At long last a 4x game has come along that hasn't fallen flat on its face.
The game is a bit oblique in its game play and events happen in real time, hence the RTS part of the game. A;though you can pause the game via the space bar at any point or increase the game speed by several factors.
The game is no where as addictive as Space Empires IV was but it has potential.
Many fine 4x games have come along over the last couple of years since Gal Civ II; and its the expansion packs that offer a lot of fun and are just as enjoyable as this new game. Games like Armada, its expansion packs, Star Ruler (Great game), Endless Space, Distant Worlds (And its expansion packs) and a few others, but they all lacked something that SE IV had and I think Star Lords and Star Drive might posses, immerse game play with an element of RPG. You know a game is both fun and addictive when you realize that its now 6 am and you've been playing it since 5 pm the day before and it only feels like a couple of hours have passed. Only Star Rule and the alpha of Star Lords has given me that reward since my days of playing Space Empires IV came to an end. That is until now. Star Drive did that for me.
I cannot even begin to explain what made Space Empires IV so much fun and replayable that these later generation games lacked. But one thing is for sure, Star Drive is trying to bring it back.
Don't get me wrong, these other games do have great great game play and are a ton of fun, but they lack something. I often found myself playing them for a while then getting bored with them. That NEVER happened with Space Empires IV, and only a few times with Star Ruler. And so for not at all with Star Drive.
Setting up the game is pretty straight forward with a few options to modify one of the pre-packaged races, set the size of the galaxy, and even pick your flag and its color and how many opponents to have. That's about it.
Perhaps its the newness of the game or the fact that I can see the potential in it (Along with Star Lords) to be great games like Space Empires IV. The more I play the more I like the game and the more I want to play it.
Over all the game looks great. It is amazingly simple to get into and to play through. Several excellent Let's Plays have been relaesed that illustrate this very handily.
Apart from a rather long LOAD TIME the game runs rather smoothly on my Core 5, 560 Ti, 16 gigs Ram.
The game starts and you have a few ships to give orders too. The sound effects are pretty good and the visuals are equally as good. (Granted the sound track is nowhere near as good as that of Star Ruler though).
You send out explore ships to explore and they seem to do it rather rapidly automatically. They find anomalies which you send troops to take over. (Distant worlds did this far better in MHO)
You send out colony ships to colonize. Encounter aliens and well fighting or peace ensue. While Star Drive is still in beta the game does have a ton of potential and is one of the funnest 4x games to come along since Endless Space.
While it lacks a lot, it does have a lot to give. The only thing I'd really complaint about is that the EPIC size of the galaxy is still what most of us would call small. That trait it shares with its sister Endless space.
The technology tree is limited but that is only because the game is still being developed. By limited I mean you can research almost the entire tree in about 24 hours of game play.
The combat system is where this game sets itself apart. And brother does it ever. By far one of the best combat systems I have ever seen in a 4x game since Swords of the Stars. Think Gratuitous Space battles meets Sins Of A Solar Empire.
Ground combat on the other hand is a bit dated but still well implemented given what one would expect. They handle it a lot like Gal Civ II but with a bit more flare.
The GUI is very easy to figure out and operate. The game mechanics are pretty straight forward and one can rapidly pass up the learning curve with ease.
There is a lot that I'd love to see done to the game but as it is now, its an amazing game so far. Well worth the $30.00 USD it costs on STEAM.