When speaking of quality of games in genral, there are some that are good and there are games that set new thresholds and define entire genres. Master of Orion 2 falls into the second category.

If we are talking about 4X strategies, Master of Orion 2 has been crowned the king over and over. (Oh, just in case you might be wondering what the hell is all about that „4x“ term, it is a reference to game with the four main elements of eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate.) This goes double for the space 4x games, where MoO2 is something you just can’t ignore when mentioning this genre. The first Master of Orion was good; the second almost divine. To this day, 17 years after it was released, it is still a reference for all new games in this field, whether it is Endless Space, Stardrive or Sins of Solar Empire. And deservingly so.

Master of 4x genre

Now, you may have played it a long time ago and forgot all about it, scratched your CD from overuse or simply stopped playing when you upgraded your PC and it was suddenly incompatible with your new OS, or you may have not played it at all. For you folks, selfless and public serving person I am, I’ve revisited Master of Orion 2 and checked it out if it is worth going back to it, or if it is worth getting it even if you never played it at all.

You can style the games to your own liking, including enormous galaxies for long matches.

To cut to the chase, yes, Master of Orion 2 has aged like a good wine, and it is definitely worth getting.

Now, to the details! One might think that a game so old will probably have a horrible UI (from today’s perspective at least), that the graphic would be poor and overall experience sub-par. I hope you weren’t ready to put money on that bet, cause you’d lose. MoO2 is surprisingly vital, still feels fresh and is something that one may calmly recommend to anyone interested in strategies, especially in 4x genre. It does everything just right, and from the first second, that moment when the menu panel comes swinging with the sound of servo-motors aligning it into position, I was truly hit by a nostalgia feeling of epic proportions.

Now, when I recently decided to start a nostalgia gaming blog, I set down and jotted down some titles I wanted to revisit the most and Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares ranked among the several top titles on the list (no, I won’t tell you what else is on the list, no spoilers here!). It was definitely the right decision. Even 17 years later, MoO2 delivers without blinking.

The main map is functional and still works well, though the UI might not appear to be very flexible.

Why is it so? The answer is simple, the very core of the game is sound, fun, it gives the player a lot of freedom, providing for an awesome sandbox experience. Starting with the race selection, where you can pick from 13 preset species plus one custom race, the game offers you a lot of choice and possibilities. I recall tipping the scale many years ago with my custom made race, where I invested into two “pure win” characteristics, first allowing your race to eat rocks, essentially making food production unnecessary and the second allowing your race to research all the technology in one single research field, instead of only one from usually three available discoveries. With that, I’ve burned my way through the galaxy, putting all of my population to labor in the industry and research areas, thus offsetting all other negative traits of my species. A great (some might even say imbalanced!)  setup I can only recommend everyone to try out. It comes with negative sides, though; to appropriate such expensive traits in terms of points that you can distribute when creating your race, you will have to pick up on several negative traits, such as lowered ground defense of your troops, diminished abilities of your spies or perhaps decreased tolerance to standard gravity.

At the shoulder of Orion

Exploration will go slow, since you are limited in your reach by the star faring technology you currently possess. You have a multitude of different options to extend the range of your ships, such as founding colonies, outposts or even designing a special kind of exploration ships with extended fuel tanks and advanced engines. Master of Orion is turn-based game, so you will set up your ships for their destinations, pick a research, order your colonies what to build and hit turn. You need to devise and follow a strategy that will enable you to be well balanced in all fields, industry, colonization, military as well as a number of other areas that you might consider less important at the very beginning. For instance, while playing with the custom race setup I’ve mentioned before, I had a negative spying trait, and other species would regularly steal technologies from me until I’ve managed to train sufficient agents and develop technologies to offset my inherent disadvantage.

The beginning of your colonization efforts are modest, but soon you will spread across the entire galaxy!

