heskey30

Well there's been something of an opinion war here, and many of the negative reviews are too negative because of a non-game issue that I won't go into. There are some overly positive reviews as well to counter this, so I will try to write a useful review. First, it must be said: this game is a blast - engaging, intense, and surprisingly well balanced. Fast paced tactics and strategy on a huge scale. But it's received a lot of legit positive criticism, so here's why I didn't rate it 10/10: First of all, and most detrimental to the game: it has performance issues. Lategame tank armies can slow the game to a crawl. Annihilating a planet can freeze the game for a long time and sometimes even crash it. The client occasionally crashes for no discernible reason (though you can reconnect), and there are other bugs, some of which are at least temporarily game breaking. Internet access is required to play, even singleplayer, though I've heard this will change in the 1.0 release. The game is in early access, so these problems are understandable, but they are still there. Secondly, there are balance problems. While most units have their uses and should be used to play optimally, things like tier two bombers are blatantly overpowered in the hands of a skilled micro player (they deliberately out-range all anti-air) and artillery units are a little strong as well. Bots, which are an entire tree of units, are considered very weak because they cannot defeat any of the other trees on their own. Balance is currently in progress, but there have been some worrying balance decisions by the team at Uber. This is the time to experiment with that, though, if there ever is one. Lategame can get rather standoffish. This can make for some slow games, especially in large free-for-alls, very especially coupled with the poor lategame performance, which is not only visual but also server-side. (So it slows down the game's actual mechanics.) There also is not much variety in interplanetary combat. It is also very easy early on in the game to get into a situation where winning is nearly impossible, but the game will still drag on for a long time - possibly without the player even knowing that winning is nearly impossible. This really punishes new players. Finally, system creator is rather limited. While you can set the general idea, you cannot sculpt your own terrain. This is not really a requirement, as that would be asking a lot, but just don't expect that and be disappointed. All that said, this game has already been a worthwhile purchase. Hopefully my rating will improve as the game becomes more finished.