Rating: Summary: A good, but broken game. Review: I play a great many strategy games and I consider myself to be a fairly decent player, though not great by any means. On the one hand, I truly enjoy playing IG2. The mechanisms of planet building and support, the ship design, the research tree, and the general interface are all excellent and make the game a pleasure to play. Or would if the difficulties (easy, normal, hard) were actually indicative of anything. When I play a game on easy, I expect to learn how to play and very likely win on my first try. In IG2, the easy was so easy, I won before I really felt I had a handle on the game. Normal level should be a challenge. I should need to play well, and in the end, I should still only win about half the time. I've lost count of how many times on "normal" (as the Solarians) I have not even come close to winning. I get wiped out every time by a Kra'Hen fleet so large I can't even conceive of what I would need to do to make one half its size. Sometimes I die even sooner. Goodness forbid that I even try to play on "hard" difficulty. For any normal game, I have come to expect that the "hard" difficulty to really be "nearly impossible". In IG2, normal mode does this, and I feel the game is hardly worth the trouble as a result. I have tried as the Shinarians as well, with similar results. In conclusion, while I truly liked the game architecture, I cannot recommend this to anyone. I found this to be one of the most frustrating games I have played in quite some time.
Rating: Summary: Why didn't i buy this GAME the exact moment it was released! Review: I'm going to focus upon the bad things of the game and thoughthis game has way way more good things than most games it also hasmore bad things than many !good! games e.g. "Theif 2" OK let's get started.......I think that this is one of the best games made....at least for a long time..... when u start the game u see really cool scenes and u think and it is cool but when you have played the game for a few hours you see that you have accomplished nothing you have a few planets and 10-20 ships but nothing is happening, so my advice is to expand ....expand your territory .colonize every planet you can posibly find hire every spy......but the thing is that it takes time to research new things that u need to research other things....so what i'm trying to say is it begins to look like a circle .....but though that's a bad thing that's also a good thing cause that gives u the feeling that u are not about to finish the game..... the 3D space graphics.(when you are fighting other ships) are THE BEST i've seen in any space game, strategy or other i well i started saying that i was going to focus on the bad things but i can't cause when i think about it it's just a great game with flaws that i can't find................i recommend it to all people that like COOL cutscenes and good games because this one is what i call a REALLY REALLY GOOD GAME! END
Rating: Summary: The plot! Review: I've played this game like 5 times all the way through just trying to find out what happens with the Human plot. If you go too fast, it never develops... if you go too slow, you get creamed by the other races! It's so frusterating. Fun to play except for this one little flaw in the human's plot!
Rating: Summary: The plot! Review: I've played this game like 5 times all the way through just trying to find out what happens with the Human plot. If you go too fast, it never develops... if you go too slow, you get creamed by the other races! It's so frusterating. Fun to play except for this one little flaw in the human's plot!
Rating: Summary: Nice Try But No Cigar Review: IGII is a great looking game with a moderately original angle on 4x gaming, but it never really succeeds in becoming addictive. What the game attempts to do is marry story elements to a traditional 4x platform, so that random (and some not so random) events power the decisions you make about constructing ships, buildings, research, diplomacy, etc. But this one original concept is never that well done in the first place, with a relatively small selection of random events that quickly become familiar after a few games (and surprisingly vary very little between the three races in the game). And the idea actually undermines the 4x aspects fo the game, as you feel less in control of events than simply swept along respnding to one manufactured crisis after another. Add to that a ridiculously difficult diplomacy system, mediocre AI, and surprisingly little variety to the storylines (and even the building graphics) of the three playable races, and you have an intriguing and great-looking game, but also a game that is ultimately unsatisfying.
Rating: Summary: Alliances are hard to come by... Review: Imperium Galactica II, Alliances, is definitely a very good strategy game, yet it has several silly flaws for no apparent reason, thus taking away from what it could overall offer.
There is a good, though not great, variety of civilizations to choose from; from the peace loving Cheblon to the mighty warlike Kra'hen, and many others in between. Humans of course could not be absent as they exist in the form of the Solarians.
The feeling of building up your empire and expanding into the far reaches of the galaxy is very real and you do get a strong sense of accomplishment for all your effort. The battles, the inventions, the upgrades, and the plot are very good.
A lot of work seems to have been put into the game.
On the negative side, there are several points, which could have been dealt with before the game was released (and many of them have already been covered/pointed out by other reviewers):
There is an easy, normal, and difficult level of play, but normal is next to impossible and that is a pretty big problem.
Moreover, when you do decide to play single as opposed to multiplayer, you only get a choice of three races.
In addition, the actual alliances are very difficult to come by when you actually need them, while at the same time extremely easy whenever you're winning.
Furthermore, the videos and the graphics are average; not poor, but not great either.
Finally, there are such things as the "futuristic" electronic music for example, that is constantly playing in the background, which is rather terrible and highly annoying to say the least. A more Star Wars-like sounding music would have been much appropriate and inspirational.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of hours of gaming enjoyment ahead when playing Imperium Galactica II, Alliances! Despite its flaws, and though it may not be a masterpiece, it will provide for a decent amount of amusement as well as excitement.
Rating: Summary: Nice, but hard to learn Review: Imperium Glactica II is a great game, but the fact that it has different areas in it, make it difficult to learn (i.e. Starmapping, Colonization, Ground Assaults, Space Assaults, Space and Ground Production, Design, Research, Spying, and most importantly, Diplomacy). The game has so much stuff, it actually takes a 5 part training session to learn it all. The problem with the AI is that they are all out to conquer the galaxy by themselves. If you offer them to ally when you're weak and they're strong, they will turn it down, but when the tables are turned, they will be glad to ally with you. I hate the difficulty levels too, I'll translate for you Easy = Effortless, Normal = Nightmare, and Hard = I don't think there's even a word for how impossible the hard level really is. Last problems depict the multiplayer area. I have troubles connecting to the IG II IRC, and no one can play over LAN. All in all, it's a nice game, really great cinematics, cool single player, but lacks in multiplayer.
Rating: Summary: Good game with flaws. Review: Its a good game. Just needs to be tweeked a bit. Also takes a little long to get to the action.
Rating: Summary: not too bad Review: My biggest complaint is the lack of diplomacy in the game. Your spies are rarely successful. Quality of available spies varies and it's obvious the other races are always better than yours. The other races only seem to know brute force and they're always threatening you until they're about to be conquered by someone else. Alliances are almost impossible to make or if they are willing, they're too weak to be useful. They just want to attack, attack, attack. The only way to win is to kill everyone. It gets old. Messages are tedious once you've played the game a few times......you can't delete them, you can only click on them as they're playing to speed them along.
Rating: Summary: the trick is in the civilization Review: The game rocks! the interface is quite friendly, the speed buttons are quite simple and virtualy everything can be self-tought. The only problem are the difficulties. Most say that the difficulties are all messed up, I say the CD order is the one. CD 1 is installation, CD 2 is the Salarians (the most difficult), CD 3 is the Shinari (medium) and CD 4 is the Kra'Hen (quite easy, if you live up to the Divine Emperor's wishes). For the campaign, there are only three civilizatons (the worriors, the peace-keepers and the troublesome): The Kra'Hen, who come from another galaxy, have a supreme Emperor and can dedicate themselves to building ships while their people starve, in less than 30 years you can conquer the galaxy. The Shinari who use mainly diplomacy and espionage, and have medium citizen complaints. And the Solarians, who are a Federation ruled by a Senate; obviously, no starving, no slave-labour and consecuently, being wiped out by a gigantic Kra'Hen force. As I said, the trick is in the civilization.
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