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The game has a basic Warcraft/Starcraft strategy. You collect resources utilizing a variety of different attack ships while defending your home base and trying to prevent your resource gathering sites from being overrun. Sounds familiar? The only twist to it is that your base is on a ticking time bomb while you are fending off the attacks, making it impossible to stand idle and just collect minerals. In later stages, you get an additional freighter plane that allows you to transport materials between asteroids and planets, and then from planets to waystations to earn extra money. You have to look at what's in demand to figure out what areas you need to conquer to get the most money.

Despite the two upgrades, if you'd wish to call them that, the game is incredibly plain and basic. The graphics are pretty much at the same level the original Atari was when "Asteroid" was reached. The peak of graphics design is when you talk to your... assistant(?) who is a drawing. Additionally, some of the fighter classes don't make sense. The scavenger doesn't need to attack to collect a five dollar bonus per kill, neither do these bonuses stack. So you never need to have more than one of these hanging around. The bomber can only attack bases, but its hit points are so low (30) that it has no chance of inflicting damage. Why not go for a cruiser (80) that costs less and can attack other planes? What you will end up doing is simply collecting large numbers of cruiser ships and attacking the enemy base. There's not much strategy because all you get are different rocket ships, so the amount of strategy in it is incredibly nominal.

Overall, there's not much to it that hasn't been done before. Outside from lackluster graphics, the sound is basic, the gameplay has been done a thousand times before, and the storyline is highly uncaptivating. The upside is that this game is easy to navigate and control. As well, the game is very simple to understand and use, so it may be a game of checkers to chess, but what gamer wants to spend money on checkers? This game is tagged at about the same price you can get Starcraft. Given the rather wide dearth of video games that are available in this same format, the demo didn't captivate me enough to want to purchase it. I would give it a 2/5 for ease of use and control.

Learn more about this author, Michael Soileau.
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