Review from Strategy Gamer

[DeLastOne]

http://www.strategygamer.com/reviews/review-starpoint-gemini-warlords/

[BrianRubin]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von SebJulien:

These websites don't give positive reviews if you don't give them money, thats the problem.

Oh come on, please don't fall for that Gamergate ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. These guys just did a poor job is all, and are only barely acknowledging it, let alone fixing the problem.

[Texture]

I would probably agree with most of what was in that review.

The graphics are not impressive by any means. I'd rather a good game than good graphics; but Warlords doesn't even scratch the visuals in X3 and that was years ago.

The gameplay is very thin in many places. It truly is just a grind.

Trading is a joke; not even the most minor of dynamic systems like the prices for a resource going down as you flood a station with goods; instead you can find a fixed route and do nothing but that repeatedly.

Piloting is also very weak. The idea of the different classes is based on range; but there is no reasonable way to maintain a proper range from the enemy to say use Vanguard (if that's the "sniper" class, I can't remember them the names are terrible) and also keep the guns actually trained on the enemy. There is no way to reasonably control your fleet either.

The point of the review was that the game doesn't go all in on being a first-person ship controlling game, nor does it go all in on being a strategic game. It's a mishmash of the two and does neither well.

The review was a bit over the top about calling things offensive; the game is certainly in a finished state and reasonable care went into building it. It's not one of those ripoffs you find on steam by any means.

It's simply a boring game.

[Lobuno]

^^ Yes, but you simply can't dislike a game when fanatic fanboyism rules over Steam these days

[Affixiation]

My main gripes with the review are as follows:

Boarding Complaint: He says that its boring just clicking the "next arrow" button over and over. On the surface, hes right, that will be boring. But you can do much more in this iteration of boarding than the previous game, such as sabotaging engines, shields, weapons or even jacking their cargo. While it may not turn heads in excitement, its no different than any other scifi game's boarding that I've seen.

In fact, I'd say that its better than X rebirth's boarding simply due to not having to use that damn hacking drone.

Campaign Complaint: Thats purely personal taste, and while I did enjoy the story I will say that it is a bit bland. Out of all 3 SPG games, this one has the weakest story imo, but it sets the stage for the future expansions and games where the Solari Concord will be a major player in the sector's events.

Graphics Complaint: Again, personal taste, but I find the graphics to be very good at max settings. For an indie studio I give three thumbs up on this department. Though I do agree that drawing distance should be increased a fair amount. But even if you do that, things will still 'fade in'. only they're now further away. Sounds like this guy wants to be able to render the whole sector from the start.

Performance: While I had some odd fps drop every now and again, plus the occasional loading screen, I can't see why he would complain about performance. The game runs fine and the fps drops I experienced were only for a short time. He doesn't even state if the game crashed or anything, which should be the main detractor for performance.

Sound Complaint: He says the sound effects are repetitive and pathetic. I'll agree with the repetitive part, you're going to hear the same weapon sounds forever if you don't change your weapons. But pathetic? Nah, not by a mile.

T-Drive: Needlessly restricted? I mean, sure I'd love to have them be a passive system with a button for a t-drive that I can press that has a cooldown based on the distance travelled. But they're easily accessable as they are and they're cheap. Every time you land at a station you should pick them all up so that you have a healthy amount. Though I guess some people don't. I will give him a point on the no sound effect during travel though.

Devs please add a sound effect for the t-drive. Something akin to ripping through space.

Strategy Aspect: As hes a reviewer from a strategy gaming website I can see how he's dissappointed with this title, as its not meant to be strategy heavy. Its more of an action rpg with strategy elements. By no means is this a strategy game, the strategic elements are enough to be accessable to everyone without being complex enough to where you need a spreadsheet to figure things out.

Single Ship Complaint: Again, this guy really seems more of a strategy gamer than an rpg one. He wants a way for the AI to control his ship while he issues orders. And while I can see the appeal to that type of game, this is not that game.

Controls: "the player is *forced* to fly and use the special abilities himself" This alone stands out that this guy shouldn't have reviewed this game. From this you can safely assume the guy loves playing commander type games and not getting in the thick of things himself. The controls as they are, are fine.

Strategic Gameplay: He enjoys this part, just wishes there was more he could do with the ships at his disposal. While I wouldn't mind that either, if you add in too much stuff the game will become clunky as you shift through menu after menus. (click on ship. open context menu. click on give orders button. menu appears with list of orders to do etc etc)

From what this guy is saying, it sounds like he'd enjoy the game far more if he spent all his time in the map mode building ships, collecting resources, and sending them out to do battle.

Mission Complaint: He eloquently states that they're repetitive and boring. And somehow insulting. One of the npc's must have called him a burrah. While yes, they will be repetitive and the earlier missions can be boring, the later ones such as station assault and defense as well as destruction can get pretty hectic to the point where you get immersed in the battle itself.

NPC Complaint: I agree with him here however, you're able to learn a character's backstory instantly without any hesitation from the Warlord at all. The only way I can think of a way to fix this is that you get the first diloague option for each warlord at the start. Then they need to level up to a certain level and they'll request your help in doing them a favor. Doing this mission would unlock the next dialogue option, providing more detail on their background, as well as the missions themselves providing an inner struggle to the warlords themselves.

Also, Maxton joins you because you guys aren't genocidal maniacs like the original empire. But then you use the proxima and do genocidal things to the population of your targetted planet. I'd like to see some interactions with that, where he leaves your service for a time, in a rage that you would do such a thing. Perhaps send him back to Baeldor and give him a set of quests where you encounter him as an enemy and at the end he returns to your service.

Also more warlords with their own personal quests would be nice. But you shouldn't be able to get them all, most should be faction locked.

All in all, I'd say that this person was the wrong guy to review this game.
For me, I'd give Gemini 2 a 5 out of 10 while Warlords gets a solid 7 out of 10 from me. Its great, but there could always be more!

Now back to sinking my time into this game.

[Zenoslaf]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us guys. Reading on what you liked or disliked helps us to get directions on what to improve upon in the coming updates.

[76561198298975247]

Everyone who played or knew something about the SPGW disagreed (extremely mild word) with that review.
It's also worth mentioning that they replaced screenshot that had tag "Beta 0.904.0 version" with some random shot, after being burned by people in comments for reviewing EA version like it was full release.

Damage is done, rest is history. :)

[Julius Sebastus]

Well damage is a big word, its the first time I hear about this website (will never go back there again) and I still bought the game 2 years ago at the release of alpha and enjoy the hell out of it.

And the game is so boring that right now despite my hundreds of game on Steam-Gog-Origin-Uplay-Blizzard, etc(I have all the new release of the last 3 years btw), Warlord is the game I play right now, and its a good thing that everyone doesnt love the same thing i do, especially spaceship and prog metal music, I would hate to see my deceased grandma listen to metal music.

I knew an old guy who said once: ''If you stop to kick every dog's that barks at you on the street you will never be able to through the end of that street''.

That's my moto, especially for trolls who don't even own the game...

Good job guys the game is amazing, and no I am no fanboy, well maybe a little bit, but I am an Elite Dangerous fanboy, and sadly even I must admit, Elite is a mile long and an inche deep as the trolls says, even fanboys can admit the thruth sometimes.

But Warlord is far from being bad or boring. The problem is, even movies reviews are getting pretty weird these days, if they don't have enough violence or weird stuff they get downvoted. These days I watch and love the movies with the worst rating than the ones who gets the better rating, go on rotten tomatoes to see what I mean. But this is another debate.