Sword of the Stars : A murder of crows (Turn Based Statergy, 2008 )

The sword of the stars return.

Graphics - 8.5
Sound - 8.5
Gameplay - 8
Difficulty - 8
Overall - 8
When sword of the stars first came out it provided gamers with a unique and innovative glimpse into the world of Space based Turn Based Statergy . Something that many game companies were reluctant to do.

Two expansions and two added races later we pretty much still wind up with the original game that was addictive in every sense of the word. But Alas the newest expansion falls short of providing many features that were lacking in the original game.

The objective of the game is to manage your empire. While this takes place in a turn based system the player can also choose the fight out the Fleet battles on real time. The game still plays pretty well on low end systems even when the scale of the game is pretty large. The AI however in many ways fails to provide a challenge that is worthy of this game. For example even with the hardest settings many AI factions will still attack you with hundreds of Destroyers (the smallest ships) even if you have the tech to build up Dreadnoughts (the biggest). This often leads to pointless battles where the enemy gets slaughtered. Graphics and game play however have improved very little.

The Battles in SOTS look majestic as always

The game has a unique tech tree that is different each time you play it. This forces the player to change their statergy for each new game. However the tech tree is such that you will likely get lost trying to find a tech that you are targeting. For me this was a headache since i had to research several techs till finally the path to building Dreadnoughts were revealed. The game also lacks a good story line and the fact that like its predecessors there is no playable campaign was a big disappointment to me.

The difference between this and the original is the introduction of the new factions and some new types of technologies that will allow you create new custom ships.

The Bottom line

The game still is a fascinating one that will urge you to play it for endless hours at a time.