Player Reviews and Comparisons
I found this on the Wargamer forum.
and another review on some weird site.
About as clear and unfanboyish of a short review you can get from a gamer
I kept thinking the game looked very reminiscent of MOO 3 as well except its RTS.
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Well...I'm finding DW highly addictive no doubt. However, its not without its disappointments. I started playing a sandbox game in a "small" 400 star galaxy. I added 8 random races and a sparse collection of independent minor species. Everything so far is automated except for colonization. I'm finding it difficult to control/keep track of exploration, so I will probably un-automate that next time I jump in. I always like to focus on exploring a few stars, and developing them before I move on to further exploration. This is a more defensive strategy for me. I'm upset that research appears to be completely automated and out of control of the player entirely. No ability to select techs or focus in certain fields. The only thing that can be controlled is the amount of resources spent on research through the construction of research facilities...somebody correct me if I'm wrong here...but so far, this is my greatest disappointment.
I did participate in one minor engagement with pirates and I must say it was surprisingly fun. The act of forming a fleet and having to jump it into the neighboring system where the pirate raid was occurring revealed interesting possibilities for combat in this game. Distance, speed, fuel, etc. will all be a factor here.
This game is absolutely titanic in scale...I do feel there is too much detail in some areas, while not enough in others. Aesthetically, its pleasant for the most part, but I eagerly await new options with respect to ship profiles and "national" flags/symbology...the initial options are paltry.
I must say, and I don't want this to scare anybody off, but I can't help feeling that DW is reminiscent of a patched and modded MOO3! Yes folks, the design philosophy feels similar in several ways...particularly with respect to various aspects of the automation, which is a significant factor in both DW and MOO3. For me, this is a good thing...both games permit the player to intervene and directly control those systems that are automated by the AI. Looks like DW has more flexibility in terms of direct control, but still...W definitely seems to have used the MOO3 concept and refined it...
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Review #2
THE REVIEW
Conan has now had ample opportunity to taste the exquisite fruit of Codemaster's loins, and he comes back to report his findings, to men of value. The Barbarian had an easy time of installing the six hundred megabyte game - although he was unpleasantly surprised by the release day patch. Such a deeply un-sexy message to send out, developer support notwithstanding. In any case, after Conan returned to his hearth from various conquests afield, he started the game up, jerk-off arm at the ready.
At first glance, the graphical quality of the sexperience was generally decent. Some nice use of lighting was spied by Conan's vigilant eye, and he was all-in-all pleased by the quality of the artwork. The UI, as Conan saw it, was a mixed bag. The theme was just a trite - a smidgen, even - underdone, yes. But Conan's chest suffered pains when he saw the Windows-style scroll-bars. Conan then knew, in his heart of hearts, near his balls, that he was playing a budget game. Still, he battled on, selecting a galaxy, choosing his sexy vagina-conquering empire (Conan picked the humans, because his mother was human, and on a later run-through one of three insect species... just because) and then defining his opponents. There was sadness in Conan's soul that racial customization could not be done on the trot. Instead, to create Cimmerian ubermen, Conan would have to edit files in the game directory. Not overly complicated, but not sexual at all.
Once the Barbarian had defined the parameters of his spiritual razziah across the galaxy, he jumped in. At first, he tried to do everything himself. This proved difficult, because Conan had not read the manual, nor attempted the tutorials. He is too much man for that. So, he decided to put the fabled automation features to the test, and to watch the AI grow Conan's penis across the galaxy. Speaking of which, Conan was pleased to see that the galaxy was simply rendered, but lovely to behold. It was very nice. During the next six hours, Conan was exposed to all: the good, the bad, the ugly and the sensual.
He will start with the good:
The Galaxy - it lives!
Conan was most pleased to see the automation AI spread his seed across neighboring star systems efficiently. Explorers made their way across the sector (the galaxy chosen was 1,400 systems large) on their own, sensor-ing various sexy stellar objects and being attacked by space crabs. Vessels of war patrolled, formed up into war fleets, resupplied and upgraded of their own accord. Civilian freighters of all sizes, passenger ships, resupply ships and more buzzed around various mines and colonies, making it all look very busy. The atmosphere proved excellent. Conan was lost in his e-Penis. His growing empire was a hive of activity, and Conan's input was, by choice, minimal.
Conan says: +++
The Editor
Sitting next to the options button, Conan saw something strange. It was an in-game, full-blowing editor, allowing players to do anything they can imagine to the game, as its running. Adding planets/systems/sectors is no problem. New alien empires? Yes, Conan was able to do this. Alter existing ones? Of course. Ultimate God-mode was at Conan's fingertips. To be fair, this is status quo for Conan, but it is nice to see a 4X game recognize his inherent superiority.
