Firstly, I'm not a geo-political gamer beyond this game or perhaps the civ franchise. Like civ, you take a country and manage it. You can be a peaceful player simply trying to reform your economic system and quality of life. Conversely, you can be a war monger, stage false flag attacks (hard to do though), and nuke everything. Unlike civ, you are given a real world country based on 2001 CIA statistics. You can pick literally any UN recognized country from 2001. I enjoy this game more than civ so far. It's scratched an itch for detail on economics and combat that civ glossed over. It's also real-time, which is a plus for me. So here's a little example of a game where I just F'd around... -Start as US. -Play seriously at first. -Turn economy and national deficit around by taxing all trade 35%. -Lower income tax to please populous. -Not much going on so just poke around looking at all the stats of countries. -See India and Pakistan don't like each other. -Send covert ops to try and frame India for terrorism against Paki. -Doesn't work, both don't like me now. -Mexico's shape is annoying, decide to invade. -Tens of thousands of Mexican personnel are obliterated at an intense border battle. -Annex Mexico and make speaking Spanish illegal (moral here?) -Everyone doesn't like me now. Send cultural exchange treaties to smooth relations. -Everyone settles down, they move on to liking me or dealing with regional conflicts. -Decide to nuke Canada. -NATO declares war on US and sends counter nukes. -Lose control of Midwestern states in rebellion. -Declare martial law. -Send thousands of nukes to pepper NATO. -Start new game as Malta. Tutorials are decent and there's some good vids on youtube. Adjust resolution by going into game file location, video config, enter desired res, hit play (stupid, but not a big deal now that you know). 5/5 with some imagination.
I've spent many hours creating on Spore and the modelling on it played a part in my pursuit of CADD later in life. I find myself coming back to it occasionally and decided to get it on sale here to avoid Origin. However, GOG seems to be bent on making people use the Galaxy app more and more with games. This, I believe, is causing issues with my ability to play Galactic Adventures on Spore. It seems to work rarely, and I have no trouble logging into EA Spore servers or doing any other online function like sharing... BUT, GA is inaccessible with the icons/buttons to play and create grayed out 90% of the time. Fortunately, there is still tons to do, but GA is arguably one of the coolest features of the game. The game would get 5 stars, but the limitation from GOG Galaxy puts it to a very gracious 3. The whole point of GOG for me is to get away from DRM garbage. Luckily, I wait for sales so the investment (or loss) is not significant should I discover strings attached. I recommend doing the same.
Well, the good ol days of not needing some online BS (gog galaxy) to play a MFing game is over. So, I install prison architect, hit 'play' and nothing happens. So I download the 'offline' files that are no longer default with any of the games on this site. As I'm installing the offline files, a message pops up saying the file is corrupted. I re-download and try to reinstall the offline file with the same result. Listen close GOG... NOBODY wants to be tethered to some stupid online client to play their otherwise offline games. This garbage is a total hindrance and will suicide your company that caters to people that appreciate the simpler days of good games that didn't require some nebulous middle man. I'm a power customer here with 40+ games and this is the last one I get. I can use steam if I want the aggravation of an Orwellian DRM nose up my butt 24/7. At least then I probably wouldn't get a half-baked product for the irritation. Take a note from literally everyone that is fed-up with these monolithic companies milking the gaming industry to death. Somebody else will jump on the hole in the market that all these companies created by alienating customers. Or, people will simply pirate what they want. I gladly gave you guys money in the past because your company had good titles, deals, and delivery. Now, you have none because the system makes the games unplayable in any capacity.
Amazing. I haven't been this immersed in a game since I landed on the Mun for the 1st time in KSP. It's nothing short of a masterpiece and is prophetic in ways... keep in mind the game was made in 2014. Let me tell you about my first game... I played through the tutorials which were fairly boring, but interesting none-the-less. I watched a couple youtube videos also just to see people start a game. Feeling ready after all the hype in the reviews and doing my due diligence on learning, I hit 'introductory game'. It starts me as a random race of crab people... I decide to roll with it even if it's weird. I normally like playing human to discover the other weirdo races, but whatever. I move out of my home system, colonizing water worlds and living in submerged caves. Sometimes deep sea creatures attack my new colonies and set them back. Space pirates also abound, so I pay a band of pirates to protect me and deliver resources I haven't found yet. Ironically, I discover humans nearby building their own empire... they don't much like me since I'm so close and different. Eventually war ensues. I enslave them after a protracted war and taking most of their territory. As a gesture of good-will, knowing they are no longer a threat, I free them from servitude. I am now the largest empire and have no hope of managing everything myself. I automate all but the biggest decisions like trade, war, and espionage. An insectoid race is quickly progressing near me and is funding pirate raids against us, so my advisers tell me we should go to war. I form an alliance among the other aquatic beings and after a long, intense battle they submit a deal. Victory at last! I met the race specific victory conditions and click ok. But the game continues... a new empire emerges on the outskirts of the galaxy... then I remember all the desolate ruins and even ships I salvaged from ancient battles. I remember the cryptic messages and warnings... The game I thought I won was just beginning. Get it.
