Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

The Good
Everything. good graphics, designing your own spacehips, fun battles, different alien races means different gameplay. Master of Magic colony management style. lots of random encounters (space flux which prevents ships from travelling in space for a random amount of time, stars going supernova needing reserch points to be saved, wealthy merchants donating you money etc...) fun fun fun!

The Bad
Stupid AI, the colony autobuild is so dumb it hurts. (sometimes it decides to build trade goods instead of important buildings even though i have 70k+ credits and earning a great amount of money each turn). the diplomacy is virtually non-existant. alien races will decline a trade pact but will accept it after you offer it again after offering a reserch pact in the same conversation!
The Antarens are too easy to beat at a late stage, so even if you are going to get crushed by your enemies you can always win by destroying the Antaren homeworld. If you have a large amount of ships that need to be refitted you still have to redesign each and every one (why not change the basic design and just press a "refit to design" button?) If you deselect Tactical Battles when starting a game by accident you'll never have a chance to change it. and you will want to change it! (as stated before, the game's AI is not exactly amazing)

The Bottom Line
Despite the evil things listed above the game is still superb and as addictive as Master of Magic and civilization (well... almost as addictive as civ ;-) ) fun. go and play it. Seriously.

The Good
Ship design, AI, heroes, races and music. The good sides of the game. I've been always fan of SimTex strategy, and I must say that no space strategy game has yet taken MOO II its domination of turn-based scifi-strategy games. And that's damn well, this game is four years old! Master of Orion III will possibly be the heir to throne, but that's not certain. I personally love this game. So much that I sold it, and bought a new one after six months. This has never happened to me before and won't happen again, this Orion I won't sell!

The Bad
Nothing is perfect. Not even Master of Orion II. Worst thing is that some races never prosper, and some prosper always. Like in the middle of a game, usually Humans, Alkari, Bulrathi etc. have been eliminated. Almost always. And Sakkra, Klackon, Silicoid and Psilon exist. Always. But that's about it. With a bit of balance between the races, this game would have been a lot better. But, as I said before, nothing is perfect.

The Bottom Line
Civilization style turn-based Sci-Fi strategy. With Master of Magic engine. SimTex has upgraded the original Master of Orion idea much. Though now there is more micromanagement, but I like it. You can design your own warships, colonize new worlds and deal with alien races. You choose between war and diplomacy. There are also some random events, like antaran attacks or space dragon plundering your colonies. Yeah, and then there's my favorite, when you complete the game, cool ending demo finishes with these words: Your fleets patrol the skies of every planet in galaxy. This galaxy. But other challenges await, Master of Orion!

The Good
The music sometimes never leaves my head, its so catchy. The game play doesnt miss a beat. And the choices are many and diverse. This game has some of the hightest replayabilty that I have ever seen. Graphics are good and the game's progression of difficulity is terrific for new players. In the lowest level of difficulity the game is easy to learn and enjoy. It hooks the new players and dares them to try a real challenge. The game never really gets boring and it all comes together to form an excellent game worthy of the title Master of Orion. Truly one of the greatest games ever to come from Microprose.

The Bad
there are some small things that could have been done that would have made this game even better. (1) After you colonize or take over a colony you cant rename it. (note: I know that when you first land on a planet in a system you can name the system but after that you can change it.) (2) Although the music is catchy, there is a definate need for more music. Its catchy because there is only one song or theme playing through the whole game. (3) more options on diplomacy screen. ie.. using your spys to kill a leader or start a coup. Overall there really are no complaints with the game as far as I know.

The Bottom Line
Great game. If you like civ you will like this one.

Note: if you only play shooters and you are looking for a new game to try that isnt a cookie cutter shootem-up then try this one. Trust me Its worth it!