First Impressions

[Sabratha]

Initial first 5 mins feel:

1) Installer works ok.
2) Game launched smoothly, no lag or anything of that sort. I'm attaching my dxdiag for reference.
3) The graphics are ok, not mind blowing but acceptable for a strategy game.
4) Personally I feel the colors could be less blaring and less pastel, more dark and terrain-y, but this is a strictly personal preference.
5) Oh the game uses hexagons instead of squares or whatever. I like this a lot!

First 30 mins:
1) The game is easy to understand for me, as I played games like the civilization series or master of orion etc. The mechanics are intuitive and feel very familiar.
2) The "familiar feel" has a dark side too. What I mean is that the game feels a bit too much like civilization. It doesn't feel much different than civilization or Alpha centauri and generally so far it feels like a "generic civ clone". Even the ruins work like in civ 2.
3) I like most unit graphics (love the way colonial troopers look).
4) I dislike how the xenomorphs look - I dubbed them "the venus flytrap on legs". I feel they are pretty unimaginative and bland for such commonly seen "native pandoran" unit.

First hour:
1) I met my first "other civilization" and so far the interaction was pretty basic. The same sort of old Civilization 2/Master of Orion 2 ways of interacting - ask for tribute, exchange technolgy etc. At this early point in the game I'm not sure if this will become more complex at a later point in the game (perhaps establising an embassy or a pan-pandoran senate etc). However so far this feels very limited and "retro" in a bad way - I was expecting diplomacy to be more detailed than in old 20th century civ-like games. Seeing that various civs have a different "mindset" and feel to them, I wish the intereactions were voiced.
2) Minimizing and maximizing the game works ok, I ran a few other programs in teh background including internet browsers and its all fine. Generally the game continues to run smoothly, no audio or graphical issues either.
3) The tech tree so far is no-nonsense, but not unique in any way. Only thing taht stands out in a positive way is the one-time bonus research (colony ship dismantling etc).
4) Suprisingly, there's not much interaction between you and your "mother planet". Perhaps this is a personal issue, but I was expecting more of it - perhaps somewhat similar to the "colonisation" series.
5) The terrain for the most part feels bland. Zoomed out the map looks like it could be earth, it does not really provide any sense of it being an alien world. The only exception are fungus hexes. I'm ok with how the terrain types work as far as game mechanics go, but these hardly feel unique or alien.
6) So far it is too early to tell anything about balance issues or general strategy.
7) Music is pretty average. Not horrible or annoying, but does not stand out much. I imagine I would turn it off and just play with my winamp turned on in later playthroughs if I was a regular gamer and not a betatester.
8 ) Compendium entries are generic and uninspired, much like the terrain. Only a few (like the entry on the "great planetary survey") seem to have any flavor text or quotes. More of this imho could be usefull.


OVERALL FEEL:
The game works fine, but lacks what boardgamers would call "chrome". The scifi and alien world settings is hardly visible. Pandora doesn't look really alien, there doesn't seem to be any mystery behind it that would draw the player in. Perhaps something like this will apper in late-game, but it doesn't look like ti after the first hour.
The terrain as I already mentioned, looks earth-like in the vast majority of cases. Overall the game lacks an "alien planet" feel - not much is mentioned about the ecosystem, gravity, atmosphere etc. Overall lacks the "final frontier" vibes that scifi games might look for. Generlaly I believe that the people who would buy this looking for a game about colonizing an alien planet will be dissapointed. The game looks ok so far as a civ clone, but imho it utterly fails to capitalize on its alien planet colonization theme.
Well executed, this theme could set the game apart from similar games of the genre, but so far it feels too much like "just another civ clone".

[SephiRok]

Thanks for the feedback, Sabratha.

I'm sorry you did not enjoy it as much as you would've liked.

We still have some voice-overs and flavor reports in the works. Hopefully you find values in it.

[Sabratha]

Well, I might have sounded more negative in that post than I feel. I played a bit more and the gameplay looks ok, combat feels fine. Generally I think it is a quite good and playable game. Its good at what it is - a civ-clone. Its just that its not much other than that, there are few traits that make this unique among other civ-clones.
I guess I was expecting it to be a game with a civ-like elements, which would nevertheless be unique in both setting and gameplay elements. I was expecting it to be as different from civilization as let's say Colonization or Master of Orion was.

I personally would give it 7/10 stars if you ask me. Its not bad, but not revoluntionary or unique.

[Delta66]

Like Sabratha, I feel the game solid as a Civ game, yet it doesn't use the SF theme as much as it could.

After playing several complete games, I still want to play more games as the gameplay and decisions making is quite good and challenging.
However there is not much to discover after the first week of gaming. The planet doen't seems "living", midway through the game when most aliens are gone, we have a basic battlefield for human factions, the explore element seems gone, and the game turns into a management & war game. Fortunately there's enough consistency in the core gameplay to keep the interest.

The factions certainly have specific plus and minus, but they aren't differentiated enough. For example playing the Terra Salvum (green), I was able to research and use nuclear weapons, not a big issue but anti-atmospheric, Factions specific/forbiden techs wil make playing each faction a more varied experience. Moreover they all have access to the same units, and all factions advisors have the same artworks.