Distant Worlds 2 review:
The good:
1: The UI works well. If you have played thee original Distant Worlds, you will know just how big a deal that is, as the original was a great game with an interface that made it nearly unplayable.
2: Graphics are almost perfect. No, it is not a high end AAA game with lifelike graphics, but everything looks nice. Space battles are dynamic and worth watching, each races ships having unique designs, each weapon looks different, explosions, fighters, missiles, torpedoes, beam weapons, point defense beams, railguns, all zipping away, frequently leading to awesome explosions. Planets have different continents and oceans, and rotate giving night/day, and as an area goes to nightfall, city lights come on and sparkle. It really does look just about as nice as can be.
3: This is a highly complex game, with over 50 different resources, a massive research tree, an incredibly complex economy, and yet it is all easily manageable, and as you learn things more and more, you slowly turn off automation and take control, without ever being overwhelmed. The way they pulled it off is impressive.
4: You find a planet with resources, and order a mining station built there. A construction ship picks up the resources needed to build the station, flies to the location, drones flit about, scaffolding goes up over the frame of the station, and slowly builds the station. Once it is built, the station sends out mining drones to the planet below, you can watch the line of them dropping down and coming back. The mining station slowly fills with resources. Freighters show up, pick up the resources, and haul they to bases and colonies where they are needed. All of this except ordering the base built is outside of player control, as this is all part of the private economy, which you do not control. In fact, if you order more ships or bases built, you have to pay for those resources at market prices to build it, and the money you pay goes into the private economy. The freighters, mining ships, transport ships for tourists, all those are built by the private sector with no input nor control by you. You make your money from taxing the private sector, and them paying to build ships at your shipyards. It is just a glorious system.
5: Pirates. You will at the start run into several pirate factions, each of which is stronger than you. You have no choice but to pay them "protection" each month. Before long, you reach a point where you can build a strong enough navy that you can start cancelling those "protection" agreements, at first fending off the pirates, then destroy any ships that make it into your space, then you find their base and manage to blow it up. It is really satisfying and fun and feels really rewarding.
6: Each playable species has a backstory and a series of story events that are really interesting and make the game as much a story as a strategy game.
The bad:
1: Can be painfully slow paced.
2: Sometimes figuring out how to get your ships to do what you want can be a pain.
3: Research is king, so species with research bonuses have a huge advantage. Ackdarians suck at combat but are great at research. Mortallans suck at research but are great at combat. Ackdarian fleets smash Mortallan fleets due to their tech superiority tho.
The ugly:
1: Still alot of bugs. Not as many as some recent releases, probably about the normal amount for a new game these days, but it is still really frustrating.
2: Nebulae are prevalent to add terrain kinda effects, but mostly are just annoying, and some of the storm ones totally suck as your exploration ships will try and enter, then get stuck and cannot leave, ever.
Overall, a definite 4.5 stars. Much better than Stellaris to my mind, better looking, more complex, but easier to play.
Edit: I will do some screenshots when I load it back up after a short break and post them here.
