![]() ![]() Like Star Trek, Starships' combat has a wonderful naval feel to it, and proceedings are enhanced by clusters of asteroids scattered here and there that may block or diminish shots, or may even open up now and then, allowing you to slip through.Įnemies, meanwhile, scale from simple marauders - think of them as space barbarians - to the other civs you're playing against, the latter in battles triggered when you decide to drop diplomacy and move in on their planets. Everything has its own quirks, from lasers that cover long distances but tend to be fairly weak, to torpedos - beautiful, beautiful torpedos - that are launched along a set trajectory and then move down their path for a number of turns until you decide to detonate them, often in empty space because everyone has already seen you coming and run away. Ships can move within a set radius, and can also perform a range of simple actions - firing with lasers or deadlier weapons, launching glass-cannon fighter squadrons, repairing damage, or even turning on stealth systems. It's an ideal introduction to turn-based tactics games, really, encouraging you to think about everything from placement and orientation to secondary abilities. Moving in on a rival home world because you've run out of space to do other things, you might feel that Starships quietly pushes you towards being violent - but maybe that's just me and maybe I'm just an awful monster. Objectives vary from maze-runs, survive-five-turn games and even escort jobs (surprisingly non-terrible escort jobs), but the meat of them is always the same: your current starship armada against somebody else's. Head to a planet, accept a mission, and you're whisked away to a hex-based view of the battlefield, a surprisingly rangy area of space riddled with asteroids and even the odd planet. Missions are where the game's tactical heart is to be found. Gain four levels of influence on a planet and it's yours - although in contested areas, expect a bit of back-and-forth before you snag your prize. You do this by bringing planets into your civ's fold, and you do that by building up your influence, either by paying for it, or by performing missions that pop up the first time you visit. Out beyond your home planet is an entire galaxy - go and capture 51 percent of it. ![]() While you can still score classic Civ-style victories involving domination, science, and the building of wonders, the main thrust of Starships is the population victory. It's not a throwaway game by any means, it's just one that's built to plug very specific gaps in your life. It's one of Firaxis' fabled Sid Projects, too: Meier's listed as both designer and a programmer here, and the end result has much of the cheery playfulness you may have found in Ace Patrol (another recent Sid Project that straddled both iPads and PCs). And that doesn't really matter, because instead this is a wonderful knockabout timewaster, with matches designed to eat up an afternoon - or a succession of bus trips if you're playing on iPad - rather than a whole weekend. If you were expecting a full-blown follow-up to Beyond Earth, in other words, this isn't it. There is some cross-connectivity with Beyond Earth in the form of unlockable things like planets and specific missions. Before you begin each match here, you choose from a familiar muddle of affinities and faction leaders, but they're all just starting perks, really, and while the game that lies beyond these choices is a turn-based affair, it's far breezier than Beyond Earth: a nice territory-capture strategy treat as you move between planets, a compact hex-based battler when you get into orbit around one. (Just me?)īeyond that - and beyond a few themed unlockable treats - actual links between both games tend to be relatively cosmetic. Starships, however, throws open the entire galaxy. Beyond Earth limited itself to the atrocities we might cause when scouting a new homeworld. In many ways, Firaxis' latest offers even greater scope for our wretched species to express itself. Both titles hinge on a very simple idea, powerfully stated: the worst thing you're ever likely to find floating around out in space is another human being. Sid Meier's Starships shares one crucial theme with Civilization: Beyond Earth, the game whose story it loosely continues. Slight but delightful, this is a lovely convergence of strategy and tactics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |