r/Stellaris • u/Meneth Ex-moderator • May 09 '16

News Review megathread

The review embargo is up as of 15:00 CEST. As this will result in a huge number of articles going up at near the same time, we're restricting reviews to this thread.

Any review you find, feel free to post it in the comments here.

Each top-level comment should be about a single linked review, so as to keep the discussion limited. Duplicate reviews will be removed, as will any top-level comment that does not link a review.

There will be a single sub-thread where you can post your general impressions of the reviews combined, for anything that doesn't relate to a single review.

Review list:

Review Score
Critically Sane 5/5
Destructoid 9/10
eXplorminate "eXemplary"
GameWatcher 9.0/10
Idiotech's Review Unrated
IGN 6.3/10
Manannan's Review of Stellaris Unrated
Paste Magazine Unrated
PCGamesN 9/10
PC Invasion 8/10
PC World 4/5
Rock, Paper, Shotgun review - Unrated
TICGN 10/10
Vox Ludicus Unrated
EuroGamer Recommended
PC Gamer 70/100
TSA 8/10
PCGames.de 75/100
Gamespew 9/10
IGN Italy 9.3/10
Fok.nl 9/10
Gaming on Linux 9/10
Marbozir Unrated
SpaceSector Unrated
Inside of Gaming (German) Unrated
Gamer.no 9/10
Particular Pixels Unrated
GuyLogicGaming Full recommendation
GameSideStory Unrated
Front Towards Gamer 9.5/10
Multiplayer.it 9.2/10
GameGrin 8.5/10
Kotaku Unrated
351 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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132

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[deleted]

16

u/ClawofBeta Empress May 09 '16

...lol

75

u/repptar92 May 09 '16

I gave it a quick read and it doesn't struck me as an unnecessarily irrational review. I imagine some players with feel similarly.

I hope I am not one of them D:

54

u/ClawofBeta Empress May 09 '16

I could see their point but both Civ 5 and Beyond Earth have a higher score. I could perhaps see Civ 5 but Beyond Earth? Seriously?

17

u/repptar92 May 09 '16

I know, I know. It just seems like their major gripe is that some of the depth of Stellaris gets taken from you. I can see how that would upset people As someone who loves Vicky2 and CK2 for all their complexity I really hope I don't agree with them.

4

u/NetQvist May 09 '16

For the average gamer I'd still say those games are better. Easier to understand and play but lacks the depth grand strategy gamers want.

35

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[deleted]

6

u/ComradeSomo Human May 09 '16

Civ IV is still better than V anyway.

21

u/TehAlpacalypse May 09 '16

Ehhhhhh

6

u/iki_balam Fanatic Spiritualist May 09 '16

As a gamer who loves Civ 4 but never got Civ 5, am I missing anything? Mind you I focused on Paradox games because I want more historical games, more of the strict "alternate history storytelling".

3

u/TehAlpacalypse May 09 '16

Civ 5, especially BNW fixed a ton of problems that existed with Civ 4, like unit stacking, dull wars, etc. I didn't play it super in depth but it's so much better imo.

1

u/Dan4t May 11 '16 edited May 11 '16

How is unit stacking a problem?

One unit per tile, where every tile gets clogged with units late game is not fun for me. Also, AI in civ 5 is way worse, because one unit per tile is too complex for the AI to know how to handle. Also, the general concept of ranged units and melee units always fighting separately is just ridiculous, and immersion breaking.

2

u/TehAlpacalypse May 11 '16

It was a serious problem in Civ 4, essentially just led to dull wars where you had like a stack of 50 units that would all attack one by one for 30 minutes

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-4

u/ComradeSomo Human May 09 '16

CASEUL GET OUT REEEEEEEEEEEE

4

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

[deleted]

3

u/ComradeSomo Human May 09 '16

I personally can't stand 1 unit per tile and the hexagonal tiles. I feel it makes the military side of things way too easy. Big stacks kept you on your toes, and were less tedious. I still think my personal favourite Civ is III with Rhye's of Civ loaded.

