So...this is a difficult one to write. The last station is a bit like a Mcdonald's happy meal: bright, enjoyable while it lasts, but liable to leave a nasty taste in your mouth and a lack of fibre in your gaming diet. It's one of those of games that *a certain kind of gamer* will delight in, as it throws almost every genre cliche you can think of at you, without really trying to tie them together in a satisfying manner. You get: zombies; giant mechs; alien invasions; black goo (scully!); conspiracies; and the possibility that 'it's all actually a dream'. Taking place on an unnamed planet that is a bit like, but not actually, earth (two moons in the sky!), you're a train conductor tasked with getting various cargos to stations while the world around you undergoes its second 'visitation' and is peppered with pods from (space? the govt? Ronald McDonald?) that release a gas (black goo? the 'blight' from the clockwork century novels?) that turns people into (zombies? shamblers? failures of evolution?). The gameplay consists of 2 phases: on the train, you try to keep your passengers alive with medicine and food, all the while bashing buttons to keep the train going. Off the train, you advance, gun in hand, to try to scavenge the essential pin code that will unlock the next bit of track for your train, all the while blasting *zombies* and collecting weps and ammo. The graphics are pixelated, but have some nice parallax background vistas that do a good job of conveying the vast distances the train is meant to be voyaging over. In the beginning, the two sections mesh nicely together, and you slowly get new weps and upgrades from grateful passengers if you keep them alive. However, you reach a ceiling about half way through, and the previously enjoyable zombie blasting becomes a bit wrote, because - if you're like me - you're dying to see where the story goes. And as the hours (about 4-5) tick away, you realise...absolutely nowhere. Graphics 4/5, Gameplay 3/5, Story...1
Perhaps if this game gets a bit of a tidy-up in its graphics and text, it'll rate a bit more, but the main problem with it is that there's really not enough here to justify hanging around. As a big fan of PKD, it's fun to see characters spout off little obscure bits and bobs from his life, but after a while it begins to feel very cliquey - like 'oh, so you don't get the joke/reference?'. For the record, I think I got them all (!), but the lasting experience was one of insularisation - it didn't open up aspects of PKD's life and work to people unfamiliar with it, instead it just made it seem like a 6th formers idea of having to out-do other folks with their intimate knowledge of the subject. Not much fun.
Fact: You'll always find the wingnut brigade out in full force when folks make a game that touches on global warming. Sad to see that so many seem to hang out on GOG. Also...Fact: This is a game that's hard to really like, as, like a number of other reviewers, I have problems with the pacing between the calm exploration - fun - and the boss fights - clunky. I like the art style a lot, though, and if you're happy enough to get your kicks from the joy of new screens and locations, you'll get something out of this. Trigger happy folks - and wingnuts - should stay away, though. Chin chin!
Unfortunately, whether you have a Mac or a PC, the infamous bug is still there. If you try to play through and not save, the autosave will get you anyway, so there's no way out...On a Mac it's a real pain trying to unpick the DOSBOX stuff from the .app files, so until GOG pull their fingers out, I can't recommend you spend your dosh on this one. Nice intro, though.
While clunky at times, this is a quality title that allows one to be immersed in massive battles that effectively get across the sprawling nature of late WWII conflicts. You can blow up pretty much everything, and the engine copes pretty well in allowing you to blaze your own path of destruction through almost everything on screen. A very playable game, and one that rewards repeated run-throughs to try out different tactics. ps. The big hullaballoo over the game art is a bit of a storm in a teacup. There were multiple versions of the cover art, dependent on where the game was sold. So to claim that the 'original game art' is being replaced is nonsense. Particularly ironic that we have so many russians complaining, as the developers were from the Ukraine in the first place...I doubt they'd want a US flag, but I bet they're happy there isn't a Soviet one there, either...
I first encountered this game from the long-lost and lamented 'Home of the Underdogs'. While completely different in its game mechanics and feel, I'd rate this alongside 'Alpha Centauri' mainly because of it's fierce originality and attention to detail. Alpha Centauri does the tech trees and exploration better - but Imperialism truly recreates the land grab and bullying of the 19th century. A very interesting game that should be played at least once by everyone.
This is a game that seems designed to give indie fanboys sticky messes in their boxers. Just like the writers of 'Lost', the game designers have delivered an incoherent plot that just begs for 'interpretation' by people with too much time on their hands. The gameplay...well, that's pretty decent, and the whole package is drenched in Cactus' psychedelic style - but for the money, I'd rather spend my money elsewhere.
