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This thread has been linked to the game 'Gratuitous Space Battles'.
Gratuitous Space Battles is one of those games that probably sounded good on paper but doesn't really work in practice. GSB is a game that lets you create a fleet of space-ships and pit them against an enemy fleet with the aim of being victorious. While the game does give you some standard ships to work with with, you can also design your own by attaching various parts to the provided ship chassis. You can attach beam weapons, shields, and all manner of bits and bats, the only real limitation being that you have to have enough crew and power to make the ships go. The ships come in three sizes - frigates, cruisers and fighters, and you can muck around with the design of each.
Either way, once you've got your ships ready, it's time to deploy them. You can give the ships general priority orders, telling them whether to attack frigates, fighters or cruisers first, and what range to pursue the ships to. Then, once you hit the fight button, combat begins. This is where the fun really, starts, right? Er. no. It's true that the actual ship to ship battles look fairly cool - although the fact that they're shown from a 2D perspective might bug some people - and that there are plenty of explosions and laser blasts flying. But the problem is that the battles just play out with no input from you, the player. This gets boring pretty quickly, and the battles themselves become fairly samey.
But surely there's more to the game that just that? Yes and no. The standard single player game is pretty weak - it's just a series of pre-set fleets that you fight against. There is a campaign mode of sorts, but you have to pay extra for it. No, I'm not kidding - to buy all the content for the game will set you back thirty pounds. So aside from buying the core game, it costs you extra for two or three additional ship sets, although they actually behave identically to the other standard ships. And the campaign mode will cost you five quid! It's a bit cheeky to charge extra for something that's standard in most games.
The campaign mode's also pretty disappointing. Firstly it's a bit boring and just entails moving fleets from planet to planet without you having any significant control over your empire as whole. Secondly, it can only be played while you're on the internet. Despite it being a single player campaign, the game actually takes the enemy fleets from other player's designs. So the designers have charged five quid for this mode and couldn't even be bothered to have any decent AI going on.
There is a multiplayer online mode but that's about as non-interactive as the rest of the game. There's very little reason to buy Gratuitous Space Battles when there are plenty of superior games around. Sins of a Solar Empire is one such game which, like GSB, disposes with any resource collecting, but which actually lets you manage your fleet. Pick that up and avoid GSB.
Pros: The 2D battle scenes are reasonably impressive.
Cons: You can't control your ships during the battles.
The other sides and the campaign mode cost extra.
The campaign mode's pretty weak.
Summary: Gratuitously disappointing - get Sins of a Solar Empire instead.
Either way, once you've got your ships ready, it's time to deploy them. You can give the ships general priority orders, telling them whether to attack frigates, fighters or cruisers first, and what range to pursue the ships to. Then, once you hit the fight button, combat begins. This is where the fun really, starts, right? Er. no. It's true that the actual ship to ship battles look fairly cool - although the fact that they're shown from a 2D perspective might bug some people - and that there are plenty of explosions and laser blasts flying. But the problem is that the battles just play out with no input from you, the player. This gets boring pretty quickly, and the battles themselves become fairly samey.
But surely there's more to the game that just that? Yes and no. The standard single player game is pretty weak - it's just a series of pre-set fleets that you fight against. There is a campaign mode of sorts, but you have to pay extra for it. No, I'm not kidding - to buy all the content for the game will set you back thirty pounds. So aside from buying the core game, it costs you extra for two or three additional ship sets, although they actually behave identically to the other standard ships. And the campaign mode will cost you five quid! It's a bit cheeky to charge extra for something that's standard in most games.
The campaign mode's also pretty disappointing. Firstly it's a bit boring and just entails moving fleets from planet to planet without you having any significant control over your empire as whole. Secondly, it can only be played while you're on the internet. Despite it being a single player campaign, the game actually takes the enemy fleets from other player's designs. So the designers have charged five quid for this mode and couldn't even be bothered to have any decent AI going on.
There is a multiplayer online mode but that's about as non-interactive as the rest of the game. There's very little reason to buy Gratuitous Space Battles when there are plenty of superior games around. Sins of a Solar Empire is one such game which, like GSB, disposes with any resource collecting, but which actually lets you manage your fleet. Pick that up and avoid GSB.
Pros: The 2D battle scenes are reasonably impressive.
Cons: You can't control your ships during the battles.
The other sides and the campaign mode cost extra.
The campaign mode's pretty weak.
Summary: Gratuitously disappointing - get Sins of a Solar Empire instead.
