Outpost 2: Divided Destiny

The Good
What OUTPOST failed to deliver, Outpost2 did perfectly. With great graphics, fitting music and a blend of single-player campaigns with multiplayer abilities, Outpost 2 was able to capture my heart all over again.

The Bad
The lack of a 'queuing system' to develop and produce both structures and vehicles makes it difficult to manage a lot of things all at once. At least that's the case for me. I'm not quite as fast as some players are and so I end up very often falling behind and having basic weaponry when the other player comes and blasts me out of the water with an army the size of the US Marine Corps. It's not fun.

Other than that, I really don't have too much bad to say about this game.

The Bottom Line
If you're looking for an alternative to the blood and gore FPS type games but you still want multiplayer action, OP2 is a great game for you. Despite the fact that SIERRA pulled the plug on the SIGS/WON server a long time ago, games are still being played over the net with a dedicated forum and community.

So if you're looking for a great sci-fi real-time strategy game and you want to play against human opponents, OP2 is your game and the Outpost Universe is your community! (visit the links section!)

The Good
After six years you would think I would have either given up or mastered this one, but it just isn't the case. The interface with its logged events, "savant series" computer announcing my impending doom, and easy keyboard shortcuts make this an easy game to navigate around and I seldom find myself cursing at the actual interface; just my own stupidity as a ballet of lava, blight, and enemy units pummel me in a painful slow-motion ballet.

I know there's got to be some trick to mastery but I still haven't found it, and since it seems easy enough yet continues to kick my ass, I'll continue playing it.

The Bad
This game is an early example of real-time-strategy, and there's no queuing method for unit creation or building functions, which means you're forced to keep on top of what's going on. The logged events definitely helps in this regard, but it's not quite as smooth as more recent titles like "Age of Mythology."

The Bottom Line
A primitive "Age of Mythology" in space.

The Good
Sierra made a fairly bold move with Outpost 2: take a game that was by almost all accounts horrible, and make a sequel to it that would offer a more accessible, more complete, more functional, and more exciting experience. It might have worked, had it not been for a few major flaws.

The manual was good—attractive and fairly detailed. A professional sci-fi author was brought on board for the purpose of giving Outpost 2 an actual plot and providing gamers with some interesting backstory. I think the folks at Sierra wanted to redeem themselves with this title, and their effort did shine through in some respects.

The Bad
The graphics and sound were both sub-par. Worse was the fact that the game moved at a very sluggish pace, even at the fastest speed. I have never been a big fan of the tank rush-RTS game, but if Sierra had to make one, they could at least have delivered on the rushing part!

Combat was weak—not that you’d even necessarily notice. The single-player campaign had your planet dying on you, which rather bizarrely shifted the focus of the game away from fighting to a kind of Monty Python approach (“Run away!”) instead. Different from the RTS norm, to be sure, but still not much fun.

The Bottom Line
A mediocre blend of elements from Command & Conquer and Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, Outpost 2 failed to remove the bad taste from gamers’ mouths left by the first Outpost game. The RTS approach was an interesting idea, but it just wasn’t implemented well enough to save the franchise from extinction.