Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Jul 12, 2022

  “So long, and thanks for all the fish.” ~Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

  1993 was a very important year for 4X genre. Just because SimTex released their first game that ended up blowing everybody's mind. I'm talking, of course, about legendary Master of Orion, which Stephen Barcia and his team published under Bill Stealey / Sid Meier's MicroProse. And I'm not mentioning MicroProse for nothing because for 4X games that take place in outer space, MoO did exactly what Civilization did for its own kind of games. Heck, the entire term “4X” began with Master of Orion. With its preview from Computer Gaming World magazine to be exact. Sure, Roger Keating and Ian Trout already established 4X genre ten years before MoO in their game called Reach for the Stars: The Conquest of the Galaxy (heavily inspired by a board game Stellar Conquest), but you know what I'm talking about. Everybody knows MoO nowadays, while Reach for the Stars is long forgotten. Surprisingly, while MoO was getting a lot of praise from both press and actual players, there was a guy who was working on his own Reach for the Stars clone. The name was Aaron Hall and like many other talented young coders back then, he didn't even have a company. Making games was a totally different (and in a way – simpler) thing back in the days and quite a lot of talented young people were doing just that – making some small games all by themselves. For many reasons. To show them as a part of their portfolio, to potentially sell them to various publishers or BBS (which were huge back then) or just to enjoy by themselves. Even titans like id Software started that exact way. With no name or real purpose. Just making games. Because they loved to. And that's the thing about the first Space Empires. It was not a commercial product. Sure, it got some commercial releases later (you're looking at one now), but originally, Space Empire II was the first officially published game in the series. Mr. Hall established his Malfador Machinations just for that – to publish Space Empires II. While the first game? It was more like a test of his skill. He just wanted to see if he can make his own Reach for the Stars. So... What was the result? Did he succeed? Yes or no? Well, yes. And no. Technically, Mr. Hall made a fully working game that did implement all the basics from the original RftS. Like in the original, players (who played in hotseat mode) were supposed to take turns and conquer the galaxy. Like in RftS, SE supported up to four players and all in all, it was hard not to notice the fact that it was just a clone. Technology was in favor of Mr. Hall's project, though. Because while Mr. Keating and Mr. Trout were limited by Commodore 64, Mr. Hall had all the power behind Windows 3.X at his disposal. And you know how it is about Windows. Thanks to its, you know, Windows, things became much more comfortable to users. It was just way more comfortable to take a mouse and click on those than dealing with things the old 8-bit way. Unfortunately, that's where the good things about Space Empires ended. And the bad ones began. See, while proving that Mr. Hall can make games, SE fell short even in comparison with the original. Which, let's not forget, was released the whole ten years before it. While focusing on basics, Mr. Hall didn't even try dealing with more complicated things. And as the result, many of the original RftS mechanics didn't make it to SE. Reach for the Stars included things like AI, industry levels, research, natural disasters and customizable maps / scenarios. SE, on the other hand? It had nothing and therefore felt more like even more ancient titles. Like Andromeda Conquest for example. It was literally that – you and three of your friends gave some funny names to your empires and then tried to solve the ages old argument – what's better, Star Trek or Star Wars. Naturally, you can only do that by force. And not only because that's how people usually resolve such things, but also because there's no other way here. SE is all about that. About who has more battleships. You conquer the planet, you build the starbase, you add some new ships to your fleet, repeat. Even after you'll destroy everybody else on map and conquer every single planet out there, the game still won't end. Even though there won't be anything else to do. Just because, like I said, nobody aimed high here. Heck, this game doesn't even have AI. Which ultimately destroys the entire purpose of playing alone. Good luck finding some crazy stoners who'll agree to play with you, while without other people it's like playing Quake III without bots. Releasing Space Empires back in 1993 was a lot like releasing the original Ultima in 1991. Without the bloody dungeons. All while everybody around was already exploring the Isles of Terra. Sure, the one can do something like that. The question is - why? Even by 1993 standards, SE is laughably inferior. To pretty much everything around it. Both visually and gameplay-wise. Even UI here is far from being thought through. I mean, the idea to place the “Next player” button right next to the button called “End!” was absolutely terrible. Just because one ends the turn and therefore gives controls to another player (again, no AI here), while another... closes the game entirely. That's it. Mr. Hall literally placed the “next turn” button right next to “quit the game right away” one. Not only it can be pretty confusing to the new players (I've seen at least one confused player who wrote negative review just because they thought that the “End!” button was to end turn and therefore supposed that their game just crashed after pressing it), there's a very big chance somebody will actually press that button by the occasion (hotseat does imply a lot of people sharing the same controllers after all). As the result, having this game as a commercial product nowadays feels... Wrong. Very wrong. Personally, I'd say that even back in 1993 paying for something like this was not a good idea. Sure, you may say that they only ask $1.99 for it, but still, you can do way, way better with your money. Heck, we live in times when you can actually get much better game for free. Officially. Especially when we're talking about the oldies. Jill of the Jungle trilogy, Beneath a Steel Sky, War Wind, the first two Elder Scrolls, the original Shadow Warrior... It's all free now. And all of those games were pretty impressive titles back when they were originally released. Heck, most of those aged pretty well too. While Space Empires? Space Empires belongs in the museum. It's something you give away as a free bonus. Or at least release a part of a compilation. Like they did back in 1999 when they've combined it with the next three games. As a stand-alone product? It's a solid no from me. As long as you are not a professor of archaeology and aren't wearing a funny hat. P.S. Fun fact – Steam and GOG versions of this game are actually slightly different. Both claim to be versions 1.1 and both work perfectly fine under Win11 (the folder Space_Em can be also used to play the game from under Win3.X / Win95 or 98 if you'll ever want to play this game on contemporary hardware), but for whatever reason, the fonts look different. It looks like Steam version uses anti-aliasing, while GOG version doesn't. No idea why, but still, funny thing to mention. Dixi.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 19, 2023

