The Last Federation

This game has many unique qualities, its fast and fun. But to say that it can compete with the likes of Gal Civ and Endless Space is so insane that one would have to be high to believe that. This game plays more like a space version of 30 second hero. You move with your mouse and either focus shot or auto-shot at whatever is nearest to you. Its turn based so that you are not overwhelmed and you are given time to think about where to move next, but the strategy options are extremely limited. Granted, I am trying to play the tutorial and what I mean by trying I mean to say that it is broken. You do a what it asked you to do then there are no more tips or guides. I don't know what to do next. I think I just opened up the tech tree options, but I cant select anything to research, and even if I did, I wouldn't understand what the benefits are. It SEEMS that for every tech benefit I would receive, my adversaries would receive bonuses as well. In fact, I am not even certain what the story is. I think I am the last of my race, I stole a space ship and now I am roaming the galaxy on 1 ship and based on that I am trying to rebuild a galactic federation. As I said on my title this games needs much more polish, a fantastic well thought out tutorial, and some major patching if its to carve any niche in a genre that only has room for the best of the best. This game will soon be forgotten. I can dig the 30 second hero in space, but you need a hell of a lot more to make this work.

Last Federation is a 4X game without all the micromanagement that is usually involved with shoot 'em up tactical combat. The strongest point of the game is the true diversity of the races and the better than usual diplomacy. Each race can effect others in different ways, some races are moved by money, some by voters and others by entirely different things. Every race will join the federation for different reasons. Tactical combat is a mix between space rangers and shoot em up. It serves it's purpose and is tactical enough but visually hard to follow. The biggest problem which affects all the aspects of the game is that it still needs a lot of refinement and polish: There are some small bugs here and there, effects of different actions aren't in any sensible balance with each other and the game pretty much forces you to fight tactical battles all the time. Also the grindy endgame is quite a disappointment after the very tense and tactical early game where every action matters. The actual Federation is in practice only a forced non-aggression pact and doesn't really make the members act in any unison and feels really artificial overall. It's fun to play as it is but you just can't help noticing that pretty much every edge is still rough.

A very original strategy game, relying mostly on indirect actions.

