Startopia

Rating:
Summary: Startopia is a solid game
Review: I've been playing it through the weekend. At first, I was very confused. If there's one thing majorly wrong with this game, it's the horrible explanations of gameplay. The manual is a flimsy CD booklet - only 26 pages in all. The in-game tutorial is ineffective. This makes Startopia hard to pick up at first, even though from the start it seems like a relatively straightforward strategy game. As I played, though, I noticed that as I was learning I was also noticing the game was more detailed than I originally thought. That's a good thing.

Graphically, it's really cool. I especially like the Bio-Deck, which is an artificial environment deck you can mold to your desires. Inside the deck, there's this soft trancey music playing and then when you pass through the wall into space, it turns quiet (except for the hum of machinery). You can zoom around and look at the space station from outside, with planets and nebulae in the distance. The other decks are pretty and stuff, if a little repetitive.

I also have to say the music is above average. There's a lot of techno with interesting sound bytes (I wasn't expecting it when in one of the songs a woman said in a breathy voice, "Do you wanna touch it?").

Gameplay is a little on the uninvolved side. A little more interaction with the citizens of your station would have been cool. You kind of just build and watch. Build and watch. But this game has a great sense of humor and a quirky sense of style. And even if there isn't a lot of interaction, there's something kind of appealing about just watching. It's not perfect - but it's definitely one to buy if you like this sort of thing.

Rating:
Summary: The kind of game many of us have been waiting for.
Review: Most games of the strategy genre have two strong leanings: either to total design games (for example SimCity), or to games which focus entirely on individual elements (SimPeople). Although Startopia is clearly a design game, more elements of individual development (such as the aliens which come aboard your station or technologies which can be researched) are stressed. This compaires somewhat to SimAnt from years past, which itself did a fair job of mixing both the macro and micro in gameplay.

The graphics are wonderful, but a slower machine with older equipment will feel the bite for it. Even on faster machines, when action gets too hot and heavy and all of your physical memory gets used up, the time for memory swap-out to your hard drive will be noticable. Even so, gameplay itself is affected to the minimum. There is little that needs to be done so quickly (within a second or two) in the game.

The sound is good, too, but there are a total of about 7 tracks of music in the game, making for a bit of repeditiveness. A tad bit more variety would have helped, or even the ability to add one's own music to things. A minor point at best, but still a consideration for a future version.

Overall, this game is sure to please anyone who plays strategy/sim style games. Management and editing are two areas which have been made both easy and dynamic, allowing for a large variety of possibilities.

Rating:
Summary: The best game ever
Review: Ok I only played the demo but I want the real version. You take control of a space ship and u can build beds,disco halls,sick bays and etc. I love the demo and you should get this game...IT RULES.

Rating:
Summary: Imbalanced, Monotonous
Review: The key element to have a successful real-time strategy game is to keep the player busy. In StarCraft and Command & Conquer, players constantly have to scurry across the map in order to maintain their units and building properly. Startopia instead keeps the player waiting, bored, instead of rushing, hoping for a break.

Startopia is a brilliant idea. Ever I thought it was a wonderful idea to make a spaceship simulator somewhat similar to SimCity with a bit of StarCraft combat elements mixed. Yet, whe I first played Startopia I was playing exactly what I had hoped. The graphics were brilliant, and viewing the spaceship very cloesly was a great benefit. The gameplay itself had many different dimensions, including combat, trade, hiring, and create tree unique decks to satisfy the population. Game missions were a pleasure to play, yet not too difficult to handle. Music and sound were a work of art, even the opening cinematic set a humorous tone to the game.

Yet Startopia's entertainment value dwindles as players march into the game further. This is mainly because the game is imbalanced. Players can't make enough money to stay above the artificial intelligence's competition. Instead, after spending my entire treasury, I was forced to wait until a trade ship entered my space port, or my entertainment facilities made a large profit. Thus, Startopia is a great game to play and scratch its surface, but to become deeply involved in it is an exasperating experience.

I would recommend games like Civilization 3 and Empire Earth to those who wish to have an entertaining experience with a game similar to Startopia's gameplay.

Rating:
Summary: Imbalanced, Monotonous
Review: The key element to have a successful real-time strategy game is to keep the player busy. In StarCraft and Command & Conquer, players constantly have to scurry across the map in order to maintain their units and building properly. Startopia instead keeps the player waiting, bored, instead of rushing, hoping for a break.

Startopia is a brilliant idea. Ever I thought it was a wonderful idea to make a spaceship simulator somewhat similar to SimCity with a bit of StarCraft combat elements mixed. Yet, whe I first played Startopia I was playing exactly what I had hoped. The graphics were brilliant, and viewing the spaceship very cloesly was a great benefit. The gameplay itself had many different dimensions, including combat, trade, hiring, and create tree unique decks to satisfy the population. Game missions were a pleasure to play, yet not too difficult to handle. Music and sound were a work of art, even the opening cinematic set a humorous tone to the game.

Yet Startopia's entertainment value dwindles as players march into the game further. This is mainly because the game is imbalanced. Players can't make enough money to stay above the artificial intelligence's competition. Instead, after spending my entire treasury, I was forced to wait until a trade ship entered my space port, or my entertainment facilities made a large profit. Thus, Startopia is a great game to play and scratch its surface, but to become deeply involved in it is an exasperating experience.

I would recommend games like Civilization 3 and Empire Earth to those who wish to have an entertaining experience with a game similar to Startopia's gameplay.