Creating new colonies is crucial, and it brings you many obvious benefits, but you need to manage your colonies carefully, to specialize them for certain aspects of production. Unless you are a lithovore, you will need huge amounts of food, so a planet with a bonus for food production should be used for, you’ve guessed it, producing food! The outlying system should be better fortified, so consider making starbases in the systems at the edge of your realm. There are a number of things to consider when developing your empire, but it’s an entertaining and challenging project, wherein lies the beauty of MoO2 – it manages to make all of its parts fun and immersive.

C-beams glittering in the darkness

Ships and ship creation in MoO2 is robust, well executed and has set standards ever since. After researching the corresponding hulls, you can design the ships for specific roles, be they carriers, anti-missile frigates, energy equipped assault ships, even planet destroyers! Space combat is also conducted in turns and is simply amazing, even to this date, for the technology that was used in the creation of this game. Essentially on a 2D space background, the ships will move as if on a board, but probably the most fascinating thing is that the gameplay is still enjoyable, not letting you notice that the title you are playing is actually almost two decades old!

One of the most useful traits is creative that significantly boosts your research.

The Spy Game

Espionage is yet another interesting aspect of MoO2, and even though it is rudimentary in design, it works perfectly fine. You train spies at your colonies and set them either as a counter-espionage, or send them to steal your opponent’s technologies or sabotage their facilities and destroy their starships. If you don’t have the creative trait, which enables you to simultaneously discover all technology in a certain research field (as said before, you can only pick one from usually three available techs), spying on a technologically developed race is def worth your money, as it gives you a quick access to expensive and otherwise unavailable technologies. However, beware of not ending with the proverbial short end of the stick if your opponents start stealing your inventions, and you don’t have enough spies to counter their espionage.

Neglect this part and you’ll be robbed of your heard-researched technologies.

Oh, and have I mentioned music? Simple, fluid and extraordinary immersive , and is a true treat. It is still amazing how good it works in the whole scheme of things, without even trying to be “modern”.

Overall, yes, Master of Orion 2: Battle of Antares is an excellent game that is still worth getting and playing, both for old veterans and younger strategists alike. You can get the bundle of Master of Orion 1 & 2 at GoG.com for 5.99$, not a bad deal for one of the best PC games of all times!

The post Nostalgia Gaming: Master of Orion 1+2 appeared first on StrategyPrime.

So, what is the deal with Disney and Star Wars, if I may ask (in Jerry Seinfeld voice)?

Sometimes I believe I am living in an ever decreasing, shrinking world. Big giants, whether in IT, social media, gaming or anything else swallow “small fish” around them, seemingly unable to be creative and productive themselves anymore. So all but few of the biggest seem to remain, growing on the rest of market, effectively polarizing it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I got nothing against Disney. Disney made some great movies and brought me a ton of fun and enjoyment when I was younger, they haven’t spilled a billion tons of raw oil in anyone’s backyard recently and I am certainly not voting for them as the worst US company next time around. They bought Lucas Arts, making good ole George significantly richer in the process (if that even counts for someone like him) and they have all rights to do with their new property whatever they like. Hey, if Georgie boy ain’t raving mad about Lucas Arts getting dragged down to the basement and slowly suffocated, why should I? And again, I may sound bitter or mad, but honestly, I am not. I didn’t particularly like to hear about Lucas Arts being shut down, regardless of the fact that they haven’t made a great game in a long time ;it was more of a nostalgic regret about the past times than actual sorrow about the present. I do however have nothing but sympathy for the ex-Lucas Arts employees and wish them all to find themselves new jobs as soon as possible.

I was however somewhat displeased about the ignominious nature of the final chapter of the company that once gave us Grim, Monkey Island and so many other Star Wars titles we enjoyed. I’d say they deserved something more, you know, to go out with a bang, with style. But the shutting down of LA gave me personally no reason to dislike Disney, just a vague sense of regret and concern regarding future Star Wars titles. However, in all fairness, it has been a long (looooong) time since I’ve played and loved a Star Wars game, so the closure won’t be leaving a huge gap in the gaming universe.

And now, EA steps forward to claim the legacy of Star Wars IP. And that certainly pissed a lot of people off, if you’d pardon my friggin’ French.

