Infinite Space III: Sea of Stars

Já joguei outro jogo dessa franquia e também não gostei dele, pode até ser que esse jogo não é pra mim, mas eu gosto de jogos de estratégia e também de ação, a mistura desses dois que tentaram fazer nesse jogo não é nada interessante pra mim, eu achei o jogo muito arrastado e lento ao mesmo tempo tedioso e sem complexidade pra me prender. Fora tudo isso a maneira que as informações são entregas ao jogador é muito estranho, parece que sempre tem muita coisa espalhada na tela. ----------------------------------- I've played another game from this franchise and I didn't like it either, this game might not be for me, but I like strategy games and also action games, the mix of these two that they tried to do in this game isn't interesting at all for me. , I found the game very dragging and slow at the same time, tedious and lacking in complexity to keep me hooked. Apart from all this, the way the information is delivered to the player is very strange, it seems like there is always a lot of stuff spread out on the screen.

For each thing they fixed, they broke several more. Just play Weird Worlds instead.

So, as an avid fan of the entire series, there is a whole lot I like about this game, and a whole lot that I don't. I like to start with the good news first, so here are some of the things that I absolutely love about this installment over and above the previous games... Tactical deployment: In combat, you can choose WHEN to deploy ships, and where to direct them to AS YOU ARE DEPLOYING THEM. This adds a whole new layer of tactical depth to combat, for those who choose to make use of it. Regularly scheduled ship and hull upgrades: The fact that Hope Station will regularly provide upgrades for you to buy for your ship hull and new weapons/systems for you to purchase means that even if RNJesus hates you (and boy, does he hate me), you can still make at least a pretense of having a decent loadout for your main ship. Greater variety of quests, and more frequent quest triggers: I have not played many games so far, but already I have noticed that I receive a wider variety of special missions than in the prior installments in the series, and receive the ones that are carry-overs from prior installments much more often. For example, I have already seen the Yellow Kawangi twice, when in all of the hundreds of games I played between Infinite Space and Weird Worlds, I never encountered them at all; I had to discover they were carry-overs here. I have received a copy of the Horloge of Primordius in nearly every game, when I have only encountered it 11 times in the past (and only once in a Universe where I had access to all of the other pieces reasonably needed to complete the quest, such as the anti-graviton shunt). Additional/expanded content: The addition of the Calatians (did I get that right?) as a fully fleshed out race, as well as all the new ship systems, etc, are great. Information availability: The inclusion of statistics for weapons and ships that are comparable helps when judging the relative value of weaponry and ship systems; in the past, the only method of gauging the relative value of anything was it's trade value and experimentation... which has it's own charm, but this is one of the few ways in which this game is more approachable than it's predecessors. Here are some of the things that I have... let's say, less enthusiastic feelings about... The 3D Map: There is an entire thread on this forum created specifically to complain about this feature, and while I like it aesthetically, and appreciate the fact that it makes navigation more tactical (nebulae are a lot less of a problem if you are smart about your flight paths), it makes navigation feel like a really cluttered, less streamlined decision. This one change has made it so that I can no longer just play a game at work on my lunch break; half an hour not only isn't long enough to play a good game anymore, it's not enough to visit each star system once, even if I ignore grabbing stuff and combat along the way and just try to speed-run it. The new combat system: This is a really mixed bag. The optional deployment feature? AMAZEBALLS. And it means that I can do stuff that is more thematically appropriate too, like using fighters such as good ol' Ripcord to scout out unknown encounters, because he will be the fastest to get away if it's an encounter with hostiles that I can't win with my fleet. The ability to "drag" ship paths, including turns, etc? Great, loving it. But there are times when a ship just doesn't seem to want to follow the path I am ACTUALLY drawing with my mouse, and instead, starts doing this weird jig on it's own whim. Cost me my capital ship on more than one occasion. And automating the fighters? Cool idea... if I could turn it off (can you? If so, someone please tell me how). Here are the things that I really, really disliked... UI/Controls: This all feels very non-intuitive to me. In fact, my very first game, no lie, I quit the game because I had opened the "status window" for a ship system and then literally could NOT figure out how to close it, and it made playing the rest of the game actually impossible (turns out it's a right-click on the mouse to close it, but nobody told me that). Whereas prior entries had a simple UI and controls that felt fluid and intuitive, such that your average child could pick up the game and figure out the basics in minutes, this one made me feel like it needs a manual, even for adults. So I gave the tutorial game a shot. It would have helped some if I had started here, but not nearly as much as I feel would have been needed. These issues impact SO MUCH of the game that while I am likely to continue enjoying this game, I am likely to clock up many more hours in WW:R2IS even now that I have this new novelty to explore. Overall, I think this is a good game, that could have been a great game. Still, it's Digital Eel... even when they don't knock it out of the park, I trust them to deliver me a largely positive experience, and Sea of Stars was no exception. And it definitely breaks new ground for the series, so at least they can't be accused of pumping out "one more of the same". I've already gotten more enjoyment out of the game than the monetary value of what I had to pay for it, so I don't feel cheated at all; I just think that some of the design decisions could have been reworked to turn this solid title into a true masterpiece.

If you know what you are getting, this is a fun little game, nothing great, but for the price, what do you expect? It is in essence rogue-like space exploration game. Each trip takes about half an hour, less if you are unlucky. Luck, however, is the crux of the game, things are much easier if you find good engines early on, and a bad selection of found items makes the game very difficult. On top of that, unless I am missing something, there is no way to know how tough an enemy is. I beat two fleets in one battle with mine, then several stars later one small fleet wiped me out with no problem. But thems the breaks I guess. Random chance is everything, and the variety of random things isn't as large as I might like. I haven't tried the mods, they might be better. The art is pretty nice, the map pleasantly 3-D confusing, (I like that in a space game, but not to everyone's taste) Controls are fine, as are the sound effects. Nothing to complain about... I have yet to win a game, and wander back to try again occasionally, so that is a good sign, but I never get the urge to binge it. It falls in the middle there somewhere.

did not enjoy this title

Feels very unpolished compared to the previous entries and is a 3D reskin of the second game (Buy that instead!) but my main issue is with the user interface. Aside from the needless complexity of 3D navigation the user interface scaling is super weir. Icons are massive and the text is tiny and difficult to real. The layout of icons and scaling feels like this was intended to be a phone game and it really doesn't work on PC. For instance in the previous game I could have the inventory, and trade interface open at the same time but you have to click back and forth many times to navigate menus which is the opposite of the design principals of previous games. Also the survey scans are so bad, they blink over the entire screen in waves and combined with the super saturated colors its difficult to look at for any length of time.

a truly beautiful piece of software, still works after years. awesome stuff!

Lack of updates, repetitive gameplay, and a really outdated genre. Buy something like Spore instead. If you ever do feel the need to buy this game, only ever do it when there is a sale.

this game looks like a horrible flash game that a 12 year old made buyer beware

Not as Good as the previous one, the jump from 2d to 3d is not as smooth as someone would expect... (especially the main map) Lots of objects, random events and quests are the same as Infinite Space 2 Weird Worlds, so it lost part of the exploration wonder for me. But I will still give it a Recomend: The game is still fun and entertaining, and have its own merits, so if you are in to randomly generated Space adventures you will like this game for sure. Can't wait for what Digital Eel has in store for us next!