Star Prospector has launched a week ago. Intrigued by this new sci-fi RTS I decided to take Star Prospector for a spin. Not to write a full-blown review yet but to get a taste of the game, and to let you guys know my first impressions playing it.

I played the first two missions (not the demo, the full game). But after finishing the second mission I realized “Hey, maybe I’ll just play one more!”. The article could almost end by now :) No, seriously, here are my first impressions of Star Prospector. Enjoy!

A smooth entry

First of all the intro is really nice. This is something you don’t see much these days and is surely a very important asset to set the right mood. I navigated very comfortably through all the menus. I choose my rig, its weapons and a first mission assignment, which was kind of a basic tutorial one.

With the help of the tutorial learning to play the game was very easy. The user interface is very accessible, which also helps a lot. Everything seems to be in the right place and feels right. There is enough information available (descriptions, damage inflicted by units, unit’s experience, power required for each building, etc).

There are several types of missions available to you, which I find particularly interesting. I could find already prospect, eliminate and archeologist missions. In the prospect missions you are assigned a task to assess if a particular planet is suitable for exploiting a particular resource. In the archaeologist missions you need to investigate some event or events, take necessary action and bring back a report. So, in a sense the archeologist and the prospect missions are kind of survey missions you undertake on the various systems and planets.

After every successful mission you’re rewarded with credits and experience. With those you can upgrade your rig with better weapons and defenses or decide to invest in unlocking new units or buildings (which is understood in the game as new “techs”). So, mission after mission you gradually upgrade your list of possibilities which is a nice thing that increases replayability and mitigates a bit mission repetitiveness. You know, build ore facility, build bot factory, build bot, extract ore, build fuel extractor, etc…. To mitigate this repetitive pattern I think some missions (some, not necessarily all) could start already a bit advanced (with the basic buildings and units) so that you don’t need to start every time everything from scratch.

One other very interesting aspect about Star Prospector is that every game you start is randomly generated. So, you will end up getting different missions every time you play a new game. This is a very important aspect because it increases game replayability. In my game session I completed 2 missions of a total of 101 for that game (2% accomplished in 1 hour or so of play). That’s a lot of play potential.

A pure RTS with a twist

Star Prospector is an RTS, a pure one in the sense that you need to use your workers (in this case bots) to collect resources nearby your base (which gladfully are finite). Then you need to bring that ore into an ore processing facility to be later used for constructing new buildings and new units. You have two types of resources available, ore and fuel. This is the game’s core mechanic, and there’s really nothing new here.

However, although Star Prospector is a pure RTS its pace may not satisfy all players at the start. The game has a kind of more calmer and leisure feel to it, certainly not the case of your typical RTS where everything happens instantly and you get to places very fast. Not in Star Prospector. Things don’t take that much time to build alright but units do take their time to move around, scout and reach a destination. Including your rig. So, don’t expect a full adrenaline rush coming out from this game but more of a casual and joyful experience, certainly a kind of a twist to traditional RTS games.

I have nothing against this calmer pace. Actually, for me the fast pace (sometimes even frenetic like in StarCraft) is something I don’t fancy that much. So, this game will be perfect for you guys that like RTS but like to take your time.

The music and sounds are very decent. I found the sounds particularly interesting by the way. The sounds of bot miners extracting ore or the sounds of lasers firing from laser bots and laser towers are particularly nice.

In terms of graphics Star Prospector doesn’t bring anything new really. There are no spectacular explosions (that I could experience in two games at least), no revolutionary camera moves or fully detailed models. But overall graphics are quite nice. Very clean and crisp. I have nothing to complain here.

Conclusion

Star Prospector seems like a very nice and decent sci-fi RTS game that every RTS gamer should have a look at. The experience evolves at a calm pace featuring a very interesting blend of RPG elements (progression, experience gain, level up, items purchase), strategy elements and action.

I found my first incursion into Star Prospector a very joyful and entertaining experience. The decision of including Star Prospector in the Space Sector’s sci-fi/space games list for 2012 was indeed a fortunate one. It was the first title of that list to come out, and it came out as a good surprise.

In case you missed it there’s a demo available. Try it for yourself and let me know your own impressions about the game.

Star Prospector is available on Impulse/GameStop for the Windows PC, for a price of $19.99 USD.

So, if you want to be one of the first to have a look at Renations then jump right in through this link and share it with your friends if you like. You can all pick nearby places when choosing your race and city locations so you’ll be able to interact early in the game.