Oddly enough, I don’t hate EA. As any of the major players, on occasion they’ve shown some greed, disregard for the players, poor customer support, but I still don’t hate them. I judge EA on the case basis, depending how good or bad they perform with a single game/IP. What I am currently highly curious about is the future of Star Wars titles under the management of EA. Now it seems that they will place it on the shoulders of DICE, BioWare and Visceral. In my humble opinion, an all around good choice.

DICE-ing it up with Battlefront

Well, the first good news/rumor is that the Swedish DICE will get their hands on Star Wars Battlefront 3. Seriously, who would be better suited to make the next Battlefront title other than the makers of Battlefield games? There is also some talk about possible KOTOR 3 that could be done by BioWare as well as the continuation of the project named 1313 by Visceral. 1313 was supposed to show the “gritty” side of Star Wars universe, Uncharted-like gameplay, bounty hunters and their dangerous, deadly everyday routines. Personally, I was most interested in 1313, since I’ve apparently grown too old for shooters (basically, getting wtfpwned on a regular basis in BF 3 made me hang my virtual KAR 98 on the wall and leave the entire ordeal to the younger generations) and since KOTOR 3 is essentially nothing more than wishful thinking of thousands of fans at this particular moment. Recalling a great PS2 title Bounty Hunter starring Bobba Fett, I’d certainly love to get my hands on an improved 2.0 version of that game. Allegedly, 1313 was completed to a high degree and, no matter what else happens, I want it to see the light of the day. I assume it would also mean much to the ex Lucas Arts employees that invested a lot of time, love and energy into that title. Also, Star Wars fans are starving for a good title from this amazing universe.

Alas, as hinted at before, many are mad with EA in general and Disney in particular for giving the IP to them, many have no faith in BioWare doing any decent titles anymore (even though DICE is still respected and Visceral has done a great job with Dead Space series). As much as I wish to see getting their act together, after the massive multifailure that The Old Republic was, I sincerely doubt they will achieve any major successes before they wake up, go back to their roots and rediscover the reasons why their fans loved their old games. The failure of The Old Republic was something that I personally did not welcome or cheered at. I hope that BioWare will come strong once again and that their next title will leave us all mesmerized.

The next Star Wars episode is…?

Well, as far as the movies are concerned, Disney said they’d be releasing a Star Wars movie every year from 2015 onwards, so we are covered there, I guess. Good thing is that George will be kept away from the director’s chair this time, one way or another. And as for the new Star Wars gaming titles? Well, if DICE goes for it, I believe they will make a great Battlefront 3. Visceral? They should be able to finish up 1313 and put a good game on its feet. Which leaves us with BioWare – the time for redemption is now. Crossing fingers and hoping for the best; as things are looking now, some careful optimism is well justified.

The post Disney and Star Wars appeared first on StrategyPrime.

If you never played Fallout 1 and 2, you are missing out BIG time. I’ll be revisiting both parts as well.

But you can’t beat that gaming nostalgia. I must admit, I still play World of Warcraft, but to the largest extent, it is to relive the memories of early years of the game I started playing almost a decade ago now. Yeah, it is still good today, yeah, it is showing its age, yeah, half of you who read this are fed up with it, the other half loves it, but I think all will agree that they miss the “good, old days” of WoW, the vanilla times. Similar to this, there are many titles that I remember fondly, mostly because today I can’t seem to derive enough satisfaction from playing similar, new titles. Currently I am reviewing Mars: War Log, an interesting post-apocalyptic RPG taking place on…well, take a guess; for the love of it, I can’t feel a mere fragment of the thrill I used to have when playing Fallout 2. That doesn’t mean in and on itself that Mars: War logs is a bad game (although it has some pretty horrible dialogue), it simply means that it doesn’t capture me as a title now almost fifteen years old did at its time. Now it remains to ask a simple question: why?

It is cause you are whiner, and look at the “good old times” through pink-shaded glasses of nostalgia!

Nope. Whiner or not, sans or avec cheese, the “good old times” have had its share of crappy titles, bad titles that went nowhere, games that were made hastily in the vain hope of making a quick buck. I don’t see myself missing those.

