Recent reviews by FullAutoAttack

Great game, lots of fun and gets better the more you play.

It is damn good.

There are plenty of in-depth reviews so I'm not going to do one of those.

When I first started I looted crates in my starting base. One of these had a fire trap on it that exploded and caught the grass around on fire, which spread and burnt down most of the buildings and fried some NPCs.

An invasion came and there was not enough NPCS to defend the base because of the BBQ and I lost the game.

This is the kind of random crazy that this game has which is why after 65 hours of play is still full of surprises as on day 1 and I still feel like i've only scratched the surface.

Factions are constantly engaged in diplomacy which is very interesting to watch as they vie for and against each other.

Oh and if you love creating characters there is an almost limitless amount of combinations to try and get (using mutations).

Oh yeah, ware ye the mighty large small hobo scorpion hunter! LOL!

Great game!

A fairly deep RPG set in the medeval era that is simulated prefectly.

Combat is more complex than most RPGs but they are going for realism of how sword fighting was done and how weapons and armor worked. I think they nailed it with this system (similar to, but more robust than, Mount&Blade).

The RPG elemets are great without getting in the way for the game and I find new parts to it as i explore the world.

There are minor performance issues which they are working on (there are manual workarounds for them) and they are patching in a better system for the saves.

Mods are coming online and that is always a good thing.

I highly recommend this truely unique game.

Is the game fun? - yes.
Should I buy it? - if you like turn based 4x this one is a must and the best one currently on the market (imho).

The Crusades expansion has pretty much nailed all the issues I had with the game.

- The race creation is probably the most robust (and rpg like) that I've seen in a x4 game (and I've played most of them).
A slew on new race types and abilities in addition to the traits tree all which combine to create a unique race (and determines what techs you can research).
Want to create a time traveler synthetic cyborg race or a silicon based xenophobic warrior race, done! And in game your decisions define you Ideology which further adds to how your race evolves.

- Ships Creator - With tons of parts you can build almost any type of ship or modify any of the existing ones.

- AI - One of the best I've seen. 64 bit and uses all the cores on your processer blah blah.

- Gameplay - This is one of the biggest and best changes Crusade brings to the game.
Want to build tall (small number of powerful planets) or try and grab as many planets as you can and build them up later, you can do both.
The new Citizen system gives you a citizen every 10 turns to train in various skills. Want to buff your research? Train a citizen in research and you can either assign him/her to give a small faction wide increase in research or assign them to a planet to give a larger planet wide increase. You can do this for production, manufacturing, banking, espionage and so on.
Have you caught on to how deep the game gets?

- Size - No 4x game is more customizable. You can create small quick games all the way to mammoth marathons with randomly generated 500X500 mapsets filled with up to 90 different major races plus minor factions! And thanks to it's 64bit multicore tech the turns are still fast.

- Mods - Want to turn your game into the Star Trek universe with ST races and ships? Modders have you covered. Want to download custom made races to play or play against? There are several hundred or more on steam for you to choose from.

- More to come! StarDock has some big plans, including fleshing out politics, elections, protectorates, etc and several more campaigns.

- You're still here? Buy the game already =)

Amazing game even it its alpha state and the possibilities to where the game can go from here are nearly endless.

Update 1/30/2017:
The game just keeps getting better, I have over 2k hours in the game and I just can't get enough.

Why do I like it so much, you ask?
- Creepy and scary: Lights off, huddled in my makeshift base with howling zombies pounding on it to get a taste of my manflesh raises my hackles.
Plenty of jump scares to if you don't keeping you head on a swivel, they can be sneaky sometimes.

- RPG Progression: lots of skills to work on and improve and choosing what to work on changes how you approach the game. Should I work on guns so I can clear out a house I'm looting easier or work on building skills to improve my base? Each is valid option.

- Construction: Build almost anything: There are plenty of vids of peoples bases to exhibit the vastness of construction options in this game. I personally like to take control of an existing building and improve it from there but building an furnishing from scratch is also fun.

- Huge (and random) area to explore: There is a set map for the story but I play on randon gen. Finding palce to build a base that is close to resources is key for me. Once that is done start exploring for caves and resource nodes as well as towns to loot.

- Crafting: weapons, armor and clothes: shotguns, pistols, SMG and assault rifles, blade and blunt hand to hand weapons are all available to find in loot or craft. Same goes for defensive items like armor, clothes, night vision, food etc

- Many different biodomes: Living in a desert has different challenges and benefits than living in a forest, there a varying biodomes to investigate

- Options: Make the game as easy or difficult as you want. Enbale tons of loot or no loot, zombies weak or stong, day cycle long or short, etc - it's up to you. Try zombies always run at low difficulty for fun.

Mods - My god these guys are amazing. Once you gotten the hang of vanilla check out "Valmod" and "True Survival" mod. New graphics, items, zombies - fantastic stuff.

Mutiplayer: Haven't tried this yet but you can player on a multiplayer server where humans are friend or foe (in in a pvp server).

More to come - all this is in the game now and stable. The devs are are actively adding more to the game and have some big changes for alpha 16 (can't wait)!