First Impressions

Renations is a strategy game set on a post-apocalyptic world. For a brief overview of the game I invite you to read a Renations’ preview article I wrote a couple of months ago.

At first look Renations seems to be just another of your typical browser-based resource-gathering free to play MMO. Yes, the main mechanics are common to many other browser-based MMO games currently available in the market. However there was something about Renations that caught my attention. Maybe it had to do with its background story and the sci-fi setting, or perhaps it was just a god damn good pinch press release.

Anyway there were some key aspects about Renations that made me follow this game since it was first announced a couple of months ago. Things like the devs stating that “accessibility has been a key design driver in Renations“, or that “RENATIONS is different to other similar games as it features extensive lore and emphasizes the art of storytelling“, or perhaps it was the devs punch line “The game reinvents the genre“.

For some reason I was captivated by this title and today I got a chance to have a look at it, a couple of days before it gets open to the public.

So, what’s interesting about Renations?

Actually when you start your game you can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed with all the different buttons, icons and tabs available to you. And at first glance the graphics don’t look that nice. But after a while you get used to the UI look & feel and you start to navigate around very comfortably. And this is a strong point about Renations that I would like to point out first.

The UI is clean, usable and intuitive. The game features plenty of tool-tips that help you get a good grasp on the game. The majority of the game functions are at the distance of a click and the rest of them probably not more than a couple. The menu is very well organized, and so, after a few minutes you’ll be quite familiarized with all that the game has to offer. But don’t be fooled with this apparent simplicity, Renations has plenty to offer.

The UI can take some seconds to respond at times but nothing too serious (remember that this is a browser-based game). There are some obvious things still left out to finish. Things like some art assets still missing (“Portrait coming soon!”). I guess the devs will take care of that shortly, during the open beta or right after that.

In the beginning, I recommend you go through the tutorial, which as usual in this type of games will introduce you to the resource gathering and building mechanics of the game. Mission after mission you will become more and more familiarized with the game, so, this tutorial alone is probably all you need to get on track with the game and I strongly advise you start there.

Story unfolds with your progress. This is probably one of the aspects I like most about Renations, if not the major aspect that got me interested in the game in the first place. In contrast with many other MMOs I’ve played, Renations features a central story which unfolds as the player progresses in the game. As time unfolds you will be decoding parts of the story in what the game calls “log books”. Actually the game server that can be played now has the layout of a book. As the game progresses new chapters will be unfold, and so on. Possibly in the future there will be more servers (more games, or books) to be unlocked, but this is just a guess.

Heroes, quests and events. Besides the main plot Renations also features a very interesting PvE side-quest system, also vulgarly known as instances or raids. As you progress you will be able to perform these side quests, even cooperatively at times, although I only managed to complete a single-player instance yet. If you’re successful you gain loot and possibly level up your heroes when you finish your quests.

To embark in PvE quests you need heroes. There are several types of heroes available for recruiting, each one with their own traits. RPG fans will be pleased since heroes level up and can be equipped. You recruit your heroes at a tavern and you can buy them equipment there too. The more improved your taverns are the more and stronger your heroes will be available for recruiting there.

In addition to PvE quests Renations also features events that occur from time to time. When these events unfold you are given a choice on how to address them. On one of my games I had the chance to apply a surplus of money. Miners were requesting increased wages in order to ease their burden. I had the choice to use that surplus money to raise their wages or to invest the money in the construction of warheads. So, your decisions, your play style, will affect the game accordingly. In my case I decided to attend the miner demands, and for that I got a temporary boost of production in my city.

Interesting tech trees. Renations features research. Nothing really new here. However I found Renations’ tech trees to be rather meaningful. You research new techs to unlock new buildings and new units, nothing new here alright, but each faction has its own different tech tree, adapted to their style and background story. Although I’ve only played two factions by now (the Ocean dwellers Myrmidons for the most part, and the Order for some time) there seem to be plenty of choices and different kind of buildings and interesting units to unlock.

Other Aspects

The monetization model is pretty standard. The game is free to play, however if you want you can subscribe temporary advantages called subscriptions with game currency called Game Credits (GC), that you can buy in-game. These subscriptions include research and production boosts and extra queue building slots (the ability to build several things at the same time). In addition to these subscriptions you can also buy special equipment (called implants) to equip your heroes.

