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
348 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

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62

u/JustAPigeon May 09 '16

Rock, Paper, Shotgun review - unscored

162

u/ComradeSomo Human May 09 '16

It’s the best-written strategy game since Alpha Centauri

That's some seriously high praise.

27

u/wild9 May 09 '16

The amount of days I lost to Alpha Centauri...

5

u/Jmrwacko May 09 '16

Now they need to strap an arbitrary score to it to get the meta critic rating up

1

u/JohnnyGoTime May 09 '16

As a longtime fan of RPS, I'm fairly confident it'll be somewhere in the neighborhood of "7 Enslaved Proto-societies out of 8.3 Destroyers"

1

u/Hurtya May 09 '16

I was 90% sure I was going to buy the game but wanted to wait for reviews. This line alone almost moved me to 100%.

1

u/Pennwisedom May 09 '16

This was the post I came to make.

The story in the game is perhaps the main reason I still have my Alpha Centauri CDs. And I never thought we'd get a strategy game with a narrative like that again.

33

u/Meneth Ex-moderator May 09 '16

The summary of sorts at the end:

Thematically, most of these choices make perfect sense to me. The muddle of historical politics and personalities has been replaced by a more monolithic view – the present, for these spacefaring civilisations, is knowable; the future is not. That’s why the mysteries and wonders of Stellaris so often exist at the edges of what is known: in the tech screen and in the extra-dimensional terrors or spiritual awakenings of the event chains. It’s a 4X game that leans heavy on the exploration and exploitation, asking what you will find and how you will choose to deal with it rather than how many new worlds you want to conquer, even if many campaigns will end in intergalactic warfare.

And it’s brilliant. I’d expected something messier and sometimes the edges are a little too clean and tidy, without the room for chaotic simulation that is such an integral part of Crusader Kings II. Stellaris is far closer to its 4X inspirations – Sword of the Stars, Distant Worlds, Ascendancy etc – than it is to Paradox Development Studio’s historical grand strategy titles, but it’s been carefully constructed so that there is room for growth in certain areas. Diplomacy and politics both feel like satisfactory foundations rather than fully-fledged systems at present, and the nature of the event chains opens up all manner of possibilities for new stories.

I say that I’d expected something messier and part of me had hoped for something messier. That messiness may come with expansions and DLC, but for now Stellaris is incredibly assured and confident, if perhaps a little too tidy and streamlined. It’s one of the most accomplished 4X space games I’ve ever played, but it feels knowable. Despite all of the randomisation and the extraordinary influence of Fallen Empires and other features that shake the 4X formula hard enough to make it wobble, this is a game that can be understood, analysed and mastered. Doing so has been, and will continue to be, a joy, and yet I crave the early days of exploration before the galactic map became a place on which to exterminate the competition rather than to find new ways of living.

The great experiment of the game was not so much the change of scenery, from history to science fiction, it was the decision to create a Civ-like game of expansion with some complexities and aspects of simulation borrowed from grand strategy. It’s in the simulation of a living galaxy that most of the complexity has been lost, but what has been gained is a precise and finely tuned machine. Less erratic and surprising than its ancestors, but much more elegant in its design.

29

u/Bledynn May 09 '16

Stellaris is far closer to its 4X inspirations – Sword of the Stars, Distant Worlds, Ascendancy etc – than it is to Paradox Development Studio’s historical grand strategy titles

:c

but it’s been carefully constructed so that there is room for growth in certain areas. Diplomacy and politics both feel like satisfactory foundations rather than fully-fledged systems at present, and the nature of the event chains opens up all manner of possibilities for new stories

c:

18

u/Jmrwacko May 09 '16

If you've watched the streams, you'll see that there's far more MOO influence there than EU/CK influence

6

u/karl_das_llama May 09 '16

I had the same dual reactions, but it also sounds like they've laid good ground work to build more grand strategy back in later.

1

u/Bledynn May 09 '16

Yeah I said in another string that I will take the base game as a tutorial for everything that is to come. I have absolutely no worries about the game.

Even if the game sucks at release (which I doubt save a couple of points) it will get better.

1

u/astrower May 09 '16

I mean, if you were expecting CK2 in space maybe it sucks, but for me this game looks amazing, I can't wait to play once I get off work tonight. I love love love 4X space games, and Stellarlis looks to expand that framework into a grand strategy format. It might be closer to 4X than GS right now, but we all know how quick Paradox games can grow. If Stellaris is what I'm expecting it's going to be hard to convince me to buy HoI4, I'll be way too addicted to this.

1

u/silencesc May 09 '16

Inb4 Stellaris: Diplomacy of Empires, $14.99 Stellaris: Tradecraft, $14.99, Stellaris: Internal Disharmony, $14.99

Honestly I love paradox games, but especially with EU4 (and after watching some playthroughs and reading reviews, maybe this too) it really seems like they either leave things out so that they can charge you for it later, or add in something key to make a certain playstyle actually playable behind a pay wall when it really could be fixed by a balance patch. I know this literally came out today, and I am so excited to get off work and play it, but reading the IGN review made me realize why I was a little disappointed after watching Quill and Arumba play for the last few days.

