Middle entry of my triple-sneak-peak-preview session for Space 4X over a few days. Competitors: “Stellaris”, “Galactic Civilization 3”, “Endless Space 2”. All vanilla.
First Impression:
Coming from “Stellaris” (played the day before) I understand: “Stellaris” is more about macro (galaxies), this one about a more focused view. Smaller, emphasis on my troops and planets – at least in the campaign-tutorial, where I am to push back against the evil aliens (guess it’s referring to GC2?). Personally, I like this better – everything feels more relevant, more direct, and also the controls are better, when I comes to zooming and navigation. Still – there’s so many menus, interfaces, mechanics… maybe just me getting old/impatient. But the tutorial is better so far! Read about that the campaign as a whole is like the tutorial over three missions (played through the first one so far), so I’ll see where I am at the end in terms of understanding game rules and mechanics.
Technically it’s weaker, but I don’t really care. For me, it’s holding up, as for Space Games I personally count in atmosphere over bare graphic-muscles – and the former is well done here; quite on par with “Stellaris” to this point. I like the more personal approach though, setting me up as sort of avenging, war-faring Humankind-back-from-holidays. Which brings me to my 3rd First Impression, which will follow. I sneak-peaked a little, so to say: “Endless Space 2”.
First Impression:
Coming from “Stellaris” (played the day before) I understand: “Stellaris” is more about macro (galaxies), this one about a more focused view. Smaller, emphasis on my troops and planets – at least in the campaign-tutorial, where I am to push back against the evil aliens (guess it’s referring to GC2?). Personally, I like this better – everything feels more relevant, more direct, and also the controls are better, when I comes to zooming and navigation. Still – there’s so many menus, interfaces, mechanics… maybe just me getting old/impatient. But the tutorial is better so far! Read about that the campaign as a whole is like the tutorial over three missions (played through the first one so far), so I’ll see where I am at the end in terms of understanding game rules and mechanics.
Technically it’s weaker, but I don’t really care. For me, it’s holding up, as for Space Games I personally count in atmosphere over bare graphic-muscles – and the former is well done here; quite on par with “Stellaris” to this point. I like the more personal approach though, setting me up as sort of avenging, war-faring Humankind-back-from-holidays. Which brings me to my 3rd First Impression, which will follow. I sneak-peaked a little, so to say: “Endless Space 2”.