A very poor attempt...
After installing the game I couldn't get it to run. Every time I tried it set the monitor refresh rate to 125mhz. I don't think I've ever seen a monitor that went that high!
After setting to something my screen could handle. I loaded the game again, only to find out that it had completely forgotten my settings and done it again. So it was off to the forums till I found a command line switch that used "safe" refresh rates.
Finally I managed to load the game.
The first thing I noticed was the very well made, high quality, artistic intro movie. I started to think that this would be worth the effort.
Imagine my surprise when I was dumped into the main map screen with no further audio/video to help the game along.
I started with the tutorial and my heart sank further. The graphics are great, although the square edges of the screen were a little jarring. Then animation is very poor and reminds me of some of the worse sprite based title as the characters walking motion had nothing to do with the characters actual movement.
The first combat moment was interesting but a little week. Carrying on I started to get annoyed with the consistent pausing. Every time something happens that you might want to act on the game pauses. I found it constantly breaking the flow of the game. Then you have some of the worst voice acting I've come across. Normally you can ignore this but every time you give an order, you man completes an order or something happens you get these awful voice clips. The acting’s bad and the statements have no variation. Typical of RTS but there is nothing likeable about your characters.
Then you start to really get into combat and the game goes to hell (and not a good Doom kind!!!). Give a move order and the unit won't protect themselves. Give a fire order when you’re not in line of sight and they'll just say no. It would have been OK if you had any kind of line of site information but even a small bush will sometimes give a "no line of site" response. Then you have the inventory problems. When you try and use all the slots you find you have a weight limit, nice in theory but purely annoying in practise. Then, changing weapons is chore. You have to balance your inventory so you don't drop anything. Instead if slinging a rifle over your shoulder, you have to put it in your backpack. Then put your next choice into your hands. This means you have to have space in your backpack for ALL your weapons at the same time or you have to drop things.
That’s of course when the system works. Sometimes it forgets what you did. Or remembers you put your shotgun into your backpack but forgets you got your pistol out. Brilliant in a combat situation where you character just stands there trying to fire a make-believe gun!
The AI is also pretty rubbish. Enemies tend to either stand around while you pump lead into them or run headlong into you. Characters have to be told what to do at all time. If you don't give them an order they just stand there. If you see a door, you can't click behind it and expect your man to open it. No you have to walk up to the door, then give the order to open it, then the order to walk through it. The level of micro management is terrible. I was half expecting to have to tell them to breathe in and out.....
When you complete the mission you end up at the world screen where you manage your empire. This is terribly basic and while you have a tutorial in combat, you have no such tutorial on all the complex team and base management screen. You get some text based on screen pointers but I found these hard to read and the text sometime overflowed the display box. Overall the game media is pretty sparse, most information is given over in small text boxes that, yet again pause your game play.
I have only played the game for a total of 10 minutes. Normally I play games to their conclusion, so I can see the whole story. After 10 minutes of this game I just didn't care. Pros
Good looking still graphics
Cons
Very little audio and video
Very buggy and unstable to the extent it’s almost unplayable
Terrible AI
High level of micromanagement
Sparse in game help and tutorials
Terrible voice acting
Impossible inventory management
Normally I like to find something good to write about. This time I just can't. This game is a disappointment on all fronts