Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition

This game is not without flaw. You are given a huge star system to explore, and no time to explore as you are constantly saving your colonies or saving neighbor worlds from destruction, and you need your precious officers to man those ships, and you need them AT HOME too to actually upgrade equipment and clear our unexplored rooms of your space station. And the 'ground combat' aspect feels kinda underused, you'll get plenty of space battles, but not nearly as many adventures with your crew beamed down to the planet's surface. And you've got an ever mounting enemy force at your back. For the record, be polite and helpful to your intergalactic neighbors whenever possible, they MIGHT, just MIGHT return the favor... maybe. BUT! This game is INSANELY addictive! I started in the evening then played till dawn, fell asleep, woke up in the afternoon, and began playing again almost right away! There is always just ONE. MORE. MISSION. And JUST. ONE. MORE. MISSION. to complete will keep you hook to the finale. HEAL EFFECTS ARE FINITE AND YOU NEED TO RETURN TO BASE TO RESTORE THEM! So be sure to have as many as you can, as this game pulls no punches! If I have one true regret, is that I wish there were more options to resolve situations without blowing up a trio of alien starships with living crews on board and resolve things peacefully.

This game is why I love GOG! I had never heard of this game and probably never would have played if it had not been on sale on this website. This is a fun game that takes aspects of several different games and matches them together very well. I would call it a 4k-lite, in that you don't get a ton of management but the game is non-stop action. Missions continually pop-up, many with time limits to make sure you have to choose whether to fight an enemy fleet or finish off some research to buff your ships. There is so much going on later in the game that it can almost get overwhelming - luckily the game time can be paused so you can plan out some strategy. The space and land combat are turn-based but the action, again, is quick and the fights only take about ten to fifteen minutes each. But with so many fights to be had, you can easily burn through hours of play and not even realize it. A very nice game, very addictive, and a lot of fun. I'm not sure its the type of game you would want to replay over and over several times in a row, but I think it will be a nice game to break out every once in a while and burn through several hours of your life...

Halcyon 6 somehow went under my radar until the Lightspeed Edition appeared. So, I cannot comment on how the game changed from the initial release to where it is now. My own experience tags it as an extremely competent tactical/management game hidden behind the layer of self-aware parody. There are a LOT of decisions and customization options. In between the strategic overlay, the station management panel, and battles hides a plethora of choices. On higher difficulties the game becomes very much something to appeal to the most demanding min-maxer, as the choice of captains' classes, ship chasis, equipment loadout, and active abilities make or break a particular engagement. If you are looking for a more casual pace, though, fear not - the default difficult will (mostly) let you make plenty of sub-optimal decisions, and generally came out of it without too much lost. Except for the Greenshirts. The pixel-graphics are well made. I'm not overly a fan of the approach (despite having grown up on ye olde games I find no particular sentiment toward low resolution, stylized or not), but it is clear a lot of work went into the high polish of the presentation. The gameplay is extremely engaging, and the replayability factor is very high. For the asking price, this is an excellent choice for any aficionado of tactical combat, with the added bonus of the management layer.

This game is a tasty goolash of gaming styles. You've got a little classic RPG, a little 4x, and a little RTS. What makes this game fun for me is the light hearted nature of narrative structure. Imagine your favorite space opera had a tongue and cheek sing-a-long musical episode, played by muppets, that was then cartoonishly pixilated, and made into a game. I got this game on sale. Worth it 6.5/10 (Review transferred from my steam account; 63.7hr of game play recorded)