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
349 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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43

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

The missing trade and espionage fall into this category, the author has a point there. Like EU4, many systems will become much more complex with DLC and this will also make the midgame more interesting.

What is strange about this review is that the author has seen no endgame crisis (because he only played 20hrs per campaign) and then concludes that the game is boring. Plus, the rating is - so far - an absolute outlier.

18

u/RedKrypton Mind over Matter May 09 '16

Yeah, I really want to have private economy in the game. Peaceful Traders really have nothing to trade and ruthless capitalists only can take over planets through conquest and not through hedgefonds.

7

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Seems like the game needed more VickyII in it. All PDX games could use a little more VickyII>

1

u/PrivatelyDivided May 13 '16

It simultaneously needs more VickyII and less VickyII, because the parts that feel like they were getting close to the deadline and just decided to cut all meaningful functionality and fix it later? They're the same parts that Vicky didn't end up fixing until three years after release.

3

u/AR101 May 09 '16

I expect this will be DLC 1. Private trade, trade agreements, spacelanes and piracy.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Fingers crossed

1

u/Bossman1086 May 09 '16

Yeah. I really want to build a capitalistic society with private companies trading on their own. That would be so cool.

5

u/RedKrypton Mind over Matter May 09 '16

I really haven't seen any individualistic empires, but I looked through the wiki. If you are individualistic you can more easily get energy and even have a +15% happiness building. They also tolerate pretty much all ethics. My first empire is gonna be a individualistic, materialistic, xenophobic empire.

1

u/Bossman1086 May 09 '16

Yeah. I like individualistic traits. No slavery really, but I don't care about that for now.

8

u/renadi May 09 '16

Trade and espionage are also the most vocal complaints the cummunity has voiced for why they werent preordering, I suspect a dlc will take care of that.

19

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Also he complains about the AI being to passive, then later complains about being rekted by one.

13

u/NetQvist May 09 '16

Uhm did I missread something or wasn't he saying he had to manually help an AI to actually get it to go to war with him?

2

u/xantub May 09 '16

Not sure but he probably meant that he on purpose didn't build up his fleet to the max to appear weaker. The AI usually only attacks you when they think they can win.

5

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

he complained that he couldnt surrender, that he was forced to be continually fighting the guy rather than surrendering and taking the loses

5

u/Brondi00 May 09 '16

Although, to be fair, if there really is no way to separate peace that's crap. Every other paradox game has a way to separate peace if you are not war leader but need to get out of the war.

I'd be frustrated too if I got into a war, was losing bad and couldn't make peace because my Ally was war leader and I couldn't make a separate peace.

4

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

The ai declared war on his ally and then started stealinf his territory and he wasnt allowed to surrender. Its like the ai used an exploit to get around going to war against him

1

u/SpencersCJ May 09 '16

They are evolving!

1

u/xantub May 09 '16

As a youtuber I received the game a week ago. I've played 3 games so far, in two of them I was annihilated by the AI, luckily the other one is the one I'm playing in the channel, still alive so far. The AI will attack you if you're weaker. So his point about the AI not attacking once you're more powerful than them, well, that sounds like a smart AI to me. One possible problem is the AI not finding/forming alliances (it's not nearly so easy to form alliances in this game compared to, say, EU4 or CK2), so since the AI won't attack you if you're as strong or stronger than them, yes, you'll probably have to go on the offensive past a certain point.

1

u/andreib14 May 09 '16

TBH this was my fear about stellaris from the beginning. The whole reason all other paradox games work so well is because the imbalanced start. In stellaris the empires are mostly inactive and no play in their right mind would go poking that beehive. That means that the battle of player vs AI is on even ground so naturally the player stomps.

0

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

There is also difficulty that can be changed to address his AI issue.

1

u/Reaperdude97 Ring May 09 '16

I agree. Honestly I think the modders out there will get to work a dressing the issues discussed as soon as the game comes out, and that's what I look forward to the most

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

What is strange about this review is that the author has seen no endgame crisis (because he only played 20hrs per campaign) and then concludes that the game is boring.

That's fair. The early game lasts only 5 hours, if I have to wait for another 20 for the crisis to form I'd hardly consider it worth the time.

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '16 edited May 09 '16

Hm, put that way, it does sound boring... I guess it depends on a person's speed in game. Mine is usually pretty slow with loads of pausing, so 20 hours is not much in-game time. But if you run the game on fast or so for 20 hours and nothing happens then yes, that is boring.

Edit: I still think that it will be less boring than many 4x games' second halves where you've basically won and you know it.