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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
3 stars
Version: Starport Galactic Empires 1.37
"Almost a great game."
Pros: Nice music, decent graphics, entertaining gameplay, pk-free channel for newbies, NPC enemies and allies to interact with, hidden secret powerups to discover, lots of different ways to play.
Cons: Uncommon control style, small character (ship) selection, "warp fuel".
Summary: This game is fun, definitely worth a try if you just want to waste a little time. It's a forward-thrust/steer left and right type of game a little bit like Asteroids, but with much more content. Players have the freedom to build their character by harvesting resources from planets, trading between galactic starports, or hunting other players. The ships that are available are pretty limited, only around a dozen or a little more. After building up some funds and a decent ship, players can begin colonizing worlds and beginning their own empire. Player ranking is based on experience points, which doesn't actually affect your development, it just shows how much more you have played than the players below your rank. The greatest weakness in the game is the Warp Fuel feature. Your ship uses warp fuel while you play (as well as regenerates it, but at a much sower rate), and once you run out, that's it, time to log off so your fuel can build back up over the next 12-16 hours. I think it is a great concept to force the players into downtime to keep the game more balanced between players who can spend all day and night in the game and players who may only have a couple hours to play every couple days, however the warp fuel points build up so slow that you end up having to stay offline for a whole day just to get another couple hours of play time. It's not an overnight accomplishment. In 16 hours of being offline, a player's account can rebuild about 600 points of warp fuel, which goes empty again in about three hours. Tthat alone may be ok for some players, like the ones who don't have much time to play anyway, but to add to the problem, if you have a credit card you can just buy more warp fuel(as well as a few other special things) from in the game, giving players with money to burn a huge advantage over normal players regardless of experience or skill in playing the game. Nobody ever claimed it's a perfect game, so what if it has a few bugs to get worked out still, what game doesn't? Overall it's a fun game to play while you actually get to play it, but it doesn't last long.
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