Well, overall, I enjoyed the small story the campaign told. Some missions, I felt, were better than others (I ran through the last 4 in about 1.5 hours) and it would have been nice to have some cutscenes, particulary for some of the cooler events (the flight from Earth and the use of the 'salvation' device). One thing I thought was odd was how many of the missions made you throw away a lot of the strategy you'd use for a sandbox game in favor of a particular strategy - at first this annoyed me, but I realized if I wanted sandbox, I had sandbox, and in this way it was almost like a mini-puzzle game, especially towards the end where most maps had only one real solution. While it could use more polish (spelling errors seemed abundant, and in some missions I hardly had to do anything to win on Normal difficulty), overall I'd give it a B-.
Now for my question - can we expect the sequel (there WILL be a sequel, right?!? - don't leave me hangin' man!) as part of a free download, or will it be part of some future expansion?
If there is another campaign, I'd make the following suggestions:
- CUTSCENES!! I can't stress this enough. I think there's a good story waiting to be told, but I'd like to play and watch it, not just read it.
- Better match missions to the plot. It might even be interesting to have a mission or two where you DON'T have a planet, just a fleet, and must keep that fleet alive to finish a certain objective.
- More immersion is key: in-mission scenes could be interesting, although more challenging due to the nature of the game. Having an NPC opponent - your counter-part among the Dread Lords - could make for a more immersive story, particularly if there was some voice-acting involved. Maybe even have a flagship for both you, and your counter-part, and if yours is destroyed, that ends the mission. Obviously your counter-parts wouldn't be wiped out til the last mission, although it could perhaps be spotted (and flee) in previous missions. It's also difficult to see what role I play in the campaign - am I a general in charge of a fleet, or the full-on head of the Terran Alliance? These sort of small things go a long way towards drawing the player in, I think.
Thanks again for the great game, Stardock. I look forward to many future sandbox games, as well as the inevitible updates! For the first time in many years I finally have a 4x game I'd rather play more than MOO1 or MOO2, and that says a lot.
