I was playing some Civ 5 one day when I decided to purchase this new MOO game when there was a sale. But was immediately struck by how similar parts of the game are to Civ 5. The diplomacy screen is like a carbon copy of the Civ 5 screen with the two boxes to put in what you wish to barter for alongside the backdrop that has a fully animated character responding to your proposals. The game even feels like it rolls out at a similar pace to Civ 5. You no longer have to research greater travel distances so you can jet around the galaxy at will. This is like your scouts from Civ and similarly you spend much of your early turns just roaming around. The things you research and build are very similar to MOO 2. Every MOO game has some big annoyances (like food/freighter fleets of MOO 2). This one comes from money. It seems that you are always having trouble with your cash flow, so much that I would not even build all my structures on planets to counter the constant cost they have. The computer also has this problem. Forming trading and research deals is many times impossible because they are broke. The game is not bad but it can be difficult to recommend in the end when people have easy access to MOO 1 & 2. Both still play perfectly fine. This game also has something I don't like from Civ 5 and that is how much the game slows down as you play. Managing a large galaxy can become annoying and turns can take forever. After playing for a couple hours I do not expect to load it up again for my MOO fix.
I love the original Majesty. I play it over and over again even though I've beaten it so many times. I was so excited for this sequel. It does have some good. The new graphics look good, although I think some units look less inspired than the previous game. The voice and comedy are still around. But the heroes never seem to do anything but run away. You never seem to have enough money for all the flags. And one of the things that frustrated me the most was that the game seems to have hidden trigger points in its levels, like when you build a certain building or have a certain number of heroes, that when this trigger is hit the game sends a horde of enemies at you. So many hordes all the time. Eventually I just got tired of this.
