Absolutely great reboot of the X-com series that 'dumbed' it down to just about a perfect balance of keeping the best elements of the original, jettisoning the flotsam, and updating everything to modern capabilities.
To Quote G'Kar - "By G'Quan, I can't recall the last time I was in a fight like that. No moral ambiguity, no .. hopeless battle against ancient and overwhelming forces. They were the bad guys, as you say, we were the good guys. And they made a very satisfying thump when they hit the floor." Torchlight is just *Fun*. Cartoonishly, violently, 'look Ma I'm carrying a hand cannon no I don't mean a big pistol I mean a large magitech handheld howitzer' *Fun*. If you're looking for a character driven RPG, hey, they have Morrowind, Baldurs Gate, Neverwinter Nights et al.. If you're looking for a depressing plot, Diablo. If you want kill with cartoonish mayhem, I believe we have you covered.
It's probably a bad idea to write a review because you happen to deeply disagree with a negative review. Like the man said "I am therefore going anyway.". It's not a perfect game - it is true that, barring exceptionally bad luck, playing on the 'Even' level (as I habitually do in most games) with neither bonuses nor handicaps you are pretty certain to win. And like many 4X games the perfectionist emperor will find himself going through many colonies to make sure they are built in the 'ideal' fashion and not building sections out of order. That said, the only slightly less perfectionist tyrant can get to 'pretty efficient' with only minimal setting of priorities and ordering of build queues. The rest of the game is Amazing. Not perfect - space is still a 2 dimensional chessboard. But the AI's have their own strategies, personalities, and styles, and can react in unexpected ways. They will happily ally with you and plot against you as fits their long term goals. And it's *fun*. Ship Building, Cinematic Battles, huge galaxies, occasionally finding precursor technology, a karma system, even a way to store ship design from game to game. Perfect? Nah. Worthy? Absolutely.
Four Stars . . . because I'm reserving Five Stars for the successor which managed to improve on this game. Except for the campaigns, so, yeah, Five Stars. This game is brilliantly done - separate fun campaigns for each of six empires, graphics, I can't say 'Complete' implementation of the Starfleet Battles ruleset, but the only major missing item is sadly 'Reverse', good graphics, and sufficiently easy to mod that great new campaigns were added. I highly recommend! I hope they add Star Fleet Command II and Orion Pirates (Which added a lot of additional weapons et al and improve the graphics marginally) shortly (or they're here and I haven't noticed yet? Please?)
GOG added Alien Crossfire two days ago. Alien Crossfire added CD-ROM requirements originally. With that addition - this game is well worth it! So Very *Very* Worth it now! If anyone needs me I'll be nerve stapling the peasants.