  Space Empires I is an ancient, mostly text based 4X space empire building grand strategy game from 1995 that was distributed as Shareware. It's a whopping 28 years old at the time of this review. The game runs in text windows and lacks proper 4:3 aspect ratio and support for any modern gaming display resolutions, hasn't been modernised or updated to run smoothly on modern gaming PCs. There's also no working fullscreen mode due to the nature of the game running in Windows based dialog boxes. Despite this lack of modernisation, it carries a pretty high price tag for such an ancient game. This seems to have been put on Steam as a nostalgia gouge. From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard in 2023. For gameplay purposes, because the user interface for this game is mostly just 2D static images... it might as well be a browser game. And we all know, Steam isn't here to compete with Chrome and Firefox. If the game can be done in a web browser, it's just not rich or compelling enough to appeal to serious gamers on PC. Despite having reasonable depth even for a game almost 3 decades old, the interface hasn't kept up, and it's also important to remember it's not 1995 anymore... games like Master of Orion and GalCiv came and went, and Stellaris is still ruling the roost in this genre of games... Space Empires I doesn't even come close. Even if you wanted to play this version, it's also superseded by Space Empires II and III... there's absolutely zero reason anyone should want to buy this. Space Empires I is relatively expensive for an abandonware nostalgia gouge, at $2 USD, and it's not worth it. The game is just too old, hasn't been modernised. And as the old saying goes, you can't go home again.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 13, 2020

  I had no idea Steam was carrying the Space Empires Series, and was incredibly shocked to see SE I and not SE II on the store list. So a little bit of history here. Aaron Hall back in 1993 was working on his personal project Space Empires and formed this game as a prototype for something bigger and in 1995. We got Space Empires II. Space Empires II was technically the first product released to the public and I remember sending in a money order to purchase this game after playing the shareware forever back in the mid 90s. I also got the CD when buying the complete bundle with Space Empire 4 Gold back in the early 2000s. Which was the only way I knew at the time, on how you actually got the original Space Empires prototype. Both Space Empires and Space Empires II are Windows 3.1 games. So its interesting that there are ways to play this on more modern hardware. It is very easy to install Win3.1 in DOSBOX and go that route but again I am shocked that Space Empires in on Steam and not SE II. As far as Space Empires as a game itself. It is a prototype. This version sold here is NOT a some magically finished version or enhanced. That was Space Empires II which again was the actual first commercial release. So any buyer needs to be aware that this is a prototype or working concept. The same bugs and issues that occur when running this in a real Windows 3.1 environment is the same things you will see here. TL DR This is a prototype. Space Empires 2 was the "first" game released. Only buy this if you are a fan of the series and are curious. Game is buggy. Its a prototype.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 18, 2020

  I remember playing Space Empires way back ages ago, so I was pretty excited to pick the series on steam again and replay them. Sadly, Space Empires I is NOT FUNCTIONAL on windows 10 at this time. It cannot process a single turn, crashing to desktop when 'end turn' is pressed. game load and save functions also do not work either. This should have been tested more before release.