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emeg -> My own game review (4/16/2010 2:23:54 PM)
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First a complaint to the address of the game developer(s), you have ruin my night’s sleep! [:@] [;)] It is a while ago that I had the experience of just one turn/minute more. Two o’clock AM became three o’clock, four o’clock, five o’clock and six o clock in the morning. Through my room window I saw the sunrise and thought “damm” I have an appointment in less than two hours and I didn’t sleep at all last night!
Off course, that what I have wrote above is not a real complaint but a huge compliment to the game developer(s) Living in a time where the game industry, as many gamers, only look for 3D beauty and superficial games it is a kind of ‘insurgent’ behaviour if a small gaming company creates a profound 2D space game, having a reasonable degree of realism or SF reliability, allowing the gamer to have a deep game experience. Codeforce shows to us that also 2D games can be artistically very beautiful. Beauty has nothing to do with 3D, many great painter artist has shown this also during the past of many centuries.
A have reading some negative reviews regarding the, in the opinion of the reviewer, obsolete 2D game graphics and the so called unnecessary complexity in the game. He argument that the many positive reactions to this game (only) comes from that negligible percentage gamers that loves that exaggerated deep going niche strategy games. Don’t listen to such face ache’s, they don’t see the beauty of this kind of games. The 2D has its own goals and intentions. It allows a lot more game features, profundity, complexity and overwhelming in a really huge game universe without destroying the performance of an average modern computer system.
You think that overwhelming is (very) bad in this kind of (space) games? Not for me, I see it as a great game feature giving me the experience to be in a huge lively environment. Allowing me to discover our personal smallness in such huge universal theatre is for me the main game feature, it is conform the intentions that the game developer(s) have to their gamer players, and they are 100% successful. Do you really believe that the top of our society know what is going one every where? They do not know nor realise, as many ordinary people knows in their vicinity, what is going on about the more detailed things that happens everywhere. Not knowing this in the game is for me a game feature too, as top guy and leader of a whole universal civilization it is my responsibility to find out what I need to know, day after day and year after year in an always chancing universe.
As the top guy of my civilization it is in fact not my own responsibility to lead and fight the tactical battles against the enemies of my empire sometimes light-years away from location where I am. That is in real impossible to do. During World War two it was not, by example, Eisenhower leading the tactical battles during D-Day. He was reading a cowboy book during the landings on the invasion beaches. His subordinate officers did the work on the battlefield. Yes, it would be great if in a next game expansion a pool of high ranked officers exist, having character traits as by example in AGEod games as Wars in America or Civil War.
Adding commanders to a unit, having character traits and other qualities and/or dis-qualities too of course, to give fleets, fleet squadrons and so extra AI behaviour to act conforming the leadership (dis) quality and personal style of its commanding officer would be a great extra game feature. The advisor system, known in Europe Universalis III, to add more personality to the game would be a great idea for this game too i.m.o.
Does this game have negative presentation aspects also? In my opinion yes, but that has nothing to do with being a 2D game. I am somewhat visual handicapped and because that is visual obviousness for me an important issue. The in-game text (the used font) is many times very small and not crisp presented in the interface. This makes reading all that in-game information for me a wearing activity. It would be great if, regarding the interface; there is a sort of a sort of magnifying glass button placed in the relative tiny information boxes and popup screens. Clicking on that magnifying glass button will place the same but a much large sized popup information window on the screen allowing larger and crispy text fonts and eventual, larger pictures too.
But seen over the whole is Distant Worlds is a great game, for me the best space game ever created. Playing the game I became the feeling that the game developers are also hooked too this kind of games. They have, as far I can judge, very much interest in the universe and astronomy and it would not wonder me that they are real Star Trek fans too. No Star Trek is not presented in this game, may be because copy right issues too but you can be sure that the gamer community shall create Star Trek game mods too. Further, this game plays centuries ahead, in the 28th century to be precise. But this didn’t restrain me to be creative. As in Star Trek I divide my huge and very realistic looking galaxy in its four quadrants, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. And I began to draw lines between the neighbouring stars too, creating my own constellations.
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My conclusion so far; this game has some issues as almost every new game that is just realised. But I have very much confidence in Matrix Games and the developer(s) having the intention to support this game for a long time and develop it further in cooperation with the game community. I have thought for almost a week, shall a buy Distant Worlds or not, I am very happy that I have done this after listening to my own intuition.
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