There are some rough edges still. As not unexpected at this time (since the game is still in beta) there is still some unpolished stuff and some annoyances too. Examples of these are the missing art assets. Some pictures are still unavailable and some icons look a bit too similar in places. As an example of this: the unit icons, which are very similar and uninteresting. Looks like the Art department has still a lot of work to do. There is occasional lag on UI response here and there but nothing too serious as I already mentioned above. There is also some bad wording in the descriptions when starting your game and choosing your faction.

Bottom Line

Renations did not disappoint me. This is actually a MMO game I enjoyed playing. It features a nice bundle of features. At times, and in a way, it made me feel like playing Civilization on a browser with a post-apocalyptic setting.

Only time will tell if Renations has enough depth (and not too many annoyances) to keep me interested, but for now I will play it in the background to check-in from time to time.

I’ve witnessed some bad releases in my time. This one has been no doubt one of the most disappointing. It’s sad how this is becoming a pattern these days and how the players are being turned into beta testers more and more. Add on top of that the fact that people had extremely high expectations for SotS2 (since the original SotS is a game loved by so many) and you get one of the most dramatic releases of the last years.

It’s fairly known by now that Paradox Interactive and Kerberos Productions have announced that there were (major) problems with the game’s release, so, I am sure many of you are not being caught by surprise. On the release’s very next day the publisher’s CEO Fredrik Wester made a statement on Paradox’s forum apologizing for the current state of the game. One day after that, it was Martin Cirulis time to apologize on the developers forum. In that post Kerberos’ CEO asked for patience and promised that things will be fixed as soon as possible.

Having heard so many horrible things about the release I decided to get my hands into SotS2 as fast as I could. So, in the meantime of my work on the review here are my first impressions.

So, how bad is it?

It’s bad, really bad. Consider that I based these impressions on the latest available patch at the time of this writing (which would be the one from last Friday’s 11th November patch (several patches have already been issued since release day).

3D Map is a bit cumbersome to navigate

Let me start by saying that the worst part of this all is stability. It’s really hard to play the current release because it’s almost impossible to play 20 or more straight turns (actually trying to do something) without getting into a random crash to desktop (sometimes on the fleet manager, others on the “diplomacy” menu and on other places). Other times the game will just freeze, when you try to access the game menu for example. I know this is not happening just here because I’ve been checking forums where people are discussing the game, and they are saying the same there too.

But it’s not just stability. The game feels incomplete, it’s unpolished in many aspects and you can tell that there are features that are dummy or still work in progress. I think a couple of pictures will show you better what I mean.

But it’s not only the incompleteness. Some things are just plain missing. Trade for example is not yet functional from what I could tell. You adjust your sliders to divert production to trade but nothing happens, you don’t get more income as you’re supposed to. (Edit 16/11: So it seems that trade should be already functional by now – from what I could learn in the Kerberos’ forum – however apparently the player is required to build the right kind of station, research the right tech, build freighters, and then trade routes will eventually be established, but I can’t confirm this yet. And surely this is not documented anywhere, and nothing in the game leads you to think you need all this) Another example is diplomacy. At first I could not see any diplomacy options, that’s ok, I had not encountered any opponent yet. Eventually I found an opponent and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Most Diplomacy options are just a placeholder, a dummy version barely 20% functional perhaps. See below.

Diplomacy options are currently a placeholder

It looks better than it actually is. The buttons “System Data”, “Slaves”, “World”, etc, are all placeholders, when you click nothing happens. At first you think you’re doing something wrong but after a while it becomes evident that you’re not. This is what you get if you request or demand something (I don’t know what the difference between the two options is since both lead to the same screen above). If you click treaty you can’t do anything (maybe you can’t yet? At this point you can’t help to start thinking otherwise).

Then there’s the random crashing and freezing (that I already talked about) and the annoying lag-time between menus that can go from a normal 1 to 2 sec time to more than 5, 10 or more seconds in some cases (again I know that this is not happening just here).

Then there’s more unpolished stuff and more annoyances proper of an Alpha/Beta release. Things like:

