Galactic Civilizations 2 Review
Played on:
Windows
Radeon 9800 XT
1GB PC3200 RAM
Windows XP
I remember playing some of the earlier 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) style games - Master of Orion 2 was one that, while I got into it late, was a really fun one to play for me. However, Master of Orion 3 was very disappointing. I heard good things about the first Galactic Civilizations game but simply didn't have time to play it.
So, when I had the chance to give Galactic Civilizations 2 a shot, I jumped at it. My taste in games had changed somewhat and I really wasn't into this type of game anymore. Well, after playing it a bit, I'm officially a fan of the genre again.
One nice touch that I found before I even started playing the game - you don't need the CD in the drive to actually play the game. Most games nowadays require you to put a CD in the drive, prick your finger for a blood sample, type in your social security number and swipe a fingerprint just to play. The developers of Galactic Civilizations go to the other side of the fence and have no copy protection whatsoever. You only need to use the serial number included to get updates. This has definitely caused some controversy in the community, with the developers of a certain copy protection software going so far as to link to where players could find an illegal copy of the game.
But, enough of that. After actually starting up the game, I tried jumping in like I normally do and was completely lost. Thankfully, Galactic Civilizations II also features some excellent tutorial videos. The 19 subjects covered include help on your first turn all the way to building bases - the videos truly do run the gamut of topics you'll need to learn to play. They also include text for those of you that learn better by reading instead of watching and listening. My only real problem with this method of tutorials is that I learn best when I can actually play the game in an interactive tutorial. This issue isn't that much of one, but is something that may put a few gamers off.
You'll have two different game options when you go to start your first run of Galactic Civilizations 2. You can either play a regular game or go to the campaign. Both offer different goals for the player to go after - the single games are more wide open while the campaign is more structured and is composed of many smaller games.
The campaign mode, a new addition this time around for the GalCiv series, puts you in the shoes of either the traditional human race or the evil Drengin race. Throughout the campaign, you'll have to develop new technologies, make allies and, of course, blow stuff up. Something strange about the campaign, though - your units and such will not carry over between each mission. In a game where the main goal is to, well, build up a fleet of units, research technologies and such, not having things like this carry over from mission to mission is very odd.
Of course, you can also just play a regular open-ended game. This mode is, to me, the bread and butter of the game. When starting up, you'll set a plethora of options to configure your game - You can set the winning conditions, the size of the galaxy, the tech rate, the number of planets and more. All of these options will help to ensure the game that you played yesterday is not the same as the one you played today. Maybe you feel like just going out and destroying lots of enemies and taking over tons of planets - if so, just put lots of planets in there and kill until you're happy.
Also, as a departure from the first game, you can now play as a race other than the humans (which, in all reality, makes sense in a game called Galactic Civilizations). You'll have a total of 10 races to choose from, ranging from the normal humans (called the Terran Alliance) to some bizarre looking alien races and a couple of robotic type races. Each race has different benefits and drawbacks and, if you don't like any of them, you can even choose to customize your own race to fit your playstyle.
When you finally do get into the game, you'll find one thing out really fast - the AI is actually, for a change, pretty intelligent. Where in most strategy games, the computer just plays horribly fast, the AI here doesn't seem to get any artificial advantages. Instead, they will go after any holes you may have in your playing in a way similar to how a real person would. Take, for example, what would happen if you were a peaceful diplomat - some of the more militaristic enemies would be more inclined to try to beat you into a gooey puddle of alien (or human) blood since you'd be assumed to not have much in the way of a military. It is definitely refreshing to see an intelligent AI out there and not just have it be cheesy.
Another option that'll really let you customize the way you play is the technology tree. There'll be some standard technologies that most everyone will get - the language translator upgrade being one that is almost a requirement to shoot for early on in the game. Other technologies are more suited to certain playstyles - you might not want to go for a weapons upgrade if you are trying to play as a peaceful society and let your allies help you out. Then again, you may decide that you need just a little bit of defense and decide to research just part of a weapon tree. I've always really enjoyed messing with tech trees in games where they aren't just there to make you wait to get to certain options - if your choices make a large difference in how you play the game, it really helps to engage me.
One of the more interesting parts of the game, though, is the ship builder. You can literally spend hours here coming up with just the right design for a ship. Researching technology will also help your ship out in a logical way - stuff that you make will, as you advance in technology, be smaller and more compact while still providing more of a benefit in other areas as well. This, to me, is a small touch that makes a lot of sense since that is the way technology seems to actually work. Of course, there are a lot of other more cosmetic options for the ship too, including colors, and doodads like antennas, fins and such. You'd really be surprised at just how long you'll find yourself spending tweaking your ship's design.
One glaring flaw with the game, though, is the lack of multiplayer. No, sharing your high scores with other players doesn't count as multiplayer. While I like being able to 'compete' with others by sharing scores, it isn't the same as getting 8 friends together and all of us trying to take over the galaxy. Imagine the possibilities here - you can bribe your buddy with a pizza to ally with you and keep another friend from attacking you. Then, when he backstabs you, you can just beat him up or something like that! Hopefully we can see multiplayer added soon in the future - this game absolutely screams out for it.
The technical aspects of the game are very solid. The graphics, while not top of the line by today's standards, are very good for this genre[F1]. The sound, while not being plentiful, is made up for by the excellent music. The music truly had an 'epic' feel to it and fit the game well - it really got me in the mood to go out planet-conquering.
Overall, I can say that I truly enjoyed Galactic Civilizations 2. The missions are a neat addition to the series but the game truly shines when you get into the single games - with the wide array of scenarios that you can choose from and small settings you can tweak, you'll be playing different games for a long time to come. The only thing the game is truly lacking that would make it near-perfect would be true multiplayer. Hopefully Stardock can add this in a future patch - the game would really be complete if they did.
