Summary
A unique entry in the stellar empire-building genre, with a real plot and story growth.
The Good
This game took a unique tack: instead of a "tutorial" for the full-fledged stellar empire game, the player plays through the story of starting with a single surviving outpost and slowly progressing up to a galactic force. This is very interesting, provides much more of an actual interactive story atmosphere, and probably makes the game a little more accessible to non-fanatics.
The Bad
Unfortunately, they didn't provide a way to skip the early, more-tutorial parts of the story on replay. So, despite the randomization of various elements, the game had basically zero replay value. There were also some UI design and game design flaws, which made things like upgrading ships unnecessarily painful, and in at least one case left you trying to figure out how to do something when in fact you simply weren't allowed to until the next stage in the campaign/story.
The Bottom Line
A nifty and original attempt at the basic problem of combining real interactivity with real story. A notable landmark in the genre of space strategy games, but unlike most such, not really a game I'd recommend to players looking for retro fun.
