by Edmund Bertram

Created on: August 27, 2008   Last Updated: August 30, 2008

SMUGGLERS 4 By Niels Bauer Games

"Smugglers 4" takes gamers on a journey throughout the Milky Way and further. You begin by choosing a job (including traders and pirates) and a person to represent your character. You can conduct your space travel and galaxy saving as a good guy or gal truly after the safety of planetary inhabitants or as a bad guy or gal out for the loot and other selfish gain. Similar to such games as "Sim City," you gain control of your surroundings (this time it is the space ship you control as well as certain portions of the galaxy your character inhabits). You choose who to communicate with, who to trade with, who to fight against, who to steal from, and whatever other intergallactic decisions you desire to make.

For a gamer who wants to use their grey matter, it offers a great deal in terms of strategy and creativity. However, it becomes a disappointment when it comes time to fight. All we see during battles are our space ship and the enemy's space ship along with the controls we can use to choose our maneuvers against them. The creators chose the route of being all about the strategy and the conquest, but since the game includes so much warfare, it becomes boring, since this warfare is so poorly constructed. One can only push the buttons for his maneuver of choice so many times before growing bored with the stagnancy on the screen. During the times of battle, there is little to no communication going on with those we encountered before the battle. It makes no sense that we could be technologically civilized enough to travel "to infinity and beyond" as Buzz Lightyear would say, yet have no ability to have contact with a commander or others who can not only help us in the journey, but also make it more interesting. This reviewer was able to conquer several enemy ships, but it only grew more pointless with each blast because there was no action during the battles nor much use for the previous strategy it took to get the ship prepared for these victorious battles. The preparation for battle is great fun, but the battles inspire a long nap.

As aforementioned, the graphics of this game are quite underwhelming. Seeing as how a player travels through an entire galaxy and more, there should definitely be more available for the eyes than a map of the Milky Way that looks like something seen in a junior high science book, but unfortunately there is no more than that with "Smugglers 4". The traveling from one planet (or other spot on the galaxy) to

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