This game is one I probably would like if I had the time a patience for it. However, it is undoubtedly a game that is pretty much limited to people that have a summer to burn. It's graphics and ship designs are so bland and mish-mashed that I bring it up even though I generally dislike reviews that put emphasis on graphics. It's just a hard game to get captivated by. It's incredibly slow, tedious, aesthetically dull, and unlike many space games the universe feels dead. A lot of people say you should pause the game all the time to send orders, etc. I don't want to play a game were I am constantly pausing to keep up. Bottom line, just not an immersive game or atmosphere that takes getting Stockholm syndrome to enjoy.
Like all the other reviews, this game is simply amazing and only it's sequel is on par (even then, plenty of people find EE1 superior). My only addition to other 5 star reviews is to get the Royal Champions mod/patch. It adds numerous types of randomly generated map styles, a few additional units, a few graphical improvements (nuke cloud), and resolution support for higher-res. Works on Win10 flawlessly.
Pros: * 4 distinct regions each with their own music/units/buildings/powers. * More options than EE1 by a long shot. * Ambient weather/seasons. * AI is not nearly as horrendous as EE1. Can be fine tuned. * Tech points are not resource based. * No tediously upgrading each unit. * Still graphically pleasing. * Future eras are way more believable than EE1. Cons (kind of): * Steep learning curve even for EE1 vets. With more options/mechanics comes more things to learn. * Territory mechanic forces land grab immediately, but I don't mind. I like that it forces progression and feels realistic in a way. Was annoying at first. * No prophets :( They were fun in EE1, but I can see why they felt them out. * Lots of different resource types. This is good though as it forces players that tech-up to retool their economy and allows time for others to catch up. You'll have to weigh teching up if you don't have a decent standing army already. Again, learning curve. * Feels more cramped on the maps than EE1. This is in part because of the way each building/unit exit is oriented. Once you figure it out, you can cram them together. Plus the borders force people near each-other fast. Again, I don't mind it; it's just different than EE1. All in all, a extremely solid game that is unmatched with the exception of perhaps the original in a few ways. Get it and install the unofficial patch 1.5. Adds resolution support, bug fixes, optional units (ballistic subs), etc. Good ol game if there ever was one.
Like Empire Earth, but want more diverse civilizations? That pretty much sums it up! This game takes the good things from Empire Earth and builds upon them. It also cuts some of the tedious and bloated features from the Empire Earth series. There are less types of resources to mine, which affords you more time to fight and requires less to eco. It also boasts very unique abilities and appearances between the national factions. The units are also nation specific and true to history in appearance. The resolution will need to be adjusted, however, to fit modern monitors properly. Hold the windows button+r, search 'regedit' and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareSSSIEmpires look for the keys 'Game Window Height' and 'Game Window Width', change them to 'decimal' 900 and decimal 1440 (for 1440x900, but you can do whatever) and thats it. Aside from that, it seems to run just fine on win7. Overall, this game is more competitive and more fun than Empire Earth, imo. Not by much, but it's enough to justify the price point. The AI in EE1 is abysmal, so this also wins handily in single player. EE2's AI is much better, but I personally dislike the borders mechanic they introduced. Anyway, EDOMW has ten levels of difficulty which makes tuning it to your level much easier than EE. THE ONLY CON IS IT GOES FROM MEDIEVAL TO WWII ONLY, but it does a great job with those eras. If you like RTS games, this is one to get! Do it!
Initially, it did not work on win10, but after altering the conquest.ini file per instructions on the gog forum and youtube, it works great so far. Loved this game in middle school back when the graphics were too much for my cruddy PC. Now I can play on those huge maps, lol.
