Malkuth

Join Date 11/2003

New Game At Walmart that was Space 4X

Has anyone heard of this game I seen at walmart, its called something like Reach for the Sword (not reach for the stars) in was like 30 bucks at walmart. I didn't pick it up because never heard of it, and never seen it. The title was weird, and I can't find anything about it online. Can't even find it on the walmart.com site.

Anyone seen this. Looked kinda just like Gal Civ II but it toted actually Controllable 3d battles.

Just wondering. I bought company of heros instead if you were wondering.

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Never mind its actually called Sword of the Stars. DOH. Found it.

How is it.

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sword of the stars, perhaps. That's a pretty new 4x. I checked out the demo a little -- it looked it might have potential, but I just couldn't get into it enough to put the time in.

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Its pretty ok. has nice tactical combat features. Bit like a waterd down version of homeworlds tactical combat though. the actual strategic part of the game is ok but not really as in depth as GalCiv2. The interface is also a bit lacking and uninformative and is in need of a little improvment.

Overall the game has potential if the devs are dedicated into improving upon it more. While the combat did feel alot like a waterd down homeworld it was still very fun to play.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

Saw two reviews of it- one gave it decent marks, the other dreadful.

Usually one dreadful review without a great review to counteract it makes me think the game had some major issues for some people. I'm fairly conservative when it comes to buying games outside the company or two I fanboy over (mostly SNK these days)

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Having different movement types for each race could add a really great dynamic to the game. Anyone know if that area lived up to its promise?

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I've tried it and found that the research and combat screens are both high quality and innovative, though I found the controls on the combat screen a little clumsy. The game screen, however, was a bit cheesy in my opinion, almost an afterthought. Also, the AI voices really got on my nerves after a short time. As someone else said, it's a game with a lot of potential. Unfortunately, a lot of it is unrealized.

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Yeah, it's not bad. I've played far worse games.

As mentioned, the tactical combat is not very intuitive, and therefore extremely clumsy. It has a steep learning curve in general.

The strategic part of the game's not bad, and you do design your own ships for the most part. But none of them can be customized; there's three areas of a ship, and each one can be swapped out for a new type. But there are no aesthetic options.

Ditto on the voices... I wanted to throttle the voice-actors.

Sword of the Stars does some things right, though. Fleet battles are hands-on, in a tactical interface, so you can outmanuever your enemy. Also, if it's a battle in orbit around a planet, you can direct your weapons on the planet, lowering population and deteriorating it's atmosphere and habitability. There are even biological weapons; virus bombs. Assault shuttles, too, that leave their destroyer-class carriers behind and enter the atmosphere conducting planetary assault.

I actually like the no-frills strategic phase.It's clean, smooth, and all the info you need is readily visible with a single click.

If you like 4x games, I advise giving it a try.

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I like Sword of the Stars. It's the spiritual successor to Master of Orion 1. It's strategic map is simplified. You control the planet development with sliders. They really put the focus on ship design, tech research, and the tactical battles. The user interface is simplified but in no way means that the game itself is simplified. Once you spend a little time with it you discover there's actually alot of depth under the hood, mainly focusing on ship design and tactical battles. The game does what it's supposed to pretty good, a 4x with the focus on tactical real-time battles, and leaves the more detailed micromanagement of empires to games like Galciv2 and Space Empires 4/5.

BTW, the people saying that the tactical control battles are hard to control, is because the real-time tactical battles use Newtonian physics, meaning, if I have a cruiser going in one direction and tell it to move another way, it won't turn on a dime, and will slowly reverse direction and head the other way, so it takes time to get used to the real physics engine and learn how to give orders accordingly. The battles remind me alot of Babylon 5/Battlestar Galactica. The later tech cruisers/dreadnaughts get laser beam weapons which slice through ships/planets. The art director even said he designed the Human racial ships with B5 in mind.

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BTW, the people saying that the tactical control battles are hard to control, is because the real-time tactical battles use Newtonian physics, meaning, if I have a cruiser going in one direction and tell it to move another way, it won't turn on a dime, and will slowly reverse direction and head the other way, so it takes time to get used to the real physics engine and learn how to give orders accordingly.

That's not why it's clumsy to me; in fact I was very pleased with that kind of realism. What makes it clumsy is it's lack of advanced options and a general lack of clearly labelled buttons. When using the camera you can easily order ships to go somewhere you don't want. There is also no option for all your ships to use the same velocities, and they rarely stay in formation. I prefer this kind of fleet engagement, but it could have been done better, there are some great examples out there.

And there is nothing like a Cruiser or larger with the Barrage hull and an Assault Bridge. You can really go crazy with the designs and the firepower.

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Ahh that makes a lot of sense. I agree with you there. There could have been more advanced options for fleet control. I also don't use the weapon bank settings at all really. Maybe with another patch they will continue to enhance it.

With regards to them staying/keeping in formation, if you select ships as a group and move them as a group they will stay in formation and move as slow as the slowest ship in the group. But you have to keep them in "normal" manual control mode. If you use any of the AI modes like Stay at Range or Close for Attack they will always pretty much do what they want to do.

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I bought itm thinking it would hold me over till DA was released. I myself was not overly impressed. One thing I can say is that even though both GalCiv2 and SotS are both 4x games, they couldn't be more different.

The tactical battles is where the meat seems to be at, yet the lack of clearly marked buttons and understandable objectives made the game a $40 loss for me.

- dtrotzjr

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So save your money and just play Master of Orion 2? *Still thinks MoO2 is the king of militaristic empire building*

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Hmmm I found this new 4x game called Lost Empire on strategy firsts site which is coming out tomorrow apparently. It looks neat, like a mixture between MoO2 and the SE-games, but with more story in it. Can't figure out where the weight is though - on tactical combat or on empire building. Any of you guys know anything of this game? I only know whats on the Web Site.

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