Alien Nations

In general, I'm avoiding Strategy games not because I don't like them but because I'm not good at them. To be honest I suck! I prefer the safe tranquillity of adventures and the epic tales of RPG's. At about 2000 a friend of mine gave me this game to try and (to my surpise) I stucked playing it until I finished it and with the three tribes (yes I actually did). What drove me the interest was that you couldn't controls your individuals but instead you could gave orders like a god and all this in real time. You can give order for building, trading (very very important) e.t.c. and your people will follow your commands having their daily circle of life. There are three tribe, each having their unique attitude, others being more hostile and others more peaceful. The sure thing is that you will love them. The graphics are cute and the overall atmosphere has lot of homour. Recommended to everyone!

You choose between playing one of three "Nations" - orc-like blue Pimmons, sexy all girl Amazons or insecto-arachnoid Sajiki. Superficially, the 1999 release, Alien Nations appears to be another Settlers want-to-be. However, behind this is a game complete with researchable tech trees, diplomacy, economics, a trading system, citizen morale and much more, making it almost too complex to be an RTS - thus the lowest speed's intense slowness (f7=fast f6=med f5=slow). Tutorial scenarios are meticulously thorough and if played right thru will bring all but the most resistant player up to speed on the game's complexities. For assistance there's occasional announcements so you know what tasks need doing in your "Nation" at any given time. You start with a warehouse/town-hall, building forward researching techs and training your minions, their motivation adjustable to increase populace initiative. Unlike many Settlers games, roads are unnecessary for connection of buildings, however, if you relish controlling every ingredient in game-play it's pleasing to know the level of micromanagement is extreme. Game-play is oriented toward building and planning, while there are battles with other "Nations" the warfare aspect affords lesser significance, diplomacy plus trade being emphasised. Graphically it has a non-rotatable isometric perspective, altho zooming is seamless, offering an extensive range from close-up to god's-eye-view. Alien Nations has visually pleasing, lush, colourful and cartoonish graphics that are from their time. Ignore and avoid what some corrupt "gaming publications" tried to claim about this title, it's an exceptionally absorbing, genuinely fun RTS with many missions and campaigns which can be played as any of the three species, extending a high degree of re-playability. The main criticism is its highly derivative nature regarding Settlers, but given the fun factor in that series of games it can only be considered a good thing. Alien Nations RATING 79%.

It feels like an age of empires for kids, but this game is just as fun as I remember. The concept is simple but it can still be pretty challenging. And no it is not too slow, as one review states. F5, F6, F7 for game speeds and it won't seem so tedious. One flaw: cannot load saved games without crashing in Windows 7

The game just look simple but it will require some serious strategy. It takes serious management to keep your population order in check. If you keep building an army to defend the settlement, you might forget to keep food production on and it will lead to crime which will destroy your economy and make you unable hire army. If you will keep yourself busy with managing the economy and crime, you will overlook that small band of enemy soldiers which by the time you waiting for your soldiers to appear, will already demolish half if not whole town. And even if you manage to balance inner and outer conflicts you still might realize that you didnt explore map and now you have no clue where to find new source of stone for your town. And you will end up spending ton of time finding the last stone on the map which is already almost all gone because rival settle was busy extracting it. Its fun! However I want to point out that this is a cut version of the game. When I first got it (outside USA) the bugs had Tobacco and were smoking, instead of mushroom juice blue guys had Schnapps, and among animals which you can hunt for food had rabbits. Rabbits provided no more than one unit of food per rabbit, so they weren't very helpful, but I guess some people thought its to cruel to kill small cute rabbit. They even produce small sad sound when they die. At least they didn't remove dryads because of their open fashion and big trucks of land. Also, there was entire expansion which adds fleets and sea battles to the game. Where is it???