• No in-game tutorial.
• Options and cinematic in the game menu greyed out (unavailable).
• Not being able to select multiple fleets to strike a system (having to go and assign one by one).
• Not being able to distinguish explored from unexplored systems in a user-friendly way.
• Finding a gaseous planet (and a barren planet) with an Earth-type model rendering when you zoom-in.
• Many Terran planets have Very similar models (if not the same).
• Having to switch continuously between tech trees to pick the one I want (very tedious process).
• Info panel states 6 turns for a fleet to reach a destination but actually it takes 3 or less (at least with the Morrigi engines - the ones I played more). This is a very serious problem.
• There is “salvage research” and “special project” sliders on the empire manager screen that I don’t have a clue what they are for (even after reading both the manual and the beginner’s guide entirely – the Manual is very nice BTW). And what about the locked “Immigration Rate” slider? More tool-tips would help.
• There’s not an empire wide fleet overview screen, so we lose track of fleets very easily.
• Sotspedia (or Encycolopedia – not a typo, it’s how it’s written in the game) doesn’t help much and it’s incomplete.
• Station build order costs can’t be seen upfront, and while you can cancel the order after seeing how much it costs to upgrade the station it’s clear that that’s not the way it should be implemented.
• We don’t get a sense of distance between stars in the 3D map. To know that you need to simulate sending a fleet there… (couldn’t find another way)
• UI rendering is very poor in places (some ugliness when over-zooming). Clearly something that’s probably easy to fine-tune with proper testing.
• Overall UI clunkiness (from not very responsive to some serious lag at times)
• Can only rename planets right after colonization but can’t rename them ever since and systems can’t be renamed either (if they can please let me know)
• No random galaxy generation. Currently only a collection of fixed sand-box maps are available (scenarios are greyed out at game setup). The Manual states that systems details, stars and planets change from game to game but systems disposition (galaxy appearance) is fixed. This must be changed.

There’s more but I’ll save that for the review.

Anything good?

Plenty of it, great stuff, but unfortunately you can’t experience it for long because of all the bad stuff already mentioned, especially the stability issues.

There’s the beautiful ship models (some are just ok but others are gorgeous). The color palette may not be the best in places but the ships detail is generally awesome. You can even see inside the bridge/cockpit of some starships, I’m not talking about a painted model feel I mean you can actually feel you’re peaking inside the ship’s bridge. Awesome stuff (see below).

Want to peak inside a Morrigi cruiser?

There’s plenty of depth on the new stations concept. You can build many kinds of stations and you can upgrade them with new modules. This needs to be done carefully since they are very expensive yet very powerful. I really like this new stations feature. There’s Naval, Civilian, Diplomatic, Science, Gate and Tribute stations. Each of them level up several times till they become Science Centers, Star Cities, Star Bases, among other important base establishments that seem to have a strong impact in the game.

Gorgeously detailed stations

The lore is very interesting. The races background-story is detailed, rich and immersive. The races description is probably the best part of the manual by the way, and surely one of the best parts of the game also.

Other good and great aspects:

• Overall graphical rendering detail is very beautiful (planets, ships, stations).
• The missions concept is refreshing (survey missions, colonization missions, strike, invade, etc).
• Leaders: I could only see Admirals for now. For every fleet you need one of those. Each leader provides its own set of positive and less positive traits. Good one.
• Research randomization is kept from the original SotS and now there is the “Feasibility Study”, required before researching techs. Good addition in my opinion.
• There are small nice touches here and there. The tech icon rotates faster with more research spending and when there are ships under construction the build icon flashes to indicate you’re building something.
• Combat is overall nice although I experienced some clunkiness here and there. At some point I lost sight of my ships and it was hard to find them back … then the battle ended. Nevertheless space combat does feel epic, perhaps one of the best to date in 4X space games. We’ll see.
• There are independent races in the game that will not expand as much as the other major races. Finding them is supposed to be rare and you need to survey systems intensely in order to spot them (at least it’s what the manual states). Sounds good.
• There’s also a province concept where you can combine systems into provinces for economical bonuses and possibly other benefits I couldn’t grasp yet. Sounds great.
• The Survey missions, although a bit rough on the edges still, deserves an applause. eXploration has always been a weak link in 4X games, SotS2 does a great step in the right direction.
• Empire manager screen is rich in options and allows a good level of detail and control over the economical part of the game.

There’s more but that will also be in the review.

Bottom Line

In summary there’s plenty of good and even great stuff on SotS2 but there’s also plenty of horrible stuff as well. Some of the issues can (and will mostly probably) be resolved with patches to come (which the devs stated they are strongly committed on undertaking). When the stability issues are resolved, the trade made functional (Edit 16/11: or better explained) and the diplomacy complete I think the game will be fairly playable and probably already very enjoyable. At this moment however I think it’s not possible to enjoy playing, at least in my neck of the woods.

