- A beautiful game, but not a $50 gameHW2 is all of the things everyone else says: It's visually stunning, without crushing your processor, the music and sound effects in general are amazing, and the actual gameplay is quite enjoyable. The pace is generally slow and stately, with bursts of frenetic combat. You definitely feel the hugeness and majesty of space while you're playing it, and that, combined with the fact that you never see a human face or figure, create a strange sort of detached, lonely intensity to the game.
The controls are demanding, no matter what anybody says. Maneuvering your fleet from one point to another in the 3D space is a real hair-puller-outer, never mind trying to use the waypoint systems, and the fact that you have to micromanage I find more frustrating than challenging. Things like having your workers automatically repair damaged units nearby and the like, which games like WC3 have managed to make a matter of course, don't seem possible with this game. The fighting units are not particularly diverse...they seem to go big, bigger, biggest, with the minelayer and the capture vessels being the only ships with unusual functions (and the minelayer seems to be a favorite target of the enemy AI, so you never really get to see it do its thing).
The missions in the Single Player mode are really compelling, but don't cry out for a replay once you're done, and the Melée mode doesn't stray much from the typical RTS formula of build up your forces and technology and then go fight. I don't play online so I can't testify as to the value of the game in that area. And I have yet to find the community of modmakers and custom-map makers that other RTS games like Warcraft, Total Annihilation and so on have inspired, which would definitely give some legs to this game.
In summary, the imagery and sound are superb. If the developers of this game had been a little more engaged in the gameplay dynamics and the replayability of the game it would be a 5-star AAA game all the way. But as it is, I can't recommend paying more than $20-$30 at the most for this game. I have seen this game for as little as $15 used, and at those prices it's definitely worth it.
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