Master of Orion

Love the game, took me back to the original (moo2), same feel with much better graphics, making it more immersive. But, virtual memory going in to overload. I am not the only one - has been addressed on a few other forums. Seems like it mainly happens to machines on the lower end of the specs. I'll have to leave the game until i upgrade my pc. Thought that i would hate the GNN news robots, but turned out to be a very entertaining part. Well done on a great resurrection, need to work on memory issues or possibly raise the minimum specs.

Much of the reviews are about the EULA and multiplayer, which to be honest, I care little about. All I was interested in was the single player game. It's been a long time since I played the originals, so I can't compare the mechanics or other aspects from memory. However, this reboot of Master of Orion kept me engaged and I enjoyed the main campaign. The interface was easy to use and understand, the graphics were fine, and the gameplay was both smooth and without any problems that I noticed. There certainly weren't any bugs or crashes during my playing experience through various saves. There were some initial frustrations with aspects of the game, but those were all resolved by making selection preferences in the game options menus, before starting a new session, which helped me to set out the kind of game I wanted to play. This allows for creating a campaigns that are relaxed and at a steady pace, or which are highly challenging with settings that are difficult to beat. Such options for customising gameplay are always welcome. Overall, it could be considered a little steep when it comes to the normal retail price listed on GoG, but I got it for free during one of the offers around Christmas. Were I to have paid for it, given that it had been sat on my wishlist for some time, then I would say that anything up to €10 is probably a fair price. There's additional DLC content available, which is perhaps the only reason I didn't give this a five-star rating, because it would have been better to have available in the core game.

This game comes over as a smoothed out,and for the casual gamer simplified version of older MOO`s with influences of CivV written all over it. The UI is intuitive and the grafics are ok for a 2016 game but imho for example the older GalCivII looks better. Compared to classic 4x games like Pax Imperia or Imperium Galactica this game is shallow and can only score point with better grafics.

I unlocked this game for free only a few days ago, so bear in mind that my review is based on the quality of the game itself, rather than whether or not it's worth the asking price. This game is fun. However, it lacks the depth necessary for it to be truly engaging. It's turn-based strategy lite. As I'm writing this review, Master of Orion is on sale, with 50% off (£11.59). At such a price, I would argue that it's worth the purchase. However, at its regular price (£22.99), I would hesitate. If the asking price decreases below £15, or the game goes on sale, I would recommend it to people attempting to break into the 4X strategy genre. If you've played numerous 4X games before playing his one, I would say that it's not worth your time.

As a fan of MOO 2 for 20 years, I really enjoy this game (once I installed UCP and 5X - The Ultimate Balance Mod ;-) ). The game has really appealing graphics and voice acting, it feels like MOO and even adds some improvements to the formula (realtime fights being one of them). With mods, this game exactly fits the sweet-spot of the original… And this makes the only problem with it that much bitter - game is extremely unoptimized by towards the end (after about turn 200) - even on medium galaxy sizes turns start taking more and more time, easily reaching into a minute of calculation on a 4-core I7 (yet still utilizing just 1 core). Seriously, I would pay double the full price again if only they optimize it (and maybe add even more modability support? ).