It is because you are an old elitist and think that the “new kids” can’t tell their asses from their elbows!

Being 35 and having over 25 years of gaming experience, yeah, that makes me a bit old for this industry, but you don’t become “elite”. There are many folks in gaming development business today that can still make incredibly engaging games, and I play newer titles far more often then I play the old ones. But it seems that there are far more games with utterly bad gameplay being dumped on the players these days than they were fifteen or more years ago. Think Colonial Marines. Some people do indeed have problems differentiating their body parts. Nuff said.

Theme Hospital, another one of the good, old games that gave us countless hours of fun.

I haven’t started hammering away at my laptop at the time when I had much better and more important things to do (not to mention more pressing things) to start arguing how old games are by default better. Nah, the reason I am here is simple: there were some incredibly great titles we all played and loved, and during the time they simply slipped into oblivion, and we forgot about them. Now I want to pull them back out into the light, dust them off and see if they can make their own stand today, or have they been utterly overrun by time and no longer fun.

Graphic and system compatibility is the worst issue with revisiting good old games, sadly. I have managed to fire up and play some TIE Fighter perhaps a year ago; the game that gave me countless of hours of fun was now severely lacking in detail, and I just couldn’t carry on playing it. Many times an old game from my collection simply wouldn’t work anymore on the new OS, and more than one CD got its share of scratches and coffee stains. Work hard, play hard, ship happens.

The game that has defined the 4X genre for the years to come is Master of Orion 2.

So, in essence, I decided to revisit the old games that have somehow faded away from my hard disks and got lost under layers of dust on my shelves, with a little help from kind folks from GoG.com and (re?)review old games I used to spend so much time with. There are two kinds of people that will benefit from this: those who played these games a long while ago and simply forgot about them at some point as well as the younger audience or late gaming bloomers that never actually played these titles. These top titles are available for a couple of bucks now, easy to download and install – all that remains now is someone to test them, see if they can measure up to the challenges of the time, if the graphics are suitable, the UI can stand the standards of the day, if the game is stable on new platforms. Well, I volunteer! I’ll see what comes after that

The general intention is to have both written reviews as well as video samples of games and how the look and feel on the new operating systems and bigger monitors. Current plan is to have about one game “revisited” per week, and since it is best to enter the stage with a big bang (if nothing, it will wake people up), the first titles up for the scrutiny are Master of Orion 1+2. Afterwards? Well, lets see where this gaming nostalgia will lead me…

The post Gaming Nostalgia: Blast from the past appeared first on StrategyPrime.

When someone uses words like cyberpunk and Philip K. Dick in a single sentence, it stops me dead in tracks and makes me pay attention. Not only that the makers of Mars War Logs have pointed out to this interesting genre and the legendary writer, but also after seeing the trailer for the game made by Spider Studios, I think they could have easily added Fallout to their descriptions. Only one of the previously named (properly executed, of course) is usually enough to make me like the game, and these three induce the hope in me that this title could in fact be something truly outstanding. The game has been released today, looking forward to test it and review it, so stay tuned for updates.

The post Mars War Logs trailer appeared first on StrategyPrime.

I was watching the Paradox stream last night with the “Ask Paradox Anything” and good ole Shamster Jorjani was seemingly not even allowed to tell us when the Old Gods expansion is coming out. However, today Paradox Interactive announced that the release date for this DLC is set for May 28th, and from that time on the Crusader Kings 2 players will be able to experience the Dark Age of Europe. Starting some two centuries earlier than the CK2, the fourth expansion Old Gods takes to the time of Pagan rulers of Europe, where the Viking still marauded the shores of the continent and Christianity was still to reach many corners of the Old World.

Crusader Kings 2 is an incredible hardcore strategy with extensive RPG elements, and Old Gods is yet another great addition to this fascinating title.

The post Release date for Crusader Kings 2: The Old Gods is May 28th appeared first on StrategyPrime.

