Master of Orion

It could have been great if the devs didn't choose to dumb-down certain aspect of the game : - Transports have disappeared, now goods magicaly distributes themselves among your planets. - Movement now uses Starlanes, your ships can only follow space rails. Also, the tactical fleet combat in this game are dull and lame.

I've been a huge fan of MOO2 since the good old days when legendary games like this were being made, and before I heard of the new Master of Orion: Conquer the Stars I would still fire up MOO2 every now and then, because it was that good. I bought the new MOO recently when it was on sale, after reading the many negative reviews on GOG about how mediocre and CIV-like it was. I actually went and read the patch notes in the months after the game's release, the latest one being version 55.1.2.1.40421, and decided to see if it was as bad as the reviews say. I was pleasantly surprised. After playing through one whole game (all the way until I had my butt handed to me, I will go into this in more detail later), I personally think that this is MOO 2.5 as it felt like I was playing MOO2, except with AAA graphics, refined mechanics and most importantly, that same experience faithfully preserved. Now, onto my game session that left me gawking, not to mention embarrassed. I played as the Humans as I just wanted to jump right into the game without spending all that time fiddling around with the custom race creation. For the first 400 turns, things appeared to be going fine for my ten or so colonies spread out across six star systems, though the other four AI opponents were waging war against each other. I set the population growth rate to Normal, which made for a longer drawn-out game. The Meklar Combine was out-producing every other race, had better technology and wiped out the Darlok and Bulrathi races. I had two fully-upgraded titans that I had planned on taking to the Orion system so I can try and defeat the Guardian and get the Death Ray weapon. Once my titans left for uncharted space, the Meklar declared war on me and took out two of my colonies with dozens of cruisers, frigates and destroyers. I then ordered my titans back home, but they too got wiped out by the same invading fleet. The End. Best MOO game ever since classic MOO2. Damn you, Meklar Combine. Damn you!!

great sequeal to some very old school games

When I first started computer gaming, I played Master of Orion, the original 16-bit graphics version. It was amazing. This game captures the style of that game, but incorporates elements from the classic Master of Orion 2. A fine and worthy successor to MOO2, vs. that Master of Orion 3. And the personalities. Mark Hamill and Alan Tudyk really work well in this.

I liked it. It was very much like the original and second, but graphics greatly improved. You still have an option of controlling your fleets during battle or watch them fight on their own, which I did enjoy watching. It's pretty easy to play and a very simple 4X type game. Could it be better? Yes, but it wouldn't be like the originals. The only downside is, I cannot run it on mac as it does not run with apple's new silicon.