The release has been a disaster, that’s a fact, however both the devs and the publisher have made a sufficiently in-time mea-culpa, apologized and committed right away to support the game evolution through the coming months.  Moreover in order to help mitigate all this Paradox and Kerberos have offered a copy of the original Sword of the Stars Complete Collection to all the people who have bought SotS2 (or just the ones that have pre-ordered it, I’m not sure on this one).

For the ones thinking about buying the game at present state consider yourselves warned. For the brave and generous souls that are going to buy the game at this moment I think you have a good chance of not having your money badly spent since you’ll be supporting the devs through the patching process, now that all has been said. For the ones of you that have pre-ordered the game I guess there’s no big drama here either since you can choose to keep your faith in the game and on the devs or just decide to ask for a refund. I can’t see what’s the big fuss about this, at the very most people had their money tied-up alright but not lost.

All things considered I think SotS2 has all the ingredients to become a great game, perhaps even one of the best 4X space games of all time, but at the moment it needs many hours of polishing, tweaking and improvement still in order to aspire to reach that far.

I think I carried myself a bit with this first impressions article, it came out quite longer than I first anticipated, for an article of this nature, but I think it can be helpful for people to have an in-depth overview of the game’s current state. Thanks for reading and good luck to the devs on the major task ahead!

Astriarch – Ruler of the Stars is a turn-based single player space strategy game implemented in Silverlight (a Microsoft framework to develop web-browser plugins), which means that Astriarch is a browser-based game (at least for now).

Astriarch was previously released as free public beta. In the gold version Mastered Software added music and sound effects. The game is still free. They plan to develop future enhancements which will include multiplayer mode, a research tree and the desktop version of the game (i.e. a non-browser-based version).

In their website Mastered Software says that Astriarch was inspired in many aspects from other classic space strategy games like “Master of Orion 2 (MOO2), Stellar Conflict (1987 Amiga), and Star Control“. I can speak for MOO2, they really captured some aspects of the MOO2 soul. You can notice it here and there while playing.

As a curiosity the devs explained that the name Astriarch comes from the Ancient Greek words for star (ástron) and ruler (arkhos).

First Impressions

I went to the Astriarch homepage, watched the two video tutorials and started playing right away. All of this was done in the same web page. No registration page, no download required (although I had Silverlight already installed, you will need to download it in order to play). I setup a game versus 3 computer players and started playing.

As I previously watched the video tutorials I jumped into the game very quickly. I built my first farms and mines and started hitting the end turn button. Then I strolled around to see what each thing was for. The tool tips are very nice providing you all you need to know, short and incisive information.

The game is completely sandbox, so there is no story, campaign or anything like that. You setup a scenario and off you go.

User Interface

The User Interface is very simple, clean and intuitive. You get your main interaction with the game from the main strategy star map. You can see your stats, your ships and select your different planets. You have two additional panels to interact with: the planetary management window, which is the heart of the management decisions you need to make, and a fleet window in order to move your ships around.

The interface is not pretty but it does not have to be. It is functional and it completely captures the retro feel of this type of games.

The Economy System

In Astriarch your resources are food, gold, ore and iridium (a very hard high melting point metal).

You need enough food to feed your population and keep them happy (or  they revolt). You need the other three resources to build your structures and your space ships. Iridium is key to build your spaceships as I understand it is the material needed as an alloy.

Production in Astriarch is a factor of the number of Farmers, Miners and Workers you assign using the sliders in each planet to that effect. More farmers with more farms produce more food, more miners with more mines produce more ore and iridium, and more workers with more factories build things quicker. But there is a limit to the number of structures you can build in each planet and to the number of people you can hold.

The type of planet you own will affect your food, mining and production levels as for your maximum population and maximum building slots. But nothing has been left out; you can increase your population number by building colony structures.

I find Astriarch’s economy system elegant. It’s simple and easy to grasp while at the same time it is sufficiently rich and realistic. It is very well done.

Combat

There are five types of spaceships in Astriarch: Defenders, Scouts, Destroyers, Cruisers and Battleships. Some of which require certain buildings to be present at planet in order to be produced.

Combat is auto-resolved with a presentation of a screen pop-up informing you of the results. Combat is not tactical but has a very nice twist. Each spaceship type has advantages and disadvantages against each other so there is a nice degree of strategy that you can play with. For example, Scouts are good against defenders and cruisers are good against battleships. These bonuses are definitely a very interesting mechanic that really adds depth to the gameplay and to the overall what-to-build decision-making process.

There is no ground combat, no troops and no ground invasions. When your spaceship forces defeat all the garrisons holding a planet that planet is immediately captured to your side. From what I saw there is no option to bombard planets, i.e. to siege planets. You attack and win or lose. There are no retreats.