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Gratuitous Space Battles is one of those games that probably sounded good on paper but doesn't really work in practice. GSB is a game that lets you create a fleet of space-ships and pit them against an enemy fleet with the aim of being victorious. While the game does give you some standard ships to work with with, you can also design your own by attaching various parts to the provided ship chassis. You can attach beam weapons, shields, and all manner of bits and bats, the only real limitation being that you have to have enough crew and power to make the ships go. The ships come in three sizes - frigates, cruisers and fighters, and you can muck around with the design of each.
Either way, once you've got your ships ready, it's time to deploy them. You can give the ships general priority orders, telling them whether to attack frigates, fighters or cruisers first, and what range to pursue the ships to. Then, once you hit the fight button, combat begins. This is where the fun really, starts, right? Er. no. It's true that the actual ship to ship battles look fairly cool - although the fact that they're shown from a 2D perspective might bug some people - and that there are plenty of explosions and laser blasts flying. But the problem is that the battles just play out with no input from you, the player. This gets boring pretty quickly, and the battles themselves become fairly samey.
But surely there's more to the game that just that? Yes and no. The standard single player game is pretty weak - it's just a series of pre-set fleets that you fight against. There is a campaign mode of sorts, but you have to pay extra for it. No, I'm not kidding - to buy all the content for the game will set you back thirty pounds. So aside from buying the core game, it costs you extra for two or three additional ship sets, although they actually behave identically to the other standard ships. And the campaign mode will cost you five quid! It's a bit cheeky to charge extra for something that's standard in most games.
The campaign mode's also pretty disappointing. Firstly it's a bit boring and just entails moving fleets from planet to planet without you having any significant control over your empire as whole. Secondly, it can only be played while you're on the internet. Despite it being a single player campaign, the game actually takes the enemy fleets from other player's designs. So the designers have charged five quid for this mode and couldn't even be bothered to have any decent AI going on.
There is a multiplayer online mode but that's about as non-interactive as the rest of the game. There's very little reason to buy Gratuitous Space Battles when there are plenty of superior games around. Sins of a Solar Empire is one such game which, like GSB, disposes with any resource collecting, but which actually lets you manage your fleet. Pick that up and avoid GSB.
Pros: The 2D battle scenes are reasonably impressive.
Cons: You can't control your ships during the battles.
The other sides and the campaign mode cost extra.
The campaign mode's pretty weak.
Summary: Gratuitously disappointing - get Sins of a Solar Empire instead.
Either way, once you've got your ships ready, it's time to deploy them. You can give the ships general priority orders, telling them whether to attack frigates, fighters or cruisers first, and what range to pursue the ships to. Then, once you hit the fight button, combat begins. This is where the fun really, starts, right? Er. no. It's true that the actual ship to ship battles look fairly cool - although the fact that they're shown from a 2D perspective might bug some people - and that there are plenty of explosions and laser blasts flying. But the problem is that the battles just play out with no input from you, the player. This gets boring pretty quickly, and the battles themselves become fairly samey.
But surely there's more to the game that just that? Yes and no. The standard single player game is pretty weak - it's just a series of pre-set fleets that you fight against. There is a campaign mode of sorts, but you have to pay extra for it. No, I'm not kidding - to buy all the content for the game will set you back thirty pounds. So aside from buying the core game, it costs you extra for two or three additional ship sets, although they actually behave identically to the other standard ships. And the campaign mode will cost you five quid! It's a bit cheeky to charge extra for something that's standard in most games.
The campaign mode's also pretty disappointing. Firstly it's a bit boring and just entails moving fleets from planet to planet without you having any significant control over your empire as whole. Secondly, it can only be played while you're on the internet. Despite it being a single player campaign, the game actually takes the enemy fleets from other player's designs. So the designers have charged five quid for this mode and couldn't even be bothered to have any decent AI going on.
There is a multiplayer online mode but that's about as non-interactive as the rest of the game. There's very little reason to buy Gratuitous Space Battles when there are plenty of superior games around. Sins of a Solar Empire is one such game which, like GSB, disposes with any resource collecting, but which actually lets you manage your fleet. Pick that up and avoid GSB.
Pros: The 2D battle scenes are reasonably impressive.
Cons: You can't control your ships during the battles.
The other sides and the campaign mode cost extra.
The campaign mode's pretty weak.
Summary: Gratuitously disappointing - get Sins of a Solar Empire instead.