Millennium: Return to Earth

The Good
This was a game that engrossed me totally in the struggle to ensure the survival and renewed prosperity of humankind with only the handful of people left on the Moonbase. The story begins with simple enough concerns - researching equipment, locating the resources to produce such luxuires as spaceships and improved power generators, and improving the quality of life on the base. The pace begins to pick up speed when you begin sending probes out into space and suddenly you have to deal with attacks from the Martian colonists who want to scupper your attempts to establish new colonies on other planets and moons within the solar system.

The pacing as mentioned above is perfect and gradually draws you into the strands of the wider plot and ultimate goal of the game. There are many evocative happenings along the way. I remember well how proud I was of my new colonies and the sense of wonder I got from seeing the mutated humanoids who developed in the various different planetary types - the Hydroids of Saturn being particular favourites although I never trusted those Methanoids! I also remember the colossal shock to my ego when my carefully nurtured colonies all started declaring independence from Moonbase. Likewise when I first saw the gigantic Martian fleet amassed to make it's devastating attack on Moonbase I was ready to weep at the destruction and death that followed in it's wake. I certainly had no qualms about rebuilding my fleet to attack and destroy those Martians in retaliation after that!

As the pace hots up in the endgame I found myself desperate to succeed with our plans and spent many many hours playing when I should have been asleep!

It basically boils down to clever and subtle plotting throughout by the game designers.

I also remember being particularly pleased with the introductory music which was by Mahler (the "Death in Venice" tune). For me it's haunting tones summed up the atmosphere of the game to a T.

The Bad
Dealing with your spaceships was perhaps a little repetitive at times. However because their cargo was often so extremely important to their destination planet I found that most of the time I was feverishly interested in plotting their comings and goings and did not find it tedious to do so.

The spaceship combat sections were probably a little uninspiring. These were used to determine whether an attack on a colony (by us or by the enemy) was successful. Again though I was usually so caught up in the action that I didn't notice!

The Bottom Line
This games draws you in subtly and develops the plot so superbly that you find that you have become emotionally invested in the survival of the Moonbase to the point where any niggling shortcomings in graphics and gameplay fly out of the window.

Only a select few games have had this ability to insinuate themselves into my life like this one did. It will always be one of my favorites.

The Good
This game has a simple interface, excellent graphics (for the time), an engaging story, and a fair amount of gameplay in it.

The Bad
I stink at strategy/ management games, clear and simple (ask me about my one time playing Age of Empires). I am so inept at managing resources that the game made my shortcomings painfully obvious. If you don't enjoy building, researching, exploring, colonizing, re-building, shifting resources, etc. the you may get a headache after while... although the cool sci-fi setting and story offsets this to a degree.

The Bottom Line
I bought this game on a whim back in the good old DOS days when autoexec.bat and config.sys meant something and you spent a lot of time cursing the stupid 640Kb memory cap. That being said, this is a seriously fun, although time consuming, management type game. Your basic "microcosmic god" game. Ever heard the saying, "if it's meant to be, it's up to me?" well, put that saying in a space setting and get cracking because you're going to have a lot of work to do to keep things afloat. Great setting, excellent graphics, simple interface, and basically a fun game.