Master of Orion

Overall the game play is fun. A good MOO succesor since MOO2. Not sure if it tops MOO2 but defintily better than MOO3. I saw a bunch of moaning about DRM for Online play. Only reason to complain is you want one copy to play with multiple friends. Seriously thats not DRM thats being cheap.

This sure brings me back. I tried it without the Revenge of Antares first and I really like being playing Master of Orion again. So much technology to research and so many ways to play the game. You can design your own ships and manage the colonies you have in the galaxy. This game just keeps me playing for hours and hours. I also like how you got so many options, like letting a planet "auto-build", although its much better to control it yourself. I also soon found out that at least in the early game, you really have to make sure to remove buildings you do not need anymore. Some complain about the multi-player having DRM. I cannot real see this as a reason to complain though. GoG is not trying to encourage piracy or sharing games with your friends. Many seem to be complaining about this, because they then cannot play with their friends. I can understand how it would be nice if you could just connect with friends over your IP, but multi-player is really not something we can expect to be DRM free in that way. The game has no copy protection, that is the kind of DRM I do not want in my games. Its not even really DRM, it just uses a server to connect players. It sure is nice to be able to conquer the galaxy again. Few changes have been made. For me the "pathways" gives more strategic options in the game. After getting the expansion I also had a battle with the Antarens, two fleets of more than 400 ships going at it. Awesome stuff :)

After the abysmal farce that was MoO3, I have waited patiently for a next installment in the franchise. This game has satisfied, and exceeded, my (very critical) expectations. From the impeccable score, reminiscent of the first two games, to the absolutely gorgeous and immersive graphics situating you within a dreamy star system of your own build... this game is just plain impressive. I had been an enormous fan of this franchise, having played MoO and MoO2 20 years ago, and as such, was understandably worried about this one. In particular I had been concerned about (one of my absolute favourite aspects of MoO2) the ability to customize ships... but—while it is a pared-down version to be sure—I am still able to fill my ships to the brim with computers and beam weapons... even mitigate space concerns with the all-powerful Battle Pods!!! :) The movement and map itself is a little different than old-school MoO games, but it does actually provide a decent (and ongoing) use for your Scout ships... which is great. The interface is intuitive, the tech-tree is WONDERFULLY colour-coded for ease of use, and the addition of the cell-based civilian allocation is really, really neat! It'll have you laughing at the irreverent humour, smiling at the polish and production value, and just plain enjoying the anticipation of... ONE MORE TURN!!!!!

If you liked playing the original Master of Orion, you'll like this game. When I first started playing it I didn't like how they'd changed it. After playing it, I think they changed it for the better. I've always liked MOO 1 better than MOO 2. 2 It felt too building centric and it felt bogged down compared to the first one. This one does have buildings, but it doesn't feel as bogged down as 2. With this one they took the good things from MOO 2 and combined them with the good things from MOO 1. I found myself getting sucked into the game just like I did 20 years ago. The animations are pretty good. They are true to the original species. I turned the voice acting off. It's good, but it gets repetitive. The ship building is a little simplified and streamlined, but complicated enough to create your own ships. They put in a system of nodes so you can create choke points. It felt weird at first, but I like it. That's the thing with this game. It's its own game, but it is true to Master of Orion. The combat is ok. I just find myself putting it on auto though and watching it happen. I haven't really found many space combat games that lend themselves to real strategy. Even in Homeworld you just pick which guys to have your ships attack. That's kind of what it's like here. The animations and sound effects do look pretty cool. The lasers and missiles and explosions make it look like a real space battle. You can tell that they spent a lot of time working on the interface to figure out how to streamline managing your colonies. It works pretty well. You can automate what you want, but easily have control of what you want. I promise you will not be disappointed like with Master of Orion 3. Yuck. It's not just an update of the original game (which I would like because using DOSBOX for it kind of sucks.) It is its own game, but it does it very well and I am very happy I bought the game. I've been a long time fan of Master of Orion and I'm glad they made this game.

So, on the plus side: this does provides entertainment value, in the respect, that you can point and laugh at how bad it is. Now to the actual review: Banking on nostalgia, half baked, lazy cash grab. Not living up to a game released (!)two decades(!) ago in graphics, design or game-play. DRM locked garbage, selling you HALF of a crappy, lazy MOO2 remake and shipping the rest in separate DLCs (I kid you not - the only thing they could've done worse, would be cutting everything after the plasma cannons and leaving you battling with lasers only, before you buy an extra game pack) Oh, and don't forget: it's called MOO. Not MOO4 or Master of Andromeda or whatever. Just MOO. Lol. AND the DLCs are of course named MOO: Origins, MOO: Revelations, MOO: Revolutions, MOO: Armageddon, MOO: Shadow of Meklon, MOO: Rise of Sol, etc. ROFL. Subtitles are so rad. :facepalm: This game is a perfect illustration on EVERYTHING that is wrong with the industry, step by step. Oh. And it has "achievements", because of course it does, we all are in kindergarten and in need of a golden star for every click we make, right? LMAO.