REVIEW BY MARKOS GIANNOPOULOS

PLAYING CHOICES
SC promises to have a better, non-cheating AI for single player. Although the game will come with various campaigns and scenarios to play, you will be able to create your own scenarios and maps with the included editors. Scenario creators will be able to change almost parts of the game: races, ships, starbases even the AI will be at some part customizable. On the other hand, SC will also be multiplayer over TCP/IP, e-mail, IPX network and modem. The creators will also make a hosting program, so I guess that there will be many people that will create SC servers.

EASIER TO PLAY
SC is being created by people who have played many hours of civ, so the reduction of the work the player has to make probably one of the first goals they put for this game. "Secretaries" will help you and do things instead of you. There will be an advanced way to set waypoints for units and all incoming/outgoing messages will be loged for future view. Other very interesting ideas are that you will be able to put notes on ships, planets, etc and that you will be able to draw lines on the map(!) to plan an invasion or to mark your borders.

PLANETS, PLANETS AND PLANETS
Another part where SC seems to enhance on the space strategy gerne is the realization of the planet system. First, the are various system types(Twin Star, Single Star, Pulsar, etc.). Then, the planets have various attributes which make them more or less colonizable. Also, planets are not randomly placed. Warmer planets are positioned closer to the center of the system. Finally, planets may have moons, which can also be colonized. Sounds more accurate isn't it?

VIEWED WITH...
All this more accurate planet system would mean nothing if it didn't look great. SC uses DirectX 6, and as you can see from the in-game screenshot it catches the eye. All the objects on the game will be 3d modeled, the planets will be animated and during battle you will see animated 3d sequences. Believe it or not, SC will play on a Pentium computer with 8MB RAM at 800x600x16bit. I want to believe! :)

SO, WHAT DO I THINK?
My favorite word for under-development games is "promising". And Stellar Civilizations is promising. I'm looking forward to see all these ideas really working in the game. Hey, Eclipse, can you make that spring instead of summer '99? :)

Review page 1
Intro page and Creator's description
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