Conan says: ++
Automation
The Barbarian was most pleased when he found that everything could be automated. It was gratifying. It made his balls tingle. Oh, how they tingled. The player can choose which aspects of his empire to run, and which to leave to the AI. If he so chose, Conan could have run just one ship, and sexualized that way, almost as if he was playing a different sort of game. The concept, overall, is good.
Conan says: +
Now, for the bad:
The fucking Automation
On the other hand, Conan spent many a minute being, at best, displeased with the automation feature. Why did his huge 4th Fleet penis tendril not move to engage the enemy he had declared war upon? It just sat there, in one of Conan's neighbor's dickjuice refueling stations, in the Bumfuck Nowhere system. Playing for some time proved one thing to Conan: the AI handles an empire peacefully expanding across the galaxy well enough. It can also respond to singular threats well. Space slugs, pirates and the like were exterminated with pleasing panache. Yet, smashing up an alien vagina empire half as strong proved beyond its capabilities. On another occasion, when it chose to directly engage the enemy, it took over his home system, leaving the rest of the empire between Conan's border and there (i.e. the entire empire) untouched.
What villainous dickery. Yes, Conan could have conducted the war himself. But he wished to see what the AI would do, given half the chance. The answer was: raid a research station, over and over again.
Conan says: - -
Micro-managment
When the automation taste test fails, the player can always resort to manual control. Conan attempted this, but it was a homosexualized experience. The vaunted automation masks the extreme micro inherent to this game. Fleets can go anywhere, do anything, and need refueling (Crom, why?!). For the armchair God, that translates to baby sitting. Conan has a semblance of a life, and vaginas to conquer. He cannot be sitting there for five hours making sure every little detail sits right when Task Force Superdudes is preparing to war against Conan's enemies. Worse yet, the automation features are way too general. Space Empires III + IV had automated resupply ten God damned years ago. Not Distant Worlds. If you want automated resupply, that whole fleet is doing everything auto. From resupplying, to sitting there doing nothing.
Conan says: -
And now, for the ugly:
BUGS! Damn you!
No, Conan does not speak of the insectoid races. They are sexual. Instead, Conan refers to the game crashing, and losing him three hours' worth of progress, because there is no auto-save feature. Conan would think that an auto-save solution to a real-time game could be making it automatically save every so often. A player might even be granted the right to choose. Conan does not know, although it seems less complicated than it appears. That was bug number one, and Conan forgave. Number two was more perplexing. Brows were furrowed. At a certain point in the mid-game, Conan's second runthrough was halted by the game running out of memory. On Conan's 8GB RAM quad-core. A 2D game. Conan slew the game's developer in his dreams, that night.
He understands that native 32 bit applications are not friendly to more than 2GB RAM. But, why was a 1,400 star galaxy made available to the Barbarian, if it was destined for unplayability? Was it to make Conan angry? Was it to make him jerk his bacon angrily? Why?!
Conan says: - - -
Overal grade: =
The game needs developer support, badly, Conan thinks. The bad things can be ironed out. There is a gem here, waiting to come out. Conan lives in hope, and frustration.
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This is some foreign guy from DW forums that everyone is sorta bashing on for saying what he thinks.... Helpful if you can get past the bad English.
Defnitle better than Armada. Armada is crap then this isnt great achivment.
More enjoyable than SINS. In SinS I get bored fast. I dont very like RTS without story. And SINS is your basic RTS but in space.
More playable than Immortals. Much more. And go more smoothly.
Not that good as SOtS with expansions but slight better than vanillia basic version.But game is diffrent from SotS. SotS focus on tactical battles here you have more global aproach.
BTW There is much place for improvment.
I buy it 5minuts after realese. Never expeceted tat I do somethinng that stupid and irrensposible. Excitmend take over me. Although I dont thnk so that was complete waste f money. Meyby little(big little if you get me) to fast.
Game is not bad. Have some technical issue. I can see they dont have enough beta test. Kinda Paradox games problems. Game is playable thought.
Also some things dont work as they should. Retrofiting your own designs ships is currently broken. How this can slip betatest I dont know. It is very irritating and main reason for not buying this game right now. Wait for patch and if they dont gonna realese it fast forget this game for some times.
Game for first time look heavy on the interface but when you know it more it is kinda enough to operate without problems but have some minors flawns.
Actually I find enjoying this game. AI isnt very smart but can handle few things.
Some game mechanics look strenge(like collecting bonusses from other races-in some matter this make sense in other makes none).
On the other hands game is playing niceespecially first part but when you hit enough tech you mass spawn coloniess and game lost on it. I will prefer games with less colonizable worlds.
Also this game dont have nothing common with MoO3 if you thinks about internal politics. Diplomacy isnt very appleing too. resarch is only about components for ships and starbases and goverment system isnt very balancing.
Also customisation is rater poor. If you think about modding game like EU - you can forget this.
*My own opinion and this is true opinion. As you see no bitching.
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Topic: Distant Worlds (4x RTS) (Read 129861 times)