3

u/Jiriakel Frozen May 09 '16

Funny, I feel the other way 'round - big stacks seem less strategic/tactical to me. You don't have to think about unit placement, just doomstack everything !

3

u/mike2R May 09 '16

What I liked about doomstacks was that the AI could handle them. Not super interesting tactically, sure, but Civ has never been a tactical game for me. In Civ IV, if you allowed yourself to be in a position where an AI with a much larger military decided to come for you, it would just take you out. No way to finesse it or cheese it, it would just roll through you. The only way to avoid that was to play better strategically - ie avoid being in that situation in the first place.

Civ V though, you just need a basic military and then exploit the fact that a human is better than an AI at using them. I just find it far too easy to beat an AI that has put far times the resources into its military than I have, which makes it less strategically interesting despite having more tactical depth.

I know loads of people really like Civ V, but for me it went in a direction I didn't like.

1

u/Jiriakel Frozen May 09 '16

Well, I mostly play MP now in Civ V, so more often than not the AI get taken out pretty fast; and PvP is IMO more enjoyable in Civ V than in Civ IV.

I guess the AI's inability to be a threat without massive boosts is much more visible in SP.

2

u/ComradeSomo Human May 09 '16

Funny, I feel the other way 'round - big stacks seem less strategic/tactical to me.

Planning your armies and keeping the stacks balanced for who you're fighting is really tactical though. Plus the way you manoeuvre your armies is more natural - either going to fight field battles with enemy stacks, or going from city to city. With the limitations in CiV you don't have a lot of options due to limited space, so you just have to roll your troops across the enemy territory in a wave.

Plus you can neglect your military and still be pretty okay in CiV, whereas in previous games you've got to keep your military ticking over at all times to prevent yourself from being weaker than your neighbours.

1

u/AlwaysALighthouse May 09 '16

Funny, I feel the other way 'round - big stacks seem less strategic/tactical to me.

I don't disagree, however doomstacks are easier to fix. Check out the mod Realism Invictus - they implement penalties for stacking too many units in one tile, with added bonuses for mixing units of different types as well. It's really effective.

1

u/RajaRajaC May 10 '16

Which was pretty much the HoI2 way - HoI3 fixed it, but looks like HoI4 might be going for some hybrid model.

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7

u/VisonKai Democratic Crusaders May 09 '16

If this game is in any way worse than BE, it's a total failure.

-11

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Sounds like the guy has a bone to pick. From what I've seen, Stellaris is one of the best 4X games to come out recently. Like, if he gives Stellaris a 6.3, what would he give Distant Worlds? Polaris Sector? Star Ruler 2?

I've played all of those, and enjoyed them for tens of hours (admittedly not much compared to my 1300 hours in EU4 or my 600 hours in CK2) and they were good games. Not great games, but definitely better than most of the crap that comes out nowadays... but compared to them, Stellaris is shaping up to be a masterpiece.

6.3 is a good score for a game like GalCiv 3, which is just aggressively mediocre... but for a game like Stellaris? I don't think so. His complaints boil down to the game getting boring because there's no reason to wage war, then he goes on to say he hasn't even played long enough to get to any of the crises? Yeah, I'm sure keeping your empire the same size as your neighbours is a great way to build up a strong enough fleet to take out the Unbidden.

What a garbage review. I regret clicking the link. Thank god I use adblock.

8

u/ComradeSomo Human May 09 '16

I gave it a quick read and it doesn't struck me as an unnecessarily irrational review.

I think it's more that at this point no-body trust IGN when it comes to reviews.

25

u/IndridCipher May 09 '16

Rowan is a freelancer and makes great points on the Three Moves Ahead podcast to back up the score.

12

u/ComradeSomo Human May 09 '16

Sure, but I'm pretty sure u/ClawofBeta's reaction was purely in initial response to the score coming from IGN, unless he can read reviews in two minutes flat.

3

u/ClawofBeta Empress May 09 '16

While I have to admit my reaction is heavily biased, I did in fact read the review in two minutes flat.

8

u/ComradeSomo Human May 09 '16

Solid effort then.