A Word about the Music

Astriarch’s music is … how shall I put it? Brilliant! It creates a great sci-fi atmosphere that transports you to the stars and really helps immersion. Great job!

Left Outs

There is no spaceship design, no research and no diplomacy in Astriarch, although Mastered Software has promised to develop a research tree in future game improvements.

Suggestions

A minimal diplomacy system would be nice. It would not need to be very complex. Just a peace and war option could be interesting to have. Right now your only interaction with the computer races is through war. To be qualified as a 4x game this is a key aspect to include, if that is what you are aiming for, of course. There could also be trade but that is probable asking too much for now.

If you could pull it off easily enough it would be very nice to add some RPG elements to the game. The minimum would be for ships to level up. This system would not need to be very complex. Each time a ship wins a battle it gains some points. After some threshold is hit they gain a level and that could give them a bonus percentage in combat. I think this is probably not too hard to implement (although I understand it’s not that easy also) and would improve, in my opinion, space combat fun dramatically.

I understand that research is planned to be a future game improvement. Minimum research options like attack and defense improvements and production enhancements, just to name a few examples, would be nice. This is another requirement, in my opinion, for the game to be qualified as 4x (you’re very close).

Optimally there could be more spaceship designs in the future, maybe a Carrier type and a Dreadnought for example. And even better, being able to tweak the ships somehow would be great.. There could be a custom ship that the player could design. Now that would be something.

Another important factor would be to introduce the element of surprise more often. It is more than proven in game design theory that fun goes side by side with surprises. If done well even negative surprises can be good elements for fun. Maybe you could add events like strikes (you already have revolts), derelicts or special features or bonuses in planets that could boost or decrease production and habitability even more, just to mention a few examples.

I think all these suggestions could be implemented quite simply without complex mechanics, fancy graphics or exquisite interfaces. It’s my 2 cents for your future plans for game improvements.

Bottom Line

Astriarch is probably one of the simplest space strategy games I’ve ever played and its brilliance is only surpassed by how strikingly simple it is to play. At the same time it provides more than enough gameplay complexity and requires that you make enough decisions to qualify it to be really worth your time.

I recommend you try Astriarch out. It should be more than enough to satisfy your space strategy craving for an easy, quick, or not so quick, game experience.

Astriarch is being discussed in this forum thread which was started personally by the Mastered Software developers. Feel free to participate in the discussion about the game and to present your suggestions directly to the devs.

Bigpoint and ArtPlant developed Battlestar Galactica Online, a Browser-Based MMORPG set on the Battlestar Galactica Universe. The game was released to the public on Feb 2011 as open beta. As I write these first impressions, the game is still on open beta, although it feels quite solid and probably is almost finished by now.

Bigpoint is one of the biggest publishers and developers of browser-based games. Their most popular titles include Dark Orbit, Seafight, Farmerama or Zoomumba. BSG online is being announced as the best launch of Bigpoint to date. Strong marketing punch indeed. So, I decided to have a look for myself to see if the product really meets the hype.

Let me start by saying that I’m a long time fan of the Battlestar Galactica Universe. I loved to watch the original TV Series (1978). BSG was one of the reasons why I fell in love with science fiction in the first place, along with other titles of course. I also watched the entire re-imagined BSG series that aired some years ago.

BSG Online is Free

BSG online is a free MMORPG that only requires a web-browser to run. As usual with this type of games, and with this type of business models, the game is offered to players for free. Bigpoint, and other companies alike, offer their games, in return they receive compensation from optional micro-payments that can be made in-game through a game currency commodity (in BSG online the currency is Cubits).

You can still play the game without paying for it, and usually you can have the full game experience without doing any micro-transactions. The trick is that normally the developers are keen on seducing the player to do these micro-payments through a number of ways. Sometimes micro-payments unlock special features, premium content and other times they offer shortcuts so that you don’t need to wait for something that takes a long time to build or to happen.

BSG Online First Impressions

I registered an account on the BSG online website and started playing immediately (I didn’t even need to confirm my account on my email). You start by choosing which faction you would like to play, Cylons or Colonials. After you’ve made your choice you jump straight into the game tutorial where you learn the basics of the game’s combat mechanics.

You learn to maneuver your ship and to destroy your enemies by targeting drones. The tutorial is nicely built, smooth and is not too much time-consuming.

