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After the disappointment of Armada and other RTS space 4X games I think I will wait for some reviews before I decide if I will buy this game.

Games as Master of Orion and the Birth of the Federation have alot of depth were simple to play and very addictive. The problem is that many space 4X game that come out now centre on the graphics not the game play (the worst for this is Space Empires V)!

I understand what you mean, but focusing on graphics? Are you kidding?
Every single Space Empires game had horrible graphics, Armada had mediocre graphics as well. Plus when its 2d (they had a nice starmap), it doesnt take a second longer to make a pretty sprite compared to an ugly one.
Then we have AI War which has even worse graphics, but good gameplay. And Galciv2 had pretty mediocre/crappy graphics too, but good gameplay.

So yeah, i really dont see what you mean about 4x games focusing too much on graphics
Also, if a game has horrible graphics it usually means that they didnt have the time (or didnt care anough) to spend on hiring an artist, and that is usually a bad sign for the gameplay too (no time = released early = buggy and incomplete).
That doesnt apply to big budget games ofc, which always have zomg graphics

ORIGINAL: jamesm
Birth of the Federation have alot of depth were simple to play and very addictive.

True to some extent. Don't get me wrong. I played BOTF for many years religiously (and still playing). But at some stage game became simply boring. Same galaxy. Even Huge one is tiny when you compare it to much later product: Immortals: Lost Empires.

Without tweaking .exe file and .res BOTF in vanilla version is simply not good enough if you know game like back of your hand. Even with modded exe adding more planets ends at some stage, because passing certain limit makes game very unstable.

There were few ST games over the years, but why oh why nobody is working on BOTF 2. There is so much interesting stuff. So many major factions are missing in BOTF. For BOTF2 sake I would even learn to play on-line. [X(]

Indeed there are people working on BOTF2, it's called Star Trek Supremacy. It's a non-commercial game being developed by Mike Strobel.

Check out an overview I did in my blog about Supremacy: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2010/01 ... velopment/

Cheers

ORIGINAL: ypsylon

ORIGINAL: jamesm
Birth of the Federation have alot of depth were simple to play and very addictive.

There were few ST games over the years, but why oh why nobody is working on BOTF 2.

They are. http://www.startreksupremacy.com/

ORIGINAL: jamesm

After the disappointment of Armada and other RTS space 4X games I think I will wait for some reviews before I decide if I will buy this game.

I don't blame you. I try and do the same, but the problem with me is I don't wait like I planned. I always give in. [;)]

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

Indeed there are people working on BOTF2, it's called Star Trek Supremacy. It's a non-commercial game being developed by Mike Strobel.

I'm aware of STS. But in all honestly I don't believe that it will be finished, ever*. I downloaded some alphas and not one is working under Vista 32b or W7 64b. [8|] STS forum is rather barren and desolate place. Only few people posting. Overwhelming majority of threads bring nothing new with regard when we will see at least beta. No new releases for 18 months. Hmm... I don't see light at the end of the tunnel for STS. Please don't get me wrong. I want to see STS finished. I understand that it is non-com project. I understand that peoples are volunteers.

* - one thing is certain. We will see World in Flames in stores sooner than STS is finished. [:D]

Hopefully it'll live up too the hipe. We will see.[>:]

My biggest reservation about this game, which otherwise looks very promising, is that it is an RTS game and suffers from the usual shortcomings of such games. Even with the frequent use of the pause button, I expect that with larger galaxies (1,000+ star systems) the player will be very hard pressed with exploration and micro-management of multiple sites to protect. Not to mention having to fend off pirates and space monsters in a far-flung empire. If the game turns out to have a lot of player assists for this (in the form of delegated sub-AI persona like "governors") that can handle such things for a sector or region, then fine. But if the player has to be omniscient and omnipresent, then I do wonder how the game will work out.

I must say, the graphics are nice and the exploration video showed a very good amount of detail (which I like) in the "personality" of the game. Different resources, relics, ruins and minor races all contribute much to a game like this. I would also hope for a system where you can have admirals and governors to delegate to, as I mentioned, for this can also add a lot of flavor to each game, not to mention the micromanagement relief.

I'll be watching and waiting and who knows...? It does show much promise and they are clearly working hard on it.