If like a space empire game where you have zero control over your own ships, this is the game for you. I bought this on Steam when it came out. I check on the game every so often to see if the many problems have been fixed. Sadly, it's not much better now. The game was released before it was finished. Almost every aspect of the game doesn't work. Case in point: Your fleets love to go on suicide missions they no hope of surviving. Tell a fleet to defend a planet. Yeah, that's never going to happen if there is an over powered enemy anywhere. That fleet will leave the planet it's supposed to be defending, and throw itself one ship at a time (attacking as fleet is only done by the AI), insuring it's totally destroyed. It's a fatal flaw the developers think of as a feature, since they have done nothing to fix it. Most of the game is like that. Half baked ideas, executed poorly. On the good side the game looks good.
If you want to play any 2k game now you have to agree to have a Spybot installed on your computer. which will not only spy on anything you do with your computer, it will also spy on any friends you have. It's evil software now.
I got this game on steam. It's made by people who hate their customers. It's space RTS that has very bizarre game features. Such as Fleet Suicide: Your fleets will throw themselves at way over powered enemies that they zero chance of beating. This is bad enough, the game will not let call off the attack even if you have the fleet in manual mode. Apparently “Manual Mode” means the fleet will do whatever It wants, when It wants, and you have zero control. Another feature: One at a time only. You have very little chance of beating an enemy even if you have a fleet 10 times the power of the enemy. Why? You may ask. It's because the game will send in your fleet one ship at a time to be destroyed by 10+ enemy ships. Again you have no control over this. Another feature: This is part of the Fleet suicide thing. Order a fleet to protect a planet, space station, or anything else, it's not going to happen. Again the fleet will do anything but guard. It will fly off (usually on a suicide run) and attack random enemies that not anywhere close to what it's supposed to be guarding. This is in manual mode, and you have no control over what the fleet does, including trying to call off the attack if you notice it. Believe me I tried. Diplomacy is nothing more than contact another race, and give them all your money and tech. You will be endlessly prompted to do this. This cannot be turn off. This game is in no way fun. Unless you like banging your head against a wall in frustration.
I have played MoM since it came out in 1993. This is not the even close to that game. It so buggy it's unplayable. Lots of stuff doesn't work. Like Floating Islands, you can load units, but not unload those units. It's just a total mess. There is a mod that is stupid hard on the “Easy” setting. The AI spamming cities, units, summoned creatures, like it's on it's 300th turn, from move one. Actually it's worse than that. On the first move of the game AI has dozens of units it does not have to pay for. The AI pays for nothing, no upkeep, it makes unit anywhere, and everywhere, at no cost. Both summoned, and regular units. The mod is nothing more than massive cheating by the AI. So you choice is, buggy hell, or a game so stupid, it's not really a game. I only give one star because the review system makes you. This is not worth your time in any way.
To start with I own don't SE5, I have SE4, and it's a game I would like a lot, but for one thing. That is, you have to play using a tiny window. In this day and age, a game that forces you use an 8x8 window to play is absurd. I would love to give this game more stars, but the tiny screen in unforgivable. I image SE5 is the same way given how stupid the tiny windows in SE4 are.
I got this a year ago, and played some of the campaign. It's fairly tough game, you get a notice that you lost, and then the game exits whatever you playing. Boy isn't that fun. I did learn a few tricks of the trade. One being you don't have a lot of time to do what the game wants. I give this game one star only because you have to, to post a review. If you are thinking the game has a tutorial, and/or a manual, you would be wrong. The developers believe anyone who buys the game automatically knows everything about the game. No need for documentation letting you know what the keyboard commands are, or how anything in the game works. When I played before I had to go online, and search the internet to find out everything. That is a very scummy way to sell a game. Sad to say it's still that way. This a game that was developed by people who hate their customers. I was thinking about playing again, but I am not going "work" to find out how to do the simplest things. No, I will just uninstall this garbage. It's a total waste of money and time.
It is one of the most god awful games I have ever tried. To design a ship, it tells to “click on the design button in the build screen.” The problem with that is, the button is greyed out, and you can't click it. Try to actually build something in your home planet and it stay at 14 turns. Never advancing to 13 turns. So you will never build anything at your home planet. At that point I quit. Games are supposed to be fun. This one is far from it.
This game has lots of potential. Sadly all of this potential is lost due to lack of any quality control. The tutorial is useless. It stops at the beginning, due to a glitch. It does not recognize that you put the signals down. So that is the end of any explanation of the controls, buildings, concepts, or anything else. You are left to just guess what to do, aimlessly clicking around obtuse screen after screen. With no manual, really, no manual, no read me file, nothing but a half baked tutorial that explains nothing, the game is a total waste of time and money. It's trash.
I couldn't get past the first few minutes of pile of bad coding. I was a mouse and the game very little to no support for mice. There is on option for invert mouse. Everything is geared toward a joystick or gamepad. The first thing that happens after the loading screen is you are sent on a "mission" to clear out a sector of enemies a few sectors away. That all fine, except you are told to meet up with some "rookies you are supposed to train. Really? The first thing you are supposed to do before you know the controls of the game is "train" others in how it works? Really? How is that supposed to work? It doesn't. Plus you go the meeting place and there is no one there to meet. What a crock. This game isn't worth playing if it free, let alone paying anything for it.