The last federation is an complicated experience that includes a lot of hysterical laughing outbourst of unconvienient violence and incoherent political satire. First of, you should never assume that you are the skylaxian. You are the aliens that rescue the lone skylaxian, an ancient alien race destroyed by warfare eons ago, who have escaped back in time to stop this universe from commiting suicide in madness and despair. The lone skylaxian is tired of being blackmailed by stupid alien ignorant races and wants you to save it, it comes in peace it says, but it will fight you in the beginning of the game because it is the game trying to tell you how to play it. This is weird and a bit confusing until you have realized that you, after the first fight, have captured the skylaxian and are indeed not the skylaxian but the alien race without a name that have rescued the skylaxian. So, this is how the game starts, and now you have the skylaxian and so you think you have the skylaxians tecnologies, because it gives these to you not, but you are able to access them in the in-game-menu. And so the game is you and you are now able to play it. You have accessed the game, and the game is pleased that you have been duped to believe that you alone with the skylaxian will help the universe. The game itself is confusing to say the least. The other alien races, with the exeption of the Andorans, the Peltians, the Enouxs, the Acutians will immediatly kill themselves and everything in existence if you allow them to run rampant. This is not wise. The Acutians is deadly, form an alliance with them first or they will annihilate everything while they themselves are lost in machine cityes of deadly gasclouds. They have excellent technologies. Me and my wife won the game seven times forming an alliance with all of the above not-so-insane alien races. Play them against eacother or they will kill themselves. The Burlons are ecellent suicide machines if used correctly. The Ewoks are stupid masqerading as more stupid. They will not make trouble if they believe they are alone, you can change their mindset not at all but you can echange technologies with them if you swallow serious camels of fury and trick them into believing that they are intelligent. You are good or you lose everything quite rapidly, you cannot construct armadillas (battleship-armies) even though the in-game-menu tells you that you can. The battles are boring with only point-and-click. This is stupid because it is genius. You spend a lot if time figuring out that autoplay is the only sane way to handle it but you will not win in this way. The game will trick you into believing that you have lost the skirmishes and so you will lose the game. You only win if you play the battles manually and this is boring as hell after the first playthrough. And so the game does not have much replayability, but the politics are hilarious and quite realistic we will say. My wife laughed her beautiful ass of while svearing intensely and cussing the bed while we played. The game is not finished as we see it, and so our rating is based on this. It crashes after you have found out the master trickery of the lone skylaxian who is not so alone after all, or is she? She is a lot like me my wife says, tired and angry with not enough sleep after having traveled 6 billion light years from the future to save the existence of madness and despair not, but having been tricked to believe she is alone not, but having believed she is in fact running from a groupmind of despair and madness when this is in fact not so, what is so you find out after playing it through one time while you laugh and six times while you swear and get confused by stupid glitches and immaculate stupid politics of which you can only win by helping no one in particular. You help the goverment of the planet, the Burlons is the most honest because they in fact say directly that they have an insane dictator while the other planets masqerade the dictator who you help behind the goverment, which is the case always is it not, the people who you want to help are totally fucked and unreacable on this 2D plane. You cannot reach them at all and when you realize that you are being used by big pharma politics you get angry and tired and want to smash the game in the wall while yelling: Fuck you stupid fucking alien abusers, you have fucked with my people for the last time, now I will smash everything that is evil but I cannot so more DCL is needed so this can be done and the in-game-menu needs to be fixed so that I can destroy the goverments and set the people free without incinerating them in poisonus gas clouds or bombing the planets out of orbit which is not a good long time solution because you have destroyed it. Civ has the same problem, you cannot reach the people after 1876 years have passed, and this is worse because you cannot reach them at all and they are suffering at the cost of insane big pharma politics that is stupid and ignorant and devoid of love. There is only hate in these strategy games, someone should heal this love cannot help without love being present in the first place. My wife and I choose love over hate everytime, but the games are not at the stage where this is possible so you end up smashing everything that is stupid everytime, in this game you cannot choose this option and still it happens by default and this creates only frustration which is stupid when one could laugh in joy ment. Firefly did this as well as Babylon 5 and Star Wars. The last federation kills itself in the try of being to smart for its own good. They should learn from these series, and create something that makes us laugh and not swear. The potential is there but it is sadly not fulfilled or funny in the long run. But the aliens are so stupid, just as stupid as the vorlons or the more stupid kretars or the insanely, deadly kotars, so you laugh a bit at them making asses of themselves while pretending to know anything at all about intergalactic relations. This is just one universe of many universes, someone should tell them this, they get buttfucked by the skylaxians everytime while you stand there confused, used, dazed. Laughing together made it possible for us to play it several times while figuring out that the game is constantly fucking you over without being challenging at all. It gets a four rating because with more DCL it is possible to do this, but the battles needs to be removed for the sake of sanity to be restored to the federation. You control an intergalactic alliance with one spacecraft, this confuses everyone involved because it is not possible. It is like Nixon in Futurama, he does not know he is just a head and so he gets confused everytime the robot looks at him and he yells: I am so stupid, I am not a head. I have to remind myself I am not a head, I am that robot, I am so stupid, so stupid, blargh. He is indeed stupid is he not, he is just a head believing he is a machine believing he is a head believing... well, that one spacecraft could indeed control an entire nation of planets. It is not possible so Bender yells: Fuck you stupid head and kills him. Bender is indeed wise, the skylaxians needs to be removed from the equation for the game to be good at all.

Play as a cunning Machiavellian space hydra who's role is to preserve civilization by assuring the formation of a peaceful federation, or the extinction of all the races you don't get along with. It's up to you, play it your way.