This game is unique in many ways. I have bought it nearly 10 years ago, when it already felt more complete than many other early access games. Since then, the small team of committed developers have continuously worked on this project, and realized many of the milestones that I admittedly was sceptical of ever seeing implemented. With this track record, I am now willing to believe what the Devs see dawning at the horizon of the future of this game, and I am truly ecstatic about the future of this title. The concept is simple. It is a hyper-realistic simulation of a zombie-outbreak, the Knox event, set in the early 90s. You start at a somewhat random point in a massive reconstruction of a collection of small towns and cities, with limited equiment. The rest is up to you. But your character will need to eat, drink, sleep, and entertain himself.. and not be bitten, obviously. From this, the fight for survival will result in unique nailbiter stories. You might find yourself hiding in the relative safety of an office bathroom, with fewbullets left, injured, waiting for a horde to pass. Food is quickly eaten, and, since water has been shut off days ago, you will have to drink from the toilets. After three nights of reading magazines and munching pills to keep a 'positive' mindset, you risk an escape. As you traverse the quiet office cubicles, an infected shuffles out of a corner towards you. Instinctively you shoot him in the head, neutralizing the threat. But now you realize what you have done, as the murmurs throughout the building awaken. Dashing toward the nearest broken window seems like the best option - you jump through, cutting your foot in the process. You limp toward the street, which thankfully is empty. You try the nearest car with the key you found in the office, hoping for a bit of luck, as your foot is in no state to walk home. But fortune is not on your side, the car alarm goes off. As you quickly look for your next hiding spot, the treeline stirs..
Shadow Empire is a wargame. The UI is a bit klunky, yes, but it just offers detail into every nook and cranny of the mechanics there are. The learning curve is steep, but not more so than older Paradox games for ex. EU 3 and HOI2. Every game you play is on a different planet, effectively redrawing the classic rock, paper, scissor paradigm a little bit. That makes it fun and challenging every time you play. ..If you are a hardcore wargame-enthusiast that is.. Personally, I like to explore the narrative these types of games unfold in their randomness. And this is what got me to buy the game in the first place. Not the battalion-commanding min-maxing strategizing - that is something that Hearts of Iron has already done - but exploring the world, the civilizations that are my neighbours, and immersing myself in the role of the leader of those who are left after the galactic apocalypse. This is where SE feels like a let down. Most of the flavor is so shoddily done, it seems like a really uninspired attempt to cover the cleverly thought-out mechanics in a necessary context. You'll find random brothels (morale bonus) in an otherwise inhospitable ice-desert, you can give generals 'little autistic men' to whisper tips in their ears, just two examples. Any bit of immersion you can still hold onto despite these absurdities is then killed by a godawful number of typos and grammatical errors throughout the game. Your scientists report they came up with the fantastic idea of the propellor (not propeller), and a classic one I have to read in my reports every damn turn is how my workers left 'pubic' employment. All this is a pity, because good writing could be used to elegantly flavour the regime styles differently. Similarly, the art is just horrible, why were these ugly renderings of people in superhero-capes even made? The hardcore wargamer will not waste a thought about any of this, granted. Personally, it just lacks too much on the immersion side to be truly enjoyable.
