Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

The Good
Almost anything. The game has good graphics, a powerful yet simple and direct interface, a fun AI ranging in several levels and a lot of customization options. I espacially like the techology system, which allows you to research about a third of all of the techologies in the game, making each decision cruical to your strategy and enhancing the inter-player interaction (trading, spying or conquering new technologies is a must).

The Bad
The multiplayer options. Although there are many possible options for playing with other players, the game constantly crashes while playing Hotseat or Modem. The latest patch helps, but not enough, and the game is not stable. Another problem is the race customization; it's too easy to make a "broken" race, which will have amazing specialty in one field (a lot of money, a lot of science, etc. etc.) and will ruin the game, but this can be easily solved by playing one of the pregenerated races.

The Bottom Line
MicroProse is selling this game, along the original classic, for an amazingly low price. Worth buying, espacially now.

The Good
Everything. The diplomacy was awesome..the researching was incredible...the micromanagement was not too tedious, and the whole fact that this is a strategy game at it's greatest makes this a must buy for anyone.

The Bad
The fighting and upgrading ships could use some work.

The Bottom Line
I strongly recommend that any fan of strategy games buy this. Ever wanted to be a Napoleon of space? Here is your chance.

The Good
The diplomacy was ok, if you didn't count in the fact that the AI didn't seem to mind forgetting about allies etc. Music was also good and compared with orginal the graphics were ok. Also ome parts of the game worked OK: The que system for example is good, maybe better than the one in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which is rather glumsy.

Customizing your own race was also a very good idea. The only bad part is that the races greated by customizing are totally out of balance.

The biggest plus about this game is definetly that it made me realise how the slider mechanics of Master of Orion are really the greatest thing after sliced bread.

The Bad
One word: Micromanagment. The game really destroys the elogance of Master of Orion 1. The thing that I loved about MOO1 was the simple yet still so good system which didn't include any unnecessary micromanagement.

I might have still liked the game if other things would have worked very well, but NOOoooo. The diplomacy looks great, but as soon as you realize that the AI doesen't defend allies you lose interest in talking with the AI. The races are totally out of balance and so the game is really annoying to play with human players.

Master of Orion 1 had a pretty good system for science, but the desingers probably felt a need to change everything and created a really stupid system which is just stupid and boring.

The Bottom Line
Boring micromanagent with stupid computer players. Try to find Master of Orion and try to run it on your system. If the game runs, you will be hooked and trust me, you really don't want to try this micromanagent hell.

I'm rather suprised by the high score on this game, but I still belive my points are quiet valid...