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- Paradox Interactive
- Paradox Interactive
- Paradox Interactive
- Paradox Interactive
Ancient Space
Released On: Sep 23, 2014
68
7.6
Where to Buy
Where to Buy
All Platforms
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 17 Critic Reviews
68
29% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
71% Mixed
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 17 Critic Reviews
68
29% Positive
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
71% Mixed
12 Reviews
12 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Ancient space and I will beat that final level. Even if it takes me another twenty hours of complete and utter failure. Ancient Space has beaten me down ruthlessly but I still want to come back for more.
Bottom line, Ancient Space is a fun game. Not a masterpiece, not even a memorable game, but nonetheless fun, balanced and well-crafted.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 56 User Ratings
7.6
66% Positive
37 Ratings
37 Ratings
13% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
21% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 56 User Ratings
7.6
66% Positive
37 Ratings
37 Ratings
13% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
21% Negative
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
A standard space-based RTS. Short, but also cheap, worth picking up if you are a fan of the genre or are just itching for some old-school RTS action.
The excessive micromanagement and often vexing pace of combat tarnish the tactical depth created by cool officer abilities and unit variety.
Neither bad nor great, Ancient Space offers mostly solid, sufficient space strategy on a small scale. Gameplay gets a little monotonous after a while and the story is never interesting enough to keep us hooked. On the plus side, mission design is pleasantly varied and the visuals are fine, too.
Ancient Space doesn’t live up to its marketing and could’ve benefited from some additional time and testing; it is, however, playable and cheap.
The gameplay mechanics of Ancient Space would have been a good fit for multiplayer, but there are no online modes at all, and the single-player campaign is hardly worth your time.
This game puzzles me to great lengths. After following the game for a while, finally playing it is resoundingly disappointing. There are some excellent ideas here, and the genre itself is woefully neglected, so this entry has a lot going for it in that sense. It's just that it doesn't really play well.
Visually, the game is absolutely stunning. The environments are amazingly well crafted, and the ship designs are in a fine balance of lending off known tropes along with genuine creativity. The music too, is quite nice. The tracks don't really do much by themselves, but sometimes do invoke feelings of say, the new Battlestar Galactica series, which is awesome.
Alas, between the beautiful designs and nebula's, it's hard to see what's going on. I had a lot of trouble navigating the camera, which works in unpredictable ways. But that's only part of the problem. Despite faction colouring, I kept trying to control allied or enemy ships, thinking they were mine. I also lost many a ship for the opposite reason. It seems like a simple thing, and perhaps a more adept gamer than I won't have this problem, but it was very jarring to me. That, and everything ever clips.
Talking about jarring, the Unity 3D engine seem to have a lot of trouble with this game. Which the visual effects are excellent, framerate drops were very frequent, even when keeping the 30fps refresh cap. I don't think the devs themselves are really to blame on this, and it never gets to be a proper slide-show, but it's not what I expected with my gaming pc. (i-7 860 & GTX 570 and the standard settings).
The universe the game takes place in can be very intriguing though, and the story is functional but nonetheless enjoyable. The voice-acting is also superb, though it's hampered by a mediocre script.
There is enough depth here for core gamers to enjoy. The resource system is simple and somewhat inelegant, but the units are well balanced and often just pretty bloody awesome. The bigger battles really do have this epic feel to them, and the campaign really pays off. My hopes are mostly for a few revisionary updates to streamline the UI and pace the progress of the missions a bit better. The promise is here, but the game design is just a bit too wonky at times to really make game excel.
+ Beautiful.
+ Captures the epic space battle really well at times.
+ Decent story.
- Clunky controls.
- UI.
- Bad pacing.
Report
PC
Don't get your hopes up, it is not a new Homeworld!
What you will get is a space themed RTS with unit building, light resource management (think CoH) and the ability to upgrade your mothership only between missions.
The Campaign is a two edged sword, very difficult with seemingly impossible situations but also very rewarding if you manage to work your way through.
The biggest disappointment for me was the lack of a skirmish mode. Well there is a menu button which is called "Skirmish" but behind that are just 3 maps with missions attached to it, like a horde mode for example.
Pros:
+nice graphics
+nice sound
+difficult campaign
+small but interesting map design
Cons:
-no skirmish mode
-not very innovative/deep mechanics
-pathfinding is a bit edgy
Report
PC
Summary Ancient Space is a single-player, real-time strategy title that puts the player in command of a fleet conducting a scientific mission on the edge of the known universe, charting what lies beyond in ‘The Black Zone.’ A rich and compelling story will guide the player as they build and upgrade their fleets and then survive overwhelming odds...
Platforms:
- PC
Initial Release Date: Sep 23, 2014
Developer:
- CreativeForge Games
Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Genres:
