Review:
Sword of the Stars

I've been a fan of the 4X genre of strategy games for quite some time now, dating back to when Microprose had the monopoly on 4X games (Birth of the Federation, ye shall be missed). I pretty much grew up playing 4X games (rarely finishing them - I was no child prodigy at memorising reams upon reams of data) and there's still a lot of 4X games that rate quite highly on my imaginary list of all-time favourite games.

This week I'm doing a review of a 4X game, and since I'm going to be saying 4X a lot I'd best explain what it stands for now before I get up to steam: Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate - a sub-genre of strategy game that focuses on empire management on a large scale (Fun fact of the day: It's also a country on the Discworld).

I have been playing Sword of the Stars extensively for the past week in an attempt to enjoy it or understand why it's punishing me for playing it, neither which of these goals is yet to come to light. The interface for this game seems to be working against experienced 4X gamers with backwards mouse controls and unmarked buttons. It's an attempt to make a 4X game that doesn't focus on spreadsheets and micromanagement by dumbing down what it can and removing what isn't immediately necessary. The result is a very, very basic 4X strategy game that can be picked up without having to resort to reading the manual every 5 seconds to clarify your actions.

The game itself is broken down into a galactic map and a turn based system. During the main turn you give out orders to your fleets, order research, new ships, etc., etc. and so forth. Combat is a full 3D fleet battle that gets no more complicated than "Highlight your own ships, set their stance, charge the enemy".

Before I begin to rip into the rest of Sword of the Stars' problems I'd like to make something clear to every game developer who decides to make a PC strategy game in the future: Right-click is implied action, Left-click is investigate/select. Right-click should not always be move and left-click should not be attack.