Master Of Orion 2 Free Download [VERIFIED]
Janvier Bender
A master of the 4X universe this is not. But neither is it unenjoyable, as its lively presentation, personality, and occasional humor do much to shore up its weak points, and its comparative accessibility make it a decent option for anyone wading into the genre for the first time. But for depth? There are many worlds other than these.
The Good
Master of Orion is brilliant. Genius. An absolute and inarguable classic. One of a handful of games that never leaves my hard-drive. What's so great about another nineties empire builder? Isn't it just Civilization in space? Not by a long shot. Its true mastery lies in its never-surpassed focus on variety and flexibility, and to that end it brought much needed innovation to anemic aspects of the empire-builder genre such as diplomacy and research. It also is the only 4x game ever that casts the player as a galactic emperor in a satisfying way.
Civilization and nearly all its kin must bow in time to the formula player, the fellow who sits his ass in a chair long enough to learn the "One Strategy." Once found, it always beats the game dead barring only a small degree of variance from randomized maps and starting locations. The best formula players can even triumph from the lousiest of starts. After this formula is mastered, the once wide-open gameworld that seemed so free, varied and "alive" becomes dead and empty. There are no more surprises. Beating the game becomes like solving the same crossword puzzle over and over. MOO dodges this bullet through the ingenious design of its playable races, research system, and diplomacy.
From the player side, there are hard-coded advantages possessed by each race. Each race has a unique bonus and some accompanying weaknesses that demand a slightly different style of play: the rock-creature Silicoids can colonize any planet and don't have to worry about waste, but their birth rate is very low; the Darloks are shapeshifters and thus supreme spies, but as a result every race mistrusts them from the start, resulting in often-precarious relations with one's neighbors. This forces the player to play each race differently--if you play the Darloks with a Silicoid strategy, you are going to lose. The elegance of this system is not only the usual "advantage/disadvantage" balance, but the fact that those inherent advantages may be duplicated or overcome by the other races. Want to match the Silicoid advantage of colonizing everything? Research planetology. Want to master espionage and render the Darlok spy network toothless? Research computers. Research, research, I hear you say--what about the Psilons, whose advantage is superior research ability? Take a few of their factory-rich planets, spend lots to spy on them, or bomb them to extinction, and you will steal enough of their tech or otherwise negate their advantage.
I will say however that MOO masters one last thing that is crucial--limiting micromanagement to acceptable levels, yet still allowing a fine degree of control. Its sequel missed out on this (as do many other space empire games) completely. I'm the flippin' galactic emperor! I don't want to be bothered with building individual farm buildings on each planet in a multi-parsec empire! Yet if I -do- decide to tweak a planet's production to a specific degree, I want to be able to do it without a lot of red tape or bureaucrats. MOO's simple, abstract slider production system allows for this. It maintains scope and ease without sacrificing control.
The Bad
With such a vast game, there are always going to be flaws. Some are serious bugs. The negative ship bug (when a 16 bit unsigned integer flips over) can break the game, for example. Some of the technological variety gets overwhelming and confusing, and the in-game descriptions often need to be carefully read from the tech screen before you know what you're doing. The tactical ship combat AI needs a -lot- of work, as the computer does some very stupid things. Given the variety of all the ship gizmos, that shouldn't be too surprising. :-D
Master of Orion is an excellent game for people who enjoy the Civilization series and who enjoy retro space-themed adventures. It's easy to play and hard to master, which makes it an excellent game for tuning out the world and relaxing for a few hours.
df19127ead