Yes, your Grace could have been great - if it had given the players more freedom in their decisions and a nicer story. There is nothing wrong with 'bad ends' in a story, if you fail in the empire management game. However, the problem is, that there are only 'bad ends' in the game. Even if you do really well, you basically arrive at a bad end - unless I have overlooked something. One of your daughters is killed no matter what, the other runs off, no matter what. Maybe the designers might want to do an expansion on their game which adds more freedom, gives actually different outcomes in response to your choices and adds a more lighthearted 'good' ending for all the fairytale do gooders out that who can't stand their daughter being gruesomely murdered. Which should be 99% of the customers ;)
The DLC adds several things that fans of FG1 will be happy about: (1) Aerial units. This was very important to me because in FG1 I liked to combine heavy infantry and air superiority units. Until now, you were basically forced to always play with the combination of slingers and melee units. Now, you can much more freely experiment with various army compositions. The aerial units become available in the middle of the campaign in a certain side mission. (2) Balancing of units & missions. You can see that there have been several changes to the existing units and missions. (3) In the procedural onslaught campaign you can choose from various generals now, which might be important to some fans of FG1. It adds a bit replayability. (4) There is still no research as in FG1, but it's not strictly neccessary. (5) There was a serious glitch, I could not move my units and had weird graphical artifacts until I reset my graphics & input settings. Because of the glitch I would actually have to deduct a star, because something like that should not happen. But since I like FG2 very much & hope that this will be patched soon, I'll stay with 5 stars.
Ignore the negative reviews, I had a blast. The blend of RPG, strategic map, tactical combat works really well together, nothing is too deep or too shallow. The dialogues & story are funny, the strategic game armchair emperor feeling, the units interesting. My only gripe is that the real time combat is cluncky. Selecting units is a bit difficult & the camera should point north in the beginning of combat. Also, mechanical troopers are not my thing, I want actual soldiers. So, maybe you could argue Dragon Commander should only get 4 stars. But since I liked the blend very much & feel the 1, 2 or 3 stars are honestly unjustified, I'll give it 5.
I think I'm right now in the middle of the campaign and it is really nice so far. Of course I like the stone hurling Trolls the best. Every game should have stone hurling Trolls ;) Fantasy General 2 has similar mechanics as the original, just with much nicer graphics & an actual story. Most people who liked the original should be fine with FG2. On the downside: You do not get to choose your general (you can customize him though) and you do not have research as in the original.
I own all three shadowrun games & this is the best. The shadowrun games are not perfect - the combat is a bit too straightforward/easy, the hacking mini-games are a bit too much arcade - but the world is nicely designed, the stories engaging, the choices fun. Really, the only thing I would prefer, if there were more choices, more moral gray zones, more storyline. It's perfect for people who like games with lots of RPG & story elements & a little of combat thrown in.
I had a blast with my friends in LAN. Sure, you are all the time yelling at them for getting caught. Then, you are being shot to pieces because you yourself botched the job. It's not perfect, but if you like to play in coop with your friends, try it. Pros: -Nice, "syndicate" athmosphere -good blend of stealth tactics & shooting, although I miss the impact of gauss cannons & miniguns in the original -decent background story Cons: -No missions/world conquest like in the original. You have an "open city" in which you can move freely. While that is not necessarily bad, it takes away the feeling of "world domination". -class choices are restricted. You always have to play with exactly one soldier, support, hacker, assassin. -brute force gameplay is not as fun as it used to be -story could be a bit fleshed out, but is ok Overall, nice sequel to syndicate, looking forward to more!
I'm a diehard master of orion fan. That being said, the current reboot is surely a work of love, but also fails in some departments. First and foremost, the graphics. I really love them. The Silicoid, the Meklar, the Mrrshan - they look exactly as they should. 10/10. However, there is also the department of game design. And here, several flaws enter that I have already observed in civ 5 and civ 6 & which I consider major steps back: (1) Racial traits. The races simply don't play as differently as the original races did. (2) Tactical combat. There is nothing wrong with the switch to real time combat. However, the game designers necessarily would also have to switch technologies & weapons to account for that. In original turn based combat I could look up the impact of every single missile, plan carefully when to fire at what shield arc etc. Now, we have real time & I simply cannot judge whether missiles, beam weapons, torpedoes etc. do the better job. Here the designers would have had to be more audacious & redesign the whole tech tree. (3) Exploration. Since there is no fuel range, you can explore the whole galaxy from the beginning. Which takes away a lot of that "whats lurking around the next corner?" feeling, because you quickly know everything there is. (4) Colonization. It's sad that the original moo1 techs to colonize subsequently more and more hazardous planets & terraform it was replaced by the rather boring "catch all" colony base & terraforming. There is a lot of "builder" feeling going to waste. (5) Espionage. You get a limited amount of spies similar to civ 5/6. Seriously? Even moo2 was more indepth than that. It's a boardgame inspired mechanic & doesn't reflect grand strategy. (5) Star lanes. It's ok I guess, but results in a "board game" feeling & takes away the "grand empire" feeling. Altogether, I think moo cts is a good groundwork from the technical side. A sequel that redesigns the actual gameplay, racial traits, weaponry, tactical combat might be much more than just nice graphics.