Rating:
Summary: A good game, but this early version is buggy.
Review: This game has a lot of potential. It's a relatively original sim with a hint of real time strategy thrown in the mix. The general idea is that there are nine different races that you hire to work in the various facilities you build on your space station. There are three types of facilities you can build, maintenance, entertainment, and spiritual facilities, each of which is built on a particular deck. By balancing the needs of your residents and visitors, you can build up your section of the space station to its full glory and destroy your opponents.

Sounds good, so why do I think this game is only three stars? When playing it, I really got the feeling that this game was a wine released well before it's time. This if for a number of reasons. First, there is very little documentation. In fact, there is absolutely no manual of any form. No in game help and no hard copy booklet. The F1 key will provide a very minimal bit of context sensitive help, and there is a brief tutorial at the beginning, which is helpful for game basics. Otherwise, plan on discovering the remaining features of this game by trial and error. Second, the game only ships with 10 levels, which shouldn't take anyone too long to conquer. There is a sandbox mode, in which you can toggle various settings and play against computer opponents, but this gets repitious quickly. The third and final reason I think this game deserves only three stars is that it is very buggy. On my system, 1.3GHz Intel P4 running Windows ME, the game crashed out to the OS about once an hour. Thankfully there is an autosave feature that backed up most my game play. Interestingly, the tutorial starts with a warning about how "fragile" it is. The unfortunate thing is, the rest of the game is just as fragile.

My final recommendation is, unless you have absolutely nothing better to do with your money, wait until the expansion package comes out.

Rating:
Summary: A good game, but this early version is buggy.
Review: This game has a lot of potential. It's a relatively original sim with a hint of real time strategy thrown in the mix. The general idea is that there are nine different races that you hire to work in the various facilities you build on your space station. There are three types of facilities you can build, maintenance, entertainment, and spiritual facilities, each of which is built on a particular deck. By balancing the needs of your residents and visitors, you can build up your section of the space station to its full glory and destroy your opponents.

Sounds good, so why do I think this game is only three stars? When playing it, I really got the feeling that this game was a wine released well before it's time. This if for a number of reasons. First, there is very little documentation. In fact, there is absolutely no manual of any form. No in game help and no hard copy booklet. The F1 key will provide a very minimal bit of context sensitive help, and there is a brief tutorial at the beginning, which is helpful for game basics. Otherwise, plan on discovering the remaining features of this game by trial and error. Second, the game only ships with 10 levels, which shouldn't take anyone too long to conquer. There is a sandbox mode, in which you can toggle various settings and play against computer opponents, but this gets repitious quickly. The third and final reason I think this game deserves only three stars is that it is very buggy. On my system, 1.3GHz Intel P4 running Windows ME, the game crashed out to the OS about once an hour. Thankfully there is an autosave feature that backed up most my game play. Interestingly, the tutorial starts with a warning about how "fragile" it is. The unfortunate thing is, the rest of the game is just as fragile.

My final recommendation is, unless you have absolutely nothing better to do with your money, wait until the expansion package comes out.

Rating:
Summary: A top-notch title ... so where are all the fans??
Review: This game isn't getting nearly enough attention. I mean, I could understand if the game wasn't all that great ... but this game is AWESOME! I downloaded the demo a few weeks ago, and that's what got me hooked. I went out and bought the game that same day, and I haven't left the computer since! It's very challenging, while still being enjoyable. I've been playing for about 4 days, and I still haven't completed all of the 10 missions yet. There are 3 different modes in this game. Mission mode (where you can try to complete all 10 missions), Sandbox mode (in this mode you can start from scratch and build freely without any objectives), and Multiplayer mode (where you can test your skills against other players online). With so much to do, this game will keep you interested for weeks ... even months! Bottom line: If you like games like The Sims, Pharoah, Age of Empires, SimCity, Dungeon Keeper, SimTheme Park, Theme Hospital, and Black & White, then you will LOVE this game! It mixes all of the best elements of the games listed above, plus a lot more. If you've read all these reviews and you're still not convinced, I suggest you go to www.startopiagame.com and download the playable demo. Be careful, though. This game is very addictive!

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful game from underappreciated talent!
Review: This game's Achilles' Heel is the stealth marketing campaign being perpetrated by its publisher, Eidos Interactive. It is unfortunately quite likely that you haven't heard of Startopia (until now, that is) or seen ads for it anywhere. Your local software retailer probably hasn't heard of it either. This is a shame because Startopia is a MUST HAVE for any fan of similar Bullfrog games such as Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park and Theme Hospital.

Startopia was created by Mucky Foot Productions, a UK-based company founded by ex-Bullfrog talent (not to be confused with Lionhead, another Bullfrog spinoff). They brought with them an amazing sense of game play and humor and produced this "glistening jewel" of a game. There isn't much innovation here, but this game excels at what it attempts to accomplish. It has a great combination of familiar concepts in a delightful new setting.

My biggest complaint so far is that the built-in missions are over just as you begin to feel that you've mastered the game. On the other hand, there is trumendous potential for fan-created scenerios and network play. Now I just have to get my friends hooked on this game too...

Rating:
Summary: Great game, if not a little predictable...
Review: This was a very interesting game. It was kind of like Dungeon Keeper 2 but with more interesting items. I only wish that there could be a wider variety of objects that you could place in the houses and bars. I was surprised at the running speed of this game. Many of the games I have purchased have been as slow as anything, therefore significantly taking away from the excitement of the game. Not this game though... it ran really smooth until I put tons of buildings in my space station, and then it only slowed down a little game. Great Game for those that don't like gory monsters jumping out from every corner. Highly Recommended!