Seeing this game on GOG gives me some nasty flashbacks! As much as I'd want to recommend 7.62, I simply cannot. A list should tell you as to why... GOOD - Incredible tactical depth on par with modern builds of JA2 1.13 - Full bullet physics, cover penetration etc. Every bullet is tracked, not just every magazine - Tons of gun, attachments, ammo types etc. - You can record multiple actions in advance for every merc, allowing for coordinated maneuvers. Unpolished but it works... most of the time - Fairly competent enemy AI BAD - Unstable, crashy, corrupts your savefiles too - Too many bugs to even keep track of - A camera and UI you have to fight all the time - Constant issues with pathfinding that will and does get people killed. Your mercs also get stuck on objects all too often - Buggy hitboxes, unreliable LoS preview, "I have a clean shot" but hit the wall instead - Enemies can clip into walls and rocks, making them essentially bulletproof - Enemies can shoot you through solid cover such as cliffsides. Wish I was joking here! - Mercs don't always follow their orders or even step out of cover for no reason - Wonky and sometimes unbalanced reaction times (hip fire and grenade throws for instance) in a combat system were every millisecond counts - The majority of injuries tend to be crippling despite wearing body armor even if the merc doesn't bleed out right away. Also: shot = shocked = unable to act or move = guaranteed death - Medical bills at a hospital are in the tens of thousands. Early missions pay about 3000 tops, maybe? Selling vendor trash barely pays for anything - And the list goes on and on... Ultimately, I think it comes down to absolutely punishing difficulty for oftentimes the wrong reasons. Which really is a shame because the core game mechanics are there to make this one of the best tactical strategy titles out there. As it is right now? No way I could recommend it for $0.99 even. You WILL want to pull your own hair out playing this!
Disclaimer: I’m writing this from a perspective of an IG1 player. - Evolutionary improvements to every aspect of the game. I’d say the UI in particular has seen the greatest leap forward and is actually pleasant to use as opposed to getting in the way - Great attention to detail (3D models, animations, flavour text, easter eggs etc) - More detailed maps and more of them. They’ve also added tons of mission, vehicle and product variety, although only a select few may be available in many campaign missions - Career’s just as difficult as IG1 but less hectic since build-while-paused is now a thing - More direct control because resources on the map have replaced independent factories in fixed locations. Farms and the whole agricultural chain are a neat addition, too - Storage spaces are open-air warehouses with a visual representation of any given item stored within and in which quantity. They offer way more flexibility and less headache than IG1 with its need to use vehicles for even the shortest of transportation links. Here, you can “leap-frog” from provider of raw materials to factory to downtown store without a single vehicle if you’re smart about the catchment area. You can also allow or disallow the storage of certain items, as well as tweak the warehouse’s accessibility for consuming or delivering items on a per-building basis - Vehicle pathfinding seems more robust and less buggy. Repurposing vehicles can be done with some confidence - Relaxing soundtrack No game’s perfect, though: - Audio mixing is a mess. Some ambient effects are 3-4x the normal volume, as are most videos and the intro - Completely flat terrain, no terraforming, bridges only to span bodies of water in fixed locations - Large selection of raw materials, components and finished products can seem overwhelming - Some odd word choices and phrases in the English translation If you like IG1, chances are you’ll love IG2. Probably still one of the better business simulators on the market.
Disclaimer: played way more of the base game rather than Gold, so that’s mostly what I’ll be referring to. Pros: - Nice isometric presentation, cheesy mid-90s soundtrack - Fond childhood memories - Limited in scope and complexity, easy to learn, ~2h for each mission - Plenty of content with goals to work towards to. Three campaigns (easy, medium, hard) and about 30 standalone missions. There’s also the sandbox scenarios, of course - Excellent mental exercise since you’ll have to memorize every aspect of your company. Game does a poor job of providing you with data that’s actually relevant to parts of as opposed to the entire organization - The satisfaction when your plan(s) come together at the end of a mission. Tons of vehicles buzzing about like clockwork for that model railway feeling Cons: - Missions tend not to be relaxing at all. Very ambitious goals, rapid progression of time, the player’s inability to do much of anything while the game’s paused, little margin for error - Pathfinding is atrocious. Shared railway lines are usually just tempting fate (insufficient lookahead for reserving paths, no signals or waypoints, no alerts by the game in case anything goes wrong) and gridlocks are frequent because there can be only one truck (or civilian car!) in an intersection at any given time - No shared vehicles orders - Best not to switch vehicles to some other line by giving them a new set of orders. Can and will lead to game-breaking bugs (stuck vehicles, inaccessible terminals without obvious cause) - Feels as if the UI is fighting you at every step of the way. Terraforming, building and vehicle selection… everything’s clunky - Terminal placement is a consistent headache because of very limited capacity, too-close restrictions and the need to work around catchment areas. Everything but the simplest of industries needs multiple terminals for delivery and pickups I’d probably recommend IG2 instead. Same game mechanics but much, much more polished and refined.
Bought Haegemonia on sale and came away pleasantly surprised! I think it holds up quite well in 2022. Pros - Focus on space combat with simplified colony management - Nice visuals, great attention to detail, good soundtrack and -scape - True 3D environment for flanking or surprise attacks from outside your opponent's sensor range, though most planetary bodies and other objects are on a single plane anyway - Well-paced campaign, quirky characters, plot engaging enough to keep one invested - Persistent assets between missions: research, squadrons, heroes and (occasionally) entire colonies, so you’re not always starting from scratch - Story characters as well as random RPCs can be recruited as part of the hero system, providing various bonuses at their post. There are either soldiers or colonial governors and gain EXP independently - Though choices need to be made over the course of any campaign. Must specialize in research, and only so many squadrons and heroes can come along for next mission. Who and what to leave behind? - Spy system adds another layer on top of combat. Recon, intelligence gathering, sabotage, grabbing blueprints etc. Very powerful once leveled up Cons: - Only through DXWnd was I able to get the game running properly - Overall unit cap is way, way too strict for a RTS. Thankfully, this can be modded - Discrepancy between green and high EXP units/heroes seems excessive - Sieges take way to long without heavy emphasis on pop killer tech, while the rate of production is extreme by comparison. Intense spam of orbital dry docks can easily get out of hand without earmarking half the invasion fleet just to their destruction. And that’s only for one planet! - Very worthwhile UI and gameplay changes in TSH aren’t available in the base game
So far I like the game, but the GOG version seems to have a couple of technical problems. Well, or at least on my system: * Widescreen resolutions are supported by the wrapper, but it cuts off the top as well as bottom part of the HUD. Can't see any of my flyer's controls at a glance which is kinda important! * There's a slider for music, but it only affects the tune playing in the main menu. And for whatever reason, it also decreases my mic volume. Huh? * The same slider DOES NOT apply to the ingame music because the audio CD tracks of old were ripped and packaged into one looping 30min OGG file. Thus blasting at full volume in a fixed order. Audacity to the rescue... Otherwise, quite a neat little shooter! Nice graphics for 2000, great soundscape, fluent and easy-to-learn controls. Setting and story seem interesting too. Looking forward to playing through the rest of the single player mode.
