Sword Of The Stars: Ultimate Collection

I want to start this review by talking about another game and that is Master Of Orion 2, i loved that game, it was so easy to pick up and play and the replayability of it was truly excellent, it was the sort of game where 2-3 hours would pass and you wouldn't even notice. It took a long time for me to find another game that even came close to it, until i discovered Sword of the stars, and wow. Essentially this game involves empire management with the usual suspects of research and colonising different planets, as well as constructing ships to smite your enemies. One thing that i enjoy is the lack of micro-managing planetary buildings, as this can become to often the focus of this sort of game. Instead you colonise a planet, if it needs terraforming then you decide how quick it happens in relation to building the infra-structure of the planet, then you build up the infrastructure of the planet then its ready to build ships. This is where the game is very good, as desinging new ships is incredibly easy to do. There are 3 main classes of ship from small destroyers to mighty dreadnaughts, your level of research determines what hull size you have available to you as well as what weapons and hull sections as well. Combat is very easy to control and fun to watch as well. This edition comes with the 2 main expansion packs which introduce new races and technology. There are scenarios that come with this game but my favourite way of playing is to play in the skirmish mode, games are very easy to set up. Initially i would reccomend small galaxies with few players as the A.I. can be challenging!

Where some people may find it lacking is in the graphics department, to me its not a problem as the game play is so good. But i can appreciate that some players would demand more from their games

As my title suggests this really is a game for the armchair emperor, it has elements in it that make it memorable like watching opposing dreadnaughts slog it out, the real greatness of the game is its replayability.

j2000nr