Well after finally finishing Grey Goo after owning it for a long time and dropping it previously I can't say i recommend it but struggled for a while to figure out why.

After putting a few more hours into it i can say that it's because there are a lot of good ideas on display and a lot of interesting mechanics combined together but it's all spread too thin for my taste.

Starting with the story it's nothing too special. It's unique that it starts from a non-human perspective as a race of aliens known as The Beta who had to flee their homeworld after it's destruction and now their new home comes under threat from new enemies! It was hard to really get invested since characters mostly get brought up and discarded fairly quickly apart from a core few characters that don't get much in the way of development. A large problem with this comes from the pool of missions being so small and jumping between factions after a fairly short period.

There are 15 missions total in the base game with 1 bonus mission and 3 dlc missions. A lot of their missions are fairly standard RTS gameplay. Destroy the enemy base, hold an area for x amount of time, escort a set of units or an ally to a position, etc. Nothing really stood out or stuck to me. The only thing i noticed was the difficulty feeling very erratic. You can get 2 or 3 cake walk missions in a row and then 1 out of the 5 will spike and be insanely difficult only for the one after to go back to being a cakewalk.

As far as the factions go they all have their own unique gimmicks and focuses with the goo being the most unique however a lot of this is poorly explained at times and you mostly need to kind of muddle through it on skirmish or the missions. Something about the moment to moment gameplay doesn't feel super impactful, the only units that have any kind of punch are the epics and i kind of hate them. The majority play like super powerful and annoying artillery units that with a bit of mico can turn a whole army into ash. The problem is that compared to say something like Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, or various other RTS games / mods they all mostly do the same thing and none of them really break the mold as far as how you use them.

All and all if you get it on sale you might enjoy it but be warned that it isn't exactly a return to old form but isn't something fresh either, it kind of occupies a weird middle ground where there are a lot of ideas at play but not all of them are fully realized / fleshed out.

Well after finally finishing Grey Goo after owning it for a long time and dropping it previously I can't say i recommend it but struggled for a while to figure out why. After putting a few more hours into it i can say that it's because there are a lot of good ideas on display and a lot of interesting mechanics combined together but it's all spread too thin for my taste. Starting with the story it's nothing too special. It's unique that it starts from a non-human perspective as a race of aliens known as The Beta who had to flee their homeworld after it's destruction and now their new home comes under threat from new enemies! It was hard to really get invested since characters mostly get brought up and discarded fairly quickly apart from a core few characters that don't get much in the way of development. A large problem with this comes from the pool of missions being so small and jumping between factions after a fairly short period. There are 15 missions total in the base game with 1 bonus mission and 3 dlc missions. A lot of their missions are fairly standard RTS gameplay. Destroy the enemy base, hold an area for x amount of time, escort a set of units or an ally to a position, etc. Nothing really stood out or stuck to me. The only thing i noticed was the difficulty feeling very erratic. You can get 2 or 3 cake walk missions in a row and then 1 out of the 5 will spike and be insanely difficult only for the one after to go back to being a cakewalk. As far as the factions go they all have their own unique gimmicks and focuses with the goo being the most unique however a lot of this is poorly explained at times and you mostly need to kind of muddle through it on skirmish or the missions. Something about the moment to moment gameplay doesn't feel super impactful, the only units that have any kind of punch are the epics and i kind of hate them. The majority play like super powerful and annoying artillery units that with a bit of mico can turn a whole army into ash. The problem is that compared to say something like Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, or various other RTS games / mods they all mostly do the same thing and none of them really break the mold as far as how you use them. All and all if you get it on sale you might enjoy it but be warned that it isn't exactly a return to old form but isn't something fresh either, it kind of occupies a weird middle ground where there are a lot of ideas at play but not all of them are fully realized / fleshed out.