Niiiiiiiiiceeee, Barry White would say. Admittedly, Barry White isn’t narrating this awesome trailer for Leviathan: Warships, but whoever it is, it gives off the same vibe, even if he doesn’t try to imitate him. In case you don’t know anything about this game, it is a tactical turn-based multiplatform four mode strategy game in naval setting. Just watch the video, it haz it all explained.

This trailer is sexy. Also, it incites you to start off with “ship just got real” jokes. But not me. I am not getting on board with that.

The post Leviathan: Warships Jazzy trailer appeared first on StrategyPrime.

Your chance to win Victoria 2 plus A House Divided game keys CONTEST OVER

I guess you have heard by now about that fancy new expansion for Victoria 2 that everybody is talking about, Heart of Darkness? Ok, well, maybe not everyone, but definitely everyone who is passionate about strategies and Paradox titles, and that is, believe it or not, quite a bunch. And that title is coming out… Wait a second… on 16th April! Wow, time sure flies (like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana, incidentally) and I am personally looking forward to this very promising expansion which has some improvements that many players hoped for.

TL;DR. Doesn’t matter, here is the gist of it: Strategy Prime is giving away game keys for Victoria 2 and Victoria 2: A House Divided expansion, so you can dive in and get Heart of Darkness even if you missed out on these titles.

What do you need to do? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and simply tell us why you should get the keys for these games. As simple as that. Those that Lady Luck smiles upon will get both keys; Vic 2 and A House Divided go hand in hand. There are 5 sets of game keys, so the chances are not bad at all for getting your hands on something.

Even more good news: you can cheat! Yeah, have a friend follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook, and post “X sent me here“. He or she will count as one voice in your favor, which should increase your chances in the final draw.

The game will last for three days, we will determine the lucky winner on the 4th day and on the fifth day, Friday 19.4. we will be announcing the winners and sending out the keys, so you can spend that weekend with gaming!

This should over it; hit us up on Twitter or Facebook and good luck!

——————

Contest is over and the winners are:

Andreas (on Twitter)
Hazardius (on Twitter)
Matt Steinschneider (on Facebook)
Thomas Faust (on Twitter)
Craig Miller (on Twitter)

Congratulations to all the winners! Apparently, folks were more active on Twitter, and Matt was the lucky one on Facebook.

I will be sending out the game keys via messages, check your inbox and have fun this weekend!

The post Victoria 2 giveaway – CONTEST OVER appeared first on StrategyPrime.

After a couple of weeks after being bedridden with the nastiest flu – seriously, I was having hallucinations on a regular basis – I finally did get around to write an article about yet another promising 4x space strategy game, Stardrive. I have had the opportunity to test the beta, and with the release of the game 26. April, I still got some time to poke and prod the game, as well as give you the heads up on this very interesting title.

Masters of the 4x universe

Initially, this preview was supposed to be a video preview, but since my poor ol’ throat is still achin’, I guess I will save the video review for when the actual game is released. I haven’t had a good 4x space strategy fun since Endless Space, and I have also promised to revisit that title and update my Endless Space guide (which sorely needs an update, I must confess) and so far, if I may be a careful optimist, it seems as if Stardrive might join the ranks of my favorite titles for this genre.

Stardrive lets you command the species of your choice in the eternal pursuit to conquer the entire galaxy. There is the usual set of economics and research, expansion, military buildup and perhaps a bit of diplomacy to spice things up. What sets this game from its similar titles is actually the love for the small details, such as starship fights and micromanagement. The feel of the game is rather unique and somewhat ominous; you do not feel safe in that dark galaxy, surrounded by the infinite sea of darkness from which occasionally your nightmarish opponents emerge. Seriously, when I’ve first encountered the wolf-species, I felt a cold chill run down my spine. The sudden eerie music, vicious looking pack of wolves in a surrounding that reminded me irresistibly of “Das Boot” were almost enough that made me think I should keep playing during the day, instead in the middle of the night. Almost. But StarDrive gets you hooked, can’t let go that easily.

The smooth zoom feature is a true eye-candy, one can’t get tired of it that easily.