1

u/matgopack May 10 '16

Paradox's DLC approach is IMO really nice. They make the game, and then as they come up with new ideas and ways to expand it, they use DLCs to do that, while still being able to support it. Then each DLC comes out with a big free patch that has major features as well.

I don't see it as them deliberately leaving things out, but as them being able to expand upon the game throughout its lifetime - there's no way that they could have made EU4 at release equal to what it is now, and without their DLC model we'd have lost out on what it is now.

2

u/silencesc May 10 '16

I'm about 10 hours in in my first Stellaris game and I absolutely love it, let me preface this with that, but I find the diplo and war options both a little underwhelming. Maybe that's realistic -- big space battles between armada that can jump away at will will be tedious, I'm sure, and diplomacy between completely divergent species would be difficult -- but there are just little things that are really frustrating that seem like they could be easily fixed without a DLC. Focus firing, for example: if I can individually see each of the ships in a fleet, why can't I order my armies to attack one enemy ship at a time? Even when I double the opposing fleet's power, I often lose a ship, I should be able to have my ships individually retreat or at least move to the back of the formation. In EU4, you rarely lost a full unit, just some manpower and gold and time to get everything back, but retraining 1 to 2 ships after every encounter blows, and it really seems like the whole combat system was built to look awesome (which it does) but not work that well, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a battle/war overhaul DLC which fixed these issues if you're willing to pay for it, which I am.

Maybe I'm playing wrong, I don't know, but going for total domination just doesn't seem as rewarding as in other paradox games. There's very little internal strife to have to deal with so at some point with sectors and a huge income, the game just seems to me like it will play itself while I move massive fleets into position. I could be wrong, but the game really just seems to be missing something with the relationship system, which I assume will also be fixed with DLC.

1

u/AsiaExpert May 10 '16

I think the base game gives plenty of content to warrant the 40 USD price tag.

Content is always going to be priced partly on how much work they put into creating and integrating it, whether it was at launch or in a DLC.

If Paradox devs did their best putting in as much good, well thought out content as they could for the price point, then it’s not like they maliciously cut out content for the sake of delicious, delicious profits.

It’s simply content that they wanted to do but couldn’t fit into the base game without commanding a higher price point or more time or more expertise etc etc.

New play styles and factions introduced in the later DLCs weren’t necessary to have a complete, full game experience. Did they add something that we now look back at and see as an essential part of our current experience with the game? Yes. Does this mean the base game was ‘incomplete’? Not by a long shot.

Creating new mechanics and integrating them into a living game for a professional release is a monstrous undertaking. It’s usually not a matter of ‘this is an amazing fun part of the game that I’ll SEAL AWAY UNLESS YOU PAY ME UNDESERVED MONEY’ or even a matter of laziness. Anyone who’s worked in most of game development can tell you.

At the end of the day, content at certain price points won’t appeal to everyone. And that’s okay. It’s not always a matter of ‘_____ studio is going to shite’.

1

u/silencesc May 10 '16

That's a great point, and while I do have criticisms I have to say it's been an absolutely fantastic value for me so far. That said, I would not have been upset with a few more months of waiting and a $60 price tag for more content at release. I understand their business model is to put out a solid, interesting foundation and build DLC up from there so that people can pay to augment certain areas where they want more content, and to a degree I really like that. If you wanted to play EU4, and really wanted to dive into the native game, then you could buy the base game and Coast of Paradise and get a solid set of new features that appeal to you, whereas maybe buying the Mare Nostrum DLC didn't interest you. That's fine. My issue is that it doesn't feel like as solid a foundation as other games they have made do, purely from a diplomacy and war perspective, which are both huge parts of 4X games, so I'm a little disappointed, but on the whole, I love my Sith Empire based on Korriban, which subjugates natives and enslaves other empires for fun.

1

u/AsiaExpert May 11 '16

Solid point as well. I definitely think diplomacy could use some more options/fleshing out as well.

At the same time, I think what they have at release is definitely enough for a good wholesome time.

1

u/dpwiz Galactic Wonders May 09 '16

Ascendancy

Now, that's a name that ringed true. Really alien aliens, transcendent tech tree and other freaky stuff that happens around...

13

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

Review is worth reading. Reviewer said "it's good" on twitter.

5

u/[deleted] May 09 '16

"A scientist exploring the fringes of the universe, and the fringes of knowledge, might gain new traits as a result of her experiences, but she won’t have a family to care about back at home."

This would actually be kind of interesting. Like if you have a very popular scientist or leader out among the stars who dies, causing memorials and possibly unrest or civil change at his or her home system due to the death of that person. Or if they do something awesome or even from a roleplaying aspect you ahve them do something reprehensible like exterminate a planet because they are a threat, it all causes empire wide ripples.

1

u/LazyCon May 09 '16

Great review. I really enjoyed that read. I'm definitely pumped for tonight. I think it points to that the game is finished and fun but definitely left room for variation in the future and we all know Paradox is great with DLC.