The interface is very usable; all you need to do or know is at a distance of a click. You can right-click on your mouse to set the course and with the left click you select things and increase or decrease your throttle, among other things. You can even zoom in and out with your mouse scroll. So cool! It is that simple.

BSG Online sets in True 3D

BSG online has a true 3D engine behind that allows you to move freely around the game universe. BSG online uses the Unity Game Engine.

UGE is a game engine designed by Unity Technologies that allows developers to make fully fledged 3D online games that run in the web browser. BSG online with UGE really looks and feels amazing. The game runs very smoothly without hangs, bugs or crashes to report, all this in a simple web-browser. Great job!

Setup your Character and Review your Assignments

When you finish the tutorial you are transferred to a roster screen where you can set up your appearance and choose your ship. If you’re a colonial you can choose between a Viper MK II (if you prefer dogfight combat), or a Raptor (if you prefer reconnaissance or combat support). If you’re a Cylon you can choose between a Raider and a Heavy Raider, these last two share the same kind of characteristics as the Viper and the Raptor respectively.

After you set your looks and choose your ship you’re headed to the CIC, the command center of the Galactica battleship. There you can review your assignments with Admiral Adama himself. The complete list of assignments is also listed, and always available to you, in the screen at your right through a tab that you can hide if you want.

In addition to being debriefed about assignments you can also request some background info on the current war status from Adama. In time you can even request the command of the Pegasus from him. The Pegasus is Galactica’s sister ship, it is also a Battlestar class battleship like Galactica. But for that you need to acquire more experience and much more merit from duty.

Hang out at the Bar or do some Shopping

If you don’t feel like jumping right for your next assignment you can stroll around the CIC and head straight to the recreational area (the bar). Anyone familiar with the re-imagined BSG TV Series knows how important the bar scenes were to set the mood and the right atmosphere.

You can use the bar as a place to hang out and acquire information from Starbuck and Apollo (two other main characters from the re-imagined BSG TV series). You can also acquire some more background information and current war status from them.

You can also get extra assignments from Apollo for a chance to earn extra Cubits (the game’s currency) which can be exchanged for advanced items and other resources. You can also earn extra Tilium (ship fuel) from these side missions (or quests) that can be exchanged for other common items. By the way, other game resources include water, a precious supply that can be exchanged for cubits, and Titanium, that can be used to restore durability and can also be exchanged for Tilium.

I don’t know yet the full extent of the bar usage. Who knows, maybe you can get the chance to fly other ships not directly available to you from the main assignments. That part you will eventually figure out by yourself.

When you’re refreshed with a drink and ended your conversation with Apollo or Starbuck you can stop by for a visit to the Galactica’s Hangar, the fleet store.

In the Hangar you can equip your ship with better weapons, hulls, engines and computers. You can also resupply your ammunition.

You drag and drop your items to your ship in order to do this, in an exchange for Tilium, Titanium or Cubits. In addition to making ship improvements you can request a maintenance crew to restore your ship’s health (for a cost of titanium or cubits), you can also change your ship assignment and choose the ship you want to use from a vast list of ships that the game will eventually allow you to command. You can also buy a new ship. When buying ships you may be forced to transfer from Galactica to another war front on another sector.

When you’re ready for your next assignment get right back to the CIC and receive your debrief from Admiral Adama. My first assignment was a recon mission.

You can be a Cylon

You get all the above if you choose to side by the Colonials. You will be able to interact with Adama, Apollo, Starbuck and Chief Tyrol among others. Now imagine if you choose the Cylons! I’ll let you venture and discover that for yourself. Here is, however, a quick preview of what to expect. I leave you with Number Six (Caprica) and Number 2 (Ledben) for a nice conversation at the Cylon Basestar (the Cylon flagship) bar.

Music, Sound and Graphics

The sound is more than adequate for this sort of game. Your gun fire sounds nice; the menu sounds serve their purpose without distracting you. The music is great! This is a not so common feature among browser-based games (some don’t even feature music at all!). The music score is taken from the BSG re-imagined series soundtrack. Overall the music is of very high quality and really helps you feel more immersed in the game.

Graphics are great (and consider that you’re playing in a web-browser). It may have a few anti-aliasing problems here and there, but nothing special. The Unity Game Engine is really something. My experience with the game has been smooth, enjoyable, with no glitches, bugs or crashes whatsoever.

Bottom Line

BSG Online succeeds completely in capturing and recreating the re-imagined BSG TV series atmosphere. Can you believe that this game is played in a web-browser? Amazing! And it’s free. If you like games like EVE online and you love the Battlestar Galactica Universe then this game is for you. If you’re new to these types of games BSG Online is a good start.

