Space
Space…it's big, it's empty, filled with lots and lots of stars and it's pretty dark out there most times, too. The funny thing about space is, as deep, dark and empty as it is, it's usually filled with a lot of irritable alien races with itchy trigger fingers. This basic formula has explained the plotlines from Space Invaders to Star Wars (except Jar Jar Binks, which defies all rhyme or reason), and now that comfortably familiar storyline is the outline for Space: Glory Through Conquest (GTC), developed by Coldfire Studios.
Space: GTC is a massively multiplayer online browser-based game, with an emphatically sci-fi theme. As a player starting out, you begin as a member of one of ten alien races who are engaged in a perpetual struggle for territory, resources and overall dominance. Creating a standard account is a breezily 5 minute process, especially since it's free to do so.
Graphics in Space: GTC are minimal but serviceable, with your main status screen in the maps and the 2D scrolling maps the most visually intensive part of the game. Arguably, I'd say the advertising banners are the most colorful aspect of Space: GTC. Otherwise, the game is driven by stats with occasional static planet and avatar portrait shots. On the plus side, the game Bear in mind when playing Space: GTC, this is a browser-based game, not an Unreal 3 engine-driven bleeding edge game title. I kept this in mind when jumping into the game, adjusting my expectations, and therefore avoided eyeball shock. Also, prepare to crank up your favorite MP3s, because audio isn't part of the feature set either.
What the game lacks in audio-visual appeal, it more than makes up for in depth that a browser-based platform can excel at. When you create a character, you have a choice between ten diverse alien races, each with their own distinct advantages and disadvantages in capabilities. The race you select affects everything from the type of home planet you begin with, to the starting research and production capabilities you'll be capable of.
The interface seems to suggest a relatively simple game at first blush. On the primary screen you have six primary pull-down menus to manage. The Main menu allows you to change settings, check out the manual, run a search for players and alliances, load up your map - which is your primary graphical interface to see the bigger picture of choices played out that are made elsewhere in the game. The Empire functions allow the player to manage their economy, their planetary building construction, monitor a planet's economic vital signs and visit a marketplace run by the single-mindedly capitalistic Toag race. The Fleet functions are needed to administer control over your ship design and how they're staffed, mobilized and directed as a fleet. The Alliance menu is useful for, as the name implies, checking on and supporting your alliances and non aggression pacts. Rankings offer up a wide assortment of ego-boosting stats, provided you're a good enough player to rank or an aspirant aiming high enough to rank in the future. Rounding up the basic controls is the Communications menu, which is where messages can be sent and received, notices about in-game events, and the requisite forums and chat rooms.
In the time I took to play Space: GTC, I found the basic functions easy enough to manage. However, mastery of the game isn't in understanding the wealth of options a seemingly simple text-oriented game offers - it's in understanding the Rube Goldberg-esque effects of your decisions on such things as the planets you choose to colonize, how you choose to design your ships, and how each decision subtly affects the other factors in the game.
Make no mistake, to fully take advantage of this depth and detail takes a lot of trial and error as a new player. There is no tutorial period in Space: GTC, you're in the deep end of the pool when you start out. One of your best resources you'll have as a newbie is to frequently visit the game's website forums, which are active and frequented by an active, helpful group of Space: GTC-playing veterans. The online manual offered is also helpful, but currently missing a few sections.
Space: Glory Through Conquest is one of those games that easily earn the title "not for everyone". Players without patience, an imagination, and free time to explore and learn the ropes with Space need not apply. However, every other gamer not in that pool might want to give the Space experience a try.
http://space.coldfirestudios.com/
