Star Fleet II: Krellan Commander

The Good
Well you do get to play the bad guys which is always fun. There are lots of things you can do as a Krellan Commander, like controlling a space fleet and conducting land battles and colonizing/conquering new worlds if the game isn't crashing. Box features some great Dave Dorman art.

The Bad
Bugs, bugs and more bugs. This game set the template for buggy, rushed games, unfortunatly, other distrubuters have not gone bankrupt like Interstel did due to releases like this. All companies that release beta copies to stores deserve Interstel's fate.

The game has lots of great options that sound like they would be fun for any sci-fi fan to do but the unpatched version of this game crashes after you complete the rather boring exploration missions of the first rank. The patched version allowed you get past the first rank and into the main game but the game was still buggy and would often lock up on you. Stuff like the planetary invasions I could never access due to the constent crashing. Combine the bugs, with poor late 80s EGA graphics and a clunky interface and you've got terrible game.

The Bottom Line
This game was the last game I ever bought without either playing or reading a review before hand. It was almost a year before Interstel mailed me the patched disks. To this day I am still stunned at how a company could release an unfinished game like this, especially a sequel to what was already a classic in its day. Bad game collectors should seek this out like a bee to honey, retro gamers should go play the original.