Two Cents From Someone Who Has Actually Played The Game

I disagree with the officail review on multiple accounts. Many of the complaints such as lack of information and such were implemented by design. The game was not made to be a stat fest. Knowing what to use and when was supposed to be something gleened from trial and error and experience. The tech tree was also randomized somewhat so that you can never count on having the same techs. It's all to prevent cookie cutter gameplay where everyone rushes for hte same techs and the same weapon layouts because they're statistically "the best." More information is also revealed as you open up certain techs on the tree, I believe, as well. Theres also something to be said for simply knowing the status of your ship by looking at it and saying "well, gee, it's more than slightly on fire and two weapon points have been destroyed, it's probably not doing terribly well." When you have visual representation, I think it's less than nessisary to have a superfluous little bar that says 2/30hp on every ship. As for only being able to bring a few of your ships into tactical battle at a time, and reinforcements, all I have to say is logistics. Besides the point that, having 90 destroyers on both sides and several cruisers would be slightly hard to render at once, only being able to field a few ships is nothing new. In Galactic Civ.II You could only group as many ships into a fleet as your logistics allowed. Likewise, you can only have as many ships fielded as can be supported by your CnC ship. Also, in reguards to the time limit, it can be raised to something longer should one desire, and it's simply in place to give you a break and replan your strategy/start a new formation before throwing into the thick of it again. A great deal was simply left out of the review as well, such as multiplayer not being mentioned whatsoever, and the details between the different races. Besides the "minor species specific bonuses," the Lirr AI attacks in a completely different manner than the other races and some techs are race specific. I'm aware this all sounds very reactionary, and I could go on and on, but the bottom line is it seems like the reviewer picked up the game, played it for a half hour, and then made his decision without researching the game whatsoever. I would just like to invite anyone who reads this to ignore the review, and look into the game yourself. The demo truely doesn't do it justice, but there is more than enough information around now to get an idea as to the detail put into the game, and how fun it actually is.