I highly recommend anyone to try this game. It’s easy and free to play, so, if you don’t enjoy it in the end, you’ll only have lost a couple of hours. That is all that is required to register, play around with the engine in the tutorials, stroll around in the Galactica battleship, or on the Cylon Baseship, and make a quick assignment.

I had a blast playing and doing these first impressions! I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

You can enter the BSG online universe here.

Astro Empires is already a well established free space strategy (the free mode has some limitations, but is fully playable) web-based game known by many players. The idea of this article is to give the reader a global overview of this game to make it easier for newcomers.

For a review I did on another Web-Based MMOG -  Ogame, please refer to my other article: Ogame Review, Tips and Strategy Guide.

First impact

When reaching Astro Empires homepage, I have to confess that I liked it. Few and synthetic information including a small text describing the game and information regarding how easy it is to install and the fact that it is free to play. It also displayed  information about the advantage of not having to download anything, which captures the player’s attention for a smooth first impact. The homepage also gives a general overview of the game dimension and global information about the number of players, planets and bases in the server.

First Login, First Impressions

To be honest, when I made the first login I was not very pleased, I got a bit lost. I didn’t get immediately what I needed to do, it felt a bit unnatural and non-intuitive. The account overview is a little bit too texty, no graphic overview of your bases, your planets, I mean your location in the map. After 10 seconds, I found the Bases and Map icons…

When you choose one of your bases the following information is presented to you:  an overview, the  structures on it, the defenses, production, research and trade options. It presents all the standard issues of a common space strategy game, but the problem is with the details. When describing, for instance, the structures, there is no detailed information about them and it’s classification is done by means of numbers from one to a maximum level. I consider this a very simplistic approach that does not transmit a sense of realism to the player (but this is not strictly an Astro Empires thing, many games, like ogame for instance, also present this kind of simpler classification). I would prefer something more meaningful like “Advanced <structure>”, “Hyper”, “Automated” kind of upgrades but maybe that’s just a thing of mine.

Another down aspect in AE is when you click on a structure  it shows the same text as it did on the list of structures (I thought the second was more like a small description in a first place) with no images and with a list of the levels that each structure can achieve… too simple. Lots of work to be done here. But there is lots of space to be filled. I guess that the developers are probably still working on this matter for sure.

Galaxy Map

The map is ok, a grid over the galaxy is displayed with all the planets in each grid square. It gives you a nice perspective of your location in the game. There are tow kinds of links in the map. When you click on the planet, you go directly to the colony information, when you click in the name of the player you see information which can be important to test your diplomatic skills…

Timescale

For me, the timescale is the best feature of the game. I´m not a fan of rush kind web browser games where everything happens too fast. I like to take my time when placing a strategy. In this game, just because I was away for two days this didn’t ruined the game for me … my planet was not burning and my credits were not at zero!… against what is usual in some other web browser games like … travian, or ogame. I think this game has done a serious effort regarding this issue, but anyway I’m only playing it for a month, so  I could be mistaken about this.

Gaming experience so far

I needed to do something relevant with the game to have enough juice for a first impression… so, after lots of research levels, I ordered the construction of two Outpost ships (odd name for a regular colony ship), it took me around 6 hours to complete them… After a 3 minutes travel (maybe a bit too fast for my taste), the colony ship reached a metallic planet in the same solar system… I clicked the button “Build Base”… and that’s all. I wanted to see more juice in the process. Building a base is not like building a small fighter, but in Astro Empires, in practical terms, is the same. At least a few extra options could be presented when starting a colony, maybe a small report, or some colonization options presented (native population present in the planet, artifacts/technologies found, decisions to be made that affect the planet quality, etc).

Future

The future of this game is promising. I felt that the game is a like a raw diamond with many aspects still to be polished. The game is quick to load and to interact with and it seems that the engine beneath is also powerful. Now, the next step is to take more advantage of this engine and allow the player to extract the maximum potential of the concept but introducing more content.

I will continue to play the game and, in the future, I hope to write a deep review. In the meantime, I’ll explore the battles concept, colony management of several colonies, diplomacy aspects and the trading mechanism. I don´t know if I got lucky not having a dangerous alliance nearby (you can also join an alliance later) which allowed me to take me time to do things. IF this is confirmed than if you want to start a game in a “non-rush” mode, Astro Empires is a valuable option for you.