Brilliant, stellar..... what else? pause......Well I am truely inspired and honoured to purchase, play and support this game. It is a bloody work of art!!
As a 41 yr old strategy gamer with thousands of hours under my belt at the table and the computer, I can honestly say that this game is a joy to play, given its cool design and mature, interesting depth of game play. I mean WOW.... the interesting decisions open to the player at every turn are are huge, unfolding and at times unrelenting.
I've played the last GalCiv with an intensity of an addiction to a fun but going nowhere romance, both loving the game play and hating the short comings of the design and AI. But with this new incarnation we see the design mature into something I knew was possible 10 years ago and predicted:
That computer games would allow one to co-create a dymanic, challenging, strategic narrative, all the while running a powerfull AI that could present the player with interesting unfolding strategic situations.... that were not only cool, but based on sound tacical/strategic principles.
We are seeing the promise and potential of computer AIs and the resulting intensly fun game play, being actually delivered here with this Gal Civ II and the recently published Civ IV and Hearts of Iron II.
All I can say is thank you Star Dock for having the vision and courage and honesty to make a game that pushes the bar much much higher in terms of qualty production values and AI competance.
I love the fact that the huge sales numbers for this new game is confirming that gamers are responding to a strategy title that can actually deliver the experience of its advertised strategic game play! Rather than another round of eye candy and mindless sterile animated resource managment ending in killing of stuff that happens to be wandering around silly like....
The strong sales numbers on strategy titles with solid AIs hopefully will have some effect on the misguided ecomonics of corporate controlled game design.....
I can feel a rant coming on here and thus I will end my post by saying that your development team has in its own small way made the world a richer place, the creative expression...or just plain heart in this game has raised the bar on game design, flat out and full on.
Rock on Star Dock!!
Yukon
