Ascendancy

The Good
This game does take a little effort (but not too much) to get into but, boy, does it pay off! The graphics are still very crisp and attractive and even rival that of certain brand new strategy games - for a 13 year old game, that's not bad at all!

But there's also the incredibly orchestric music which remains so recognisable and easily trumps the pseudo-modern beat music you find in far too many new games.

The game itself is highly addictive, with the search for new suitable planets while expanding your army being a constant drive to expand. The strategy side isn't too complex yet it's surprisingly deep.

The combat is lots of fun too with the explosions still feeling really sweet. Blowing up alien ships has to be one of the most fun elements of Ascendancy.

The Bad
Well, I have to agree with the biggest criticisms that the game has received in the past.

First of all, the AI isn't that great. There has been a patch that improves it but the original unpatched game saw the AI really badly manage planets. Every planet you captured, you had to completely rebuild from scratch. The AI never posed a real challenge.

The second problem with the game is that some might find the macromanagement tedious after you've captured 50 planets. Maintaining such a large amount of planets means a lot of work and nearly every day you have to create several buildings, start constructing a new ship, etc. My advice is: stick to smaller universes with fewer aliens to compete with. The moment you tackle a large universe, you're doomed to give up out of boredom.

The Bottom Line
This really is a different take on Master of Orion. The difference is that you have much better control over combat and have to maintain planets on a much smaller level. You constantly have to research more, upgrade buildings, build better ships, explore new solar systems, colonize new planets.

This game can really suck you in. 13 years old yet when I played it recently in Dosbox, I couldn't tear myself away from the screen until I had vanquished my opponents! My entire day went up in smoke, something which for me, few modern games are capable of achieving.