Rain's Video Game Reviews

Rain

I figured with as many games as I play I could share some of my opinions with you guys. Plus this is really just a hobby of mine, much like cigars...and between the two of them, it's where most of my hobby money goes. I play all my games on PC and mostly through Steam. The only games I have download right now are Civilization V, Sword of the Stars and Shogun 2 Total War. I'm going to do Sword of the Stars first, so stay tuned.

Rain

***Summary*** The first time I played SOTS was about a year ago. I picked it up because it was pretty cheap on Steam, right around ten bucks. It's advertised as a 4X game, which stands for explore, expand, exploit and exterminate, which also sums up US Foreign Policy (I kid, I kid!). I'm a huge fan of the Total War series and how the empire management is turn based, while the battles are fought in real time. SOTS has no story to speak of, and there is no campaign mode per say. It's really a game that is meant to be played with friends in mulitplayer. I don't really play multiplayer mode after a summer in high school that was lost to Star Craft. ***Gameplay*** In SOTS, you can set up dang near everything before you start. Number of planets, shape of the galaxy, money, starting techs, race, alliances...you get the point. You can have up to roughly 350 planets, but only 8 players....which would make for a REALLY long game. There is really very little to the empire management part of the game. You pick the techs that you want to research, balancing research/savings, and designing ships. Designing ships is a lot of fun, and is where you will spend a lot of time. Each ship has three sections, the command, mission and engine. The mission section really defines what your ship is going to do..battle, command, sensor jammer, torpedo, assault shuttle....you get the point. After picking your sections, you also pick the weapons payload. When you meet the enemy in combat (which will be often), battles are fairly straight forward. If you have better ships, you will win. While in battle, you can pick pinpoint targets for each ship, or just tell your entire fleet to close in and attack. With a command ship in the fleet, you can set up pre battle formations, but without one, you're entire fleet just deploys in a straight line. While very simple, the amount and types of ships you can have still make the battles fun. ***Graphics*** The game looks decent. If you look in the dictionary next to average, you'll see a picture of this game. There are not many graphical options to pick, so if you have a lower end PC you can still run this. A LOT of the game is blank space anyways..you know, because there is a lot of nothing in space. Ships look decent, it could for sure be worse. ***Final Thoughts*** This is a good way to kill some time. The streamlined economic system really means you'll be spending most of your time in battles. The ship customization is really the best thing this game has to offer, and it's a great feeling to see a ship you designed shredding the enemy fleet. At 10 bucks, this game is worth a shot for singe player. I really think it would do a lot better in multiplayer, though.

danielzreyes

Cool thread Randy. Do you play any FPS games?

Rain

Within the last year I played..COD MW, MW2 and MW3, as well as BioShock and BioShock2.

Rain

Next up will be Shogun 2. I'm going to try and do one every two weeks or so, that's probably close to how often I start a new game.

xmacro

So you're on Steam and no mention of Team Fortress 2? FOR SHAME!!!

Rain

xmacro:

So you're on Steam and no mention of Team Fortress 2? FOR SHAME!!!

That sounds like a multiplayer game to me!

Big T smokes

Rain:

Next up will be Shogun 2. I'm going to try and do one every two weeks or so, that's probably close to how often I start a new game.

Shogun 2 has been out for ever... and you haven't played it? Shamefru dispray!

Rain

Of course I've played it haha. I just have never reviewed it. Close victory.A groious display!

xmacro

Rain:

xmacro:

So you're on Steam and no mention of Team Fortress 2? FOR SHAME!!!

That sounds like a multiplayer game to me!

Not just A multiplayer game, it's THE multiplayer game. Five years old and still growing, one of the best multiplayer FPS's ever created. And it's free.