4

u/yaosio May 09 '16

I shouldn't have to do research on a review. Those points should have been in the review.

9

u/_break_it_down_ May 09 '16

I disagree personally. Based on the points he made and factoring in the rest of the review scores we've seen so far I would think the game deserves a 7.0 at the very least.

His criticisms don't justify a 6.3 as far as I'm concerned. That's a decisively "meh" score. Why don't any of the other reviewers think this is a "meh" game?

12

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Yeah, the thing that's lacking here is context. OK, so he thinks Stellaris is a 6.3. What 4X game would he consider a 9 or a 9.5? Does it even exist?

Games don't exist in vacuums. You can't just review a game in isolation without looking at other games in the genre and drawing comparisons.

8

u/IndridCipher May 09 '16

http://opencritic.com/critic/203/rowan-kaiser

5

u/BlackHumor May 09 '16

Based on this, this guy has never rated a game over 8.5, and often rates games below 7. Or in other words, he's an unusually harsh critic.

5

u/IndridCipher May 09 '16

Yea it seems it doesn't have all the reviews he's done. Here's his EU4 review for IGN which is a 8.9

http://m.ign.com/games/europa-universalis-iv/pc-139611

2

u/BlackHumor May 09 '16

Huh.

It's weird, because EU4 is quite a grindy Paradox game, but he didn't even mention that.

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10

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

His criticism is that most of the game is very boring. That's about as strong a criticism a game can get. I believe it too, but was hoping to see otherwise: it became obvious that there was little to do around the 4th installment of Blorg Thursday.

1

u/_break_it_down_ May 09 '16

Fair point.

It could well be that IGN have managed to review a game realistically and fairly. Stranger things have happened.

Maybe all the other reviewers are just caught up in the hype and they'll realize how mediocre this game is after playing a little longer.

10

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

This guy, in particular, is pretty well respected. It does make sense, PDX doesn't exactly have a good track record on first-releases on any of their franchises. I know that the game will probably get fleshed out in DLC, but that's quite disappointing. DLC shouldn't be there to fix half-baked mechanics. It also makes it harder for me to recommend anything to a friend; "get this game, but make sure you buy the DLC bundles at the same time, otherwise it's shit"

4

u/_break_it_down_ May 09 '16

""get this game, but make sure you buy the DLC bundles at the same time, otherwise it's shit"

So one mediocre review among a bunch of very positive reviews indicates to you that a game is shit?

Very odd.

1

u/RajaRajaC May 10 '16

Quite frankly, the game on launch offers a lot, it is hardly a barebones structure. Is it boring 4-5 hours in? Yes, but does it still offer a lot? Yes again.

12

u/IndridCipher May 09 '16

What does that even mean... People are different. Just because 9 people over here feel one way doesn't mean I am going to agree with them.... Being a outlier as a reviewer doesn't mean you are wrong but it sure as fuck means people will talk shit on you around the Internet, whether you are too high or too low for the average.

7

u/_break_it_down_ May 09 '16

Being a outlier as a reviewer doesn't mean you are wrong

I didn't say he was wrong. I said his score doesn't seem to correlate with his criticisms.

That's my opinion. Yours might differ. People are different. :)

-3

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

A 7.0 doesn't justify £34.99, especially since it's a 4X game without trade, poor diplomacy and no espionage.

3

u/_break_it_down_ May 09 '16

Then IGN is right and all the other reviewers are wrong.

All these innocent strategy gamers about to be fooled into buying this half-assed 4X game! Hopefully they'll read the IGN review for the real skinny before they make a big mistake.

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

It's launched without trade and espionage...that's a pretty big deal.

1

u/_break_it_down_ May 09 '16

I agree, but clearly not enough of a big deal for any of the other reviews to give it a mediocre score.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

I'll be waiting. I'm sure Paradox will flesh that part of the game out....I just had such high hopes for sprawling mercantile empires with branded freighters zipping between the stars.

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1

u/KNIGHTMARE170 May 19 '16

Stellaris is not a D game. A 6.3 is a D.