Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords
Review
This is the game that Master of Orion III should have been
by Sergio Brinkhuis
reviewed on PC
Pretty lively, for a universe
All that chaos is presented in a very neat and clear fashion. The interface really makes this game shine through its ability to give you the feeling you're really in control. I've rarely seen a game that could offer such a feature rich experience while remaining completely accessible. There's no button jungle, no statistics hell, no misguided attempt to create a near-buttonless interface. It's a joy to move around through the menu's.
Often space exploration games will feel empty, lifeless, making you want to commit suicide out of sheer boredom after having watched them for hours on end. Galactic Civilizations tackles this problem admirably. The graphics will not stun you but they more than do the job. A lot of what you see is animated. Ships make minute floating motions, orbiting moons circle their planets and trading freighters fly past at regular intervals.
Keeping the pace
Both invasions and space battles are played in 3D. Again, nothing stunning but it's fairly entertaining to watch. Watch is all you'll do though. There's no way to control your forces. Some might be disappointed with that but it also helps keep the game in motion. Too often controlling the battle is of the utmost importance to win and you'll end up spending so much time with it that the game becomes a slow struggle. This way you can focus on exploration and conquest and keep the pace. This is true for many parts of the game.
Micromanagement for instance, an issue with many games, is just at the right level. There are all kinds of buildings that will help you achieve your goals. Roughly they're divided in four categories; Economic, research, production and 'special'. What makes Galactic Civilizations so easy to play is that the first three categories basically have a very small number of buildings but these buildings have many levels. New discoveries in the economical area will for instance will improve the basic market center all the way up to the stock exchange and beyond. This is done automatically without any intervention of the user so you don't have to keep chasing every building on every planet all the time. The result is that you will always feel you are making progress. If there are area's you want to focus on like for instance research centers, you can always hurry production by purchasing the building rather than having your production facilities work on them.
"Saving, errr... crashing your game"
Games like Galactic Civilizations are tremendous time eaters. Players often call this the 'one more turn syndrome' and for good reason. Gamers play the game and get sucked in and not much can bring us back to the world of the living when we get like that. However, Galactic Civilizations makes a valiant attempt to keep you from getting addicted; It crashes. A lot. I think I sunk in around 30 hours so far and it crashed on me at least a dozen times. After the first couple of crashes I set the game to autosave every 4 turns so that I wouldn't lose too much of my game when it crashed. That was until it crashed right in the middle of saving my game. Late in the game, giving your commands before ending your turn can take well over 15 minutes. If it crashes while saving, you've just lost an hour of gameplay. I don't know about you, but that totally demotivates me. A recent patch along with updating your graphics drivers is said to work for some people, but I'm not among those fortunates.
There are a few more problems with the game but most are interface related and no showstoppers. Ordering a ship to be built for instance, often doesn't work. The queue (of one ship at a time) stays completely empty. There are ways around this but it becomes a big hassle if you're trying to scroll from planet to planet to get ship production going after designing a new ship for instance. The latest patch doesn't fix that problem for me. The last notable problem is the speed. The game becomes slower and slower as you go but that seems to be true for all games in the genre.
Tap, tap. Is this universal translator working?
I could probably fill another two pages reviewing this game but chances are you're dying to run to the shop and buy the game. I'll close up so you can get on your way. Galactic Civilizations II is an incredibly fun game and I don't just mean in actual gameplay. There are all sorts jokes hidden in the game, most noticably in the conversations you'll have with the AI players. I was offering a deal that my opponent wasn't happy with and he responded with "Tap, tap. Is this universal translater working? I must have missed the punchline.". Furthermore, Stardock has done a fantastic job at balancing the game without cutting features.
The technology tree is clear and you will never scratch your head what the heck it is you are actually researching like in the Master of Orion games. The music is nothing to write home about, but who cares, just play some of your own mp3's in the background. Each race does have its own music when you're talking to them, much like the Sid Meier's Civilization games. That's not surprising as you'll see a LOT of similarities in Stardock's space version of Sid's masterpieces. If you're still not certain, let me reassure you with these last few words: Galactic Civilizations II is the game that Master of Orion III should have been.
8.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