So, the galaxy is full of odd looking and sounding enemies, some intimidating, some strange and bit spooky, some almost cuddly and sweet (sorry, might be a bit “girlish” of me, but I think that samurai space bears are simply adorable). One thing you can be certain of is that they will not forgive any weakness. You better make sure to have a strong fleet, upgraded and equipped with powerful weapons, or you will find yourself being picked upon by just about everyone in this game. So, no false ideals of flower power out there in the great void, better get some big guns to make sure you sleep better.

Expansion and colonization is the first step in extending your power. Check out the appropriate planets and see what you can do with them, how to specialize them (food production, industry, research). One of the “neat” things of Stardrive is the need for your actual ships to fly and supply the planets that do not have sufficient food or industry production. Hence, the player will have to assign a series of ships to transport the goods from the home world to the new colonies, which they will be doing in accordance to their cargo hold and warp speed. Yet another example of micromanagement with ships that this game focuses upon.

As in most 4x games, research is essential fro the survival of your race. In StarDrive, it could use a bit more cowbell.

The essence of Stardrive: space combat and ship design

Let us start off with the ship design first. As you progress through the game, you will unlock new technologies, ship hulls, weapons and other equipment for your ships. The player can sit down and design his own starships, adding different sized weapons, command modules, engines and other significant parts. The design window is not necessarily the most intuitive one, and you will have some trials and errors before you figure out the best configurations (too often you may understand that your build is actually utter crap only because it will fail you miserably in an actual fight), but it is doable, and we can also hope that this part will see some improvements by the time the game hits the shelves. The beauty of the ship designer is the possibility to scout your enemies, see the peculiarities of their ships and simply design a series of ships that will hard counter your intended target.

The space combat is exciting and has a very good tempo as well as visual attractiveness to it. You can leave the entire affair to your own fleet and their AI, or you can command your ships directly. The combat is a very lively affair, with ships maneuvering, firing and exploding in big balls of fire, and you can intervene at any time and give out specific orders to each one of your ships. The beauty of the game’s zoom from the farthest point where you see stars as individual pins of light to the zoom of individual fighters in the combat is something that cannot be overstated. You will definitely find yourself zooming in, observing and admiring the kinetic weapons firing and rockets leaving their traces on their way to the target, ships exploding in whirling clouds of fire and vapor.

All your base are belong to us! The aliens in StarDrive are more often than not eager to consume you, one way or another.

In the end, I only have positive comments about Stardrive and some pretty solid expectations. The few things that I can object to the games are a certain blandness in the UI design and presentation of things such as a research and production menus. But for the beta, Stardrive is definitely looking very appealing. If it continues in this direction, I am fairly certain that, once finished, it will count as one of the positive surprises of this year. Personally, I am very much looking forward to getting my hands on the full game in couple of weeks; there is already more than enough reasons to justify being very optimistic about Stardrive.

The post Stardrive beta preview appeared first on StrategyPrime.

Brian Blessed has done some awesome voice acting for War of the Roses, and it is a true joy to listen to this theatrical, greater-than-life Shakespearean actor go at it again in this Kingmaker trailer. He will be announcing captures and losses in the Kingmaker expansion, and we will also see a new game mode, Assault. Upgrade is due today, 21st March. Chaaaargeeee!

The post War of the Roses Kingmaker trailer appeared first on StrategyPrime.

CCP has recently announced in their official blog that EVE Online digital magazine EON is “going out of print” with the issue #30 that was released this January. Zapatero, the editor of EON, has written some farewell lines, and he sums it all up very nicely with these line:

…there just weren’t enough copies flying off the shelves. We can debate the whys and wherefores until the end of time, but the simple truth is that after eight years of going where no magazine has been before, the adventure has come to an end. All good things, and all that…

Yes indeed, all good things… It is a shame that EON is going down, since it was an interesting, ground breaking experiment at the time of its launch in 2005 and one of well known trademarks of the EVE universe. There are no specific information about what will happen with the team behind EON, we are certainly hoping they will find some new, challenging tasks with the CCP. Fly safe.

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