[areyounuts]

I don't get why everyone is raving about this game. It sucks hard.

1. Time limit to do everything, and no way to pause or slow down. That would be fine if not for...

2. Terrible documentation that doesn't really explain anything.

3. Endlessly increasing uber-stacks of enemies = game cheats against you. Nothing stops ye olde rape traine.

4. Extremely repetitive gameplay due to an asstastic interface. You want to fetch minerals from your home planet's moon? Okay, go to the fleet window (1 click), pick the trade fleet you want (1 click), order them to take off (1 click), enter the course set window (1 click), pick your destination (1 click), and wait for them to get there. Then you have to manually land (1 click), manually go to the transfer screen (1 click), manually transfer what you want to the ship (several clicks), exit the transfer screen (1 click), take off (1 click), set course back to the home planet (2 clicks), wait again, then land (1 click), then manually go to the transfer screen (1 click), manually transfer what you want off the ship (several clicks), exit the transfer screen (1 click), and then you're done. Total clicks to get from A to B to A again with cargo: 16 or more. During this time, other things are happening, you'll be getting other messages, and you might be managing another fleet in the same way as well. What could have been a simple task is a massive journey of clicking through a dozen windows repeatedly.

The Amiga game Deuteros, which came out half a decade before this one, starts off with a similar click-heavy interface, but it then lets you research automated shuttles which reduces this stuff to zero clicks. In fact, I get the impression that this game is trying really hard to be like Deuteros, and failing at it really badly.

5. It's possible to make mistakes without even realizing it, putting the game into an unwinnable state. You won't discover this until potentially hours later when you can't proceed. If you didn't keep a series of paranoid backup saves at regular intervals, you have to restart from zero.

6. Bugs, bugs, bugs. Also, an embarrassing amount of misspellings (phisics? colonysible?).

7. Every click, EVERY CLICK, is accompanied by a female voice announcing what you just did. After about 5 minutes, it makes you want to find the bitch and slit her throat.

8. You'll never know what you're supposed to build to support your planet, since there's no indicators of how adequate your facilities are. You won't know you need more farms until starvation has already begun. There's nothing in the manual explaining how many homes to how many farms is an appropriate number. In fact, there's nothing in the manual about most of the buildings, what they do, what they're actually good for. And the in-game descriptions leave *everything* to be desired.

9. When you get a new technology that you can research, the game announces it by telling you that the said technology "is fully researched". But it's only at that point that you can START researching it.

10. Satellite carriers to carry the satellites. Was this really REALLY necessary? Honestly? Especially given that each one can only carry one satellite anyway? It seems like the developers entered into a conspiracy to make launching satellites as difficult as possible. When the game first starts and you get your first satellite, you are LED TO BELIEVE that all you have to do is locate the planet you want a satellite on, and click the satellite button to launch one there. Then the game destroys that satellite, says NO THAT IS WRONG and makes you research and build satellite carriers, which you have to navigate manually like the trade ships, making it a click-fest all over again.

11. The only strategy guide written for this game implies that the only real way to win is to know in advance what is coming and build up your own uber fleet of death literally as soon as you are able to build the necessary craft. There is apparently no "right" way to play the game except to fail repeatedly and then invoke your in-game psychic powers to know what's about to happen. "Why are we building this massive invasion fleet, sir?" "Oh, to destroy the enemies we don't know we have yet, but which will start a rape train on us in about 5 minutes when we discover them."

12. These rape trains are triggered by exploring the wrong places at the wrong times, after which you're screwed if you don't have aforementioned uber fleet of death. This discourages the player from exploring at all.

13. There really is no story to this game, notwithstanding the intro. It's just a series of pointless, meaningless wars that either end with you sending an uber fleet to their home world, or them sending an endless rape train to yours.

14. Did I mention rape trains?

15. Did I mention LOTS OF BUGS THAT CRASH THE GAME? This is not attributable to dosbox, I assure you. It's just as unstable in real genuine DOS 6.22

I submit that everyone who says this game is good is either saying so because they perceive that everyone else thinks so (herd mentality) or else they remember it being good when they were young children in the early 90s, back in the days when gaming technology sucked and it was easy to mistake "complicated and stupid" for "deep and rich". The game is ass, and that's why no sequel was made, and that's why Amnesty Design changed their name to Digital Reality after they made it. To disavow that they ever did make it.