. Not as big as the ones who tried to eat the Enterprise. Mostly diplomatic. Very old and stuff.
Pilgrims: Goody-goodies who ran away from the UE. Found religion and sell flowers at starports. Want to find the Endless and probably pester them incessantly. Haven't really looked at their bonuses yet, I think they're diplomatic too.
Sowers: Terraforming bots left behind by the Endless. Tasked to terraform a world to Endless spec, they did so, then sat around playing robot poker for a while as they waited for the Endless to come move in. Eventually when the Endless didn't show up, they decided to move on and fix the next world. And the next one. And the next one. Tend not to care if the world they're 'fixing' is occupied and whether or not the occupants want it fixed. They start out with a speed nerf and lower 'food' production, but they can colonize any world, which nobody else can do at start. Fucking cool shit.