Very good review adam. I completely agree on the improvement points you laid out, those would be wonderful. Thank god for a good monitor because I can actually read. Funny how many games out there have these text size problems.

You guys are on the fence on price still (even during this sale) buy it! Code Force and Matrix Games have awesome support, post updates, community support, the works! You got suggestions, post them and they will listen (hell you might get surprised with a post update with your suggestions making into the game). That major vote awhile back for this expansion was awesome! Got what I wanted with characters, UI improvements and borders!

Just imagine in how more awesome Distant Worlds will be in another expansion or two (maybe 3 wishful thinking). 

I'm still waiting for a bundle.

Edit: Nvm, I still had distant worlds on Impulse. When I played it, it was kind of shite. I'll try again without the expansions. I like your review style, by the way. A concise overview of major features, and some criticism/suggestions at the end.

I have a question? What is the difference between 3D and 4x?

When I played the game, I got only one camera view and zoom in and out. 

You're not trying as much as you should to like Distant Worlds zigzag

Yes, I know where you stand (we've discussed this before), and surely you'll have your reasons. But believe me, I hated the experience when playing Distant Worlds vanilla. Now with Legends I'm just sad not to have enough time in my hands to play it through the night as in the good old MoO2 days.

Hello there. I also enjoyed reading your review (although at times I found it a tiny bit too verbose -- I mean this merely as constructive criticism! Sometimes less could be more, but that is merely my opinion.) You did a good job, only very few typos.

I have a couple of questions, if I may. I am still one of those people who are greatly inhibited by what seems to be a very hefty pricetag for this game. Hence:

1. I have only seen one more review of this expansion (the one advertised on the Matrix site). Am I correct in believing there ARE no other reviews out there?

2. I am not sure that the game would runly smoothly on my excuse for a machine, a 2-year-old Sony vaio laptop (2.12 Mhz, 6GB RAM, ok ATI graphic card), or would even be visible on the laptop's display. Do you know what monitors / settings cause the "blurry font" you spoke of, or if there is a fix for that? Do you need a BIG monitor and a fast machine to play it with decent FPS?

3. I'm really a TBS kind of guy; I enjoy getting up and stretching, getting a beer, checking my mails, answering the phone, speaking to my family, etc. I do not have the time to play constantly (have job, kids, life). If I understand you correctly, DW is not a "traditional" RTS in that the games are not terribly fast-paced, and you can control the speed, but the games are also not as short as traditional RTSs. Do you think DW is a game that one can enjoy in many sittings, or is this a game for people with LOTS of uninterruptable time?

4. Finally, one thing I do not see mentioned in many reviews is the combat. So far, the only space 4x with decent combat I have seen recently is SinsOASE; combat in Armada 2526 is much like in GalCiv2, fairly uninspired. What is combat in DW Legends like, how does it work, it is real-time and controllable in the same GUI as the main strategic screen, or is there a separate battle module? Does the strategic world continue to unfold while you spend time fighting, or is that paused? Is combat as clunky and one-dimensional as Armada, or somehow more detailed?

thank you much

1. There aren't many reviews of the game yet. There will probably be more but it will take some time.

2. Legends is not a terribly graphically demanding game. I imagine it will probably run ok but you didn't post your specific setup.

http://www.matrixgames.com/products/415/details/Distant.Worlds.-.Legends

The developers' minimum requirements are on that page.

3. DW is similar to the EU games in that you can pause it and in fact you essentially must pause it. There are a lot of moving parts so you may spend some time remembering what your last plan was but it is definitely possible to play it in small chunks over a long period of time.

4. You don't have much control over combat. You can define how your ships handle various situations in combat when you design them but once your ships are actually in combat you have limited control. You certainly do not have fine-grained control over combat as you do in SoaSE. It's simply a different type of game.

Hope this helps. I enjoyed the game with its first expansion; I don't have Legends yet. I'll probably wait and hope for a sale somewhere down the line; I have other things to distract me at the moment.

I've been playing the original for a bit. I love the start, the exploring phase, especially finding old ships or secrets. And I love the automation offered, and the ships you can't control that are just "part of your society". But I'm not really... having fun when I'm playing. The AI never seems to pose an interesting challenge, they're either weak as hell or overpowered as well. And I loathe the constant requirements for fuel, having half my ships turn back in an attack is a constant annoying factor. Battles aren't very interesting, but they ARE bloody due to the scale, and that's awesome.

I'd definitely buy the expansions if the original game was better, but now I probably won't. I doubt I'd enjoy them if I didn't enjoy the first iteration, and even if I maybe would, that's a risk I'm just not interested in.

juryal and Cauldyth have said it all already but I'll add my 2 cents since you ask.

Yes, you can tell that English is not my mother tongue. I'm trying my best to improve though. And I also recognize I sometimes carry myself too long on the writing, too verbose as you say. Yes, it's something I need to improve, I recognize that. Thanks for your criticism btw, it's always good to have them, especially when they're constructive as yours.

There's mine and the one of the gamesquad guys also featured in the game's official page. Then I know Brian Rubin, a guy running a very cool space games blog called spacegamejunkie.com, is also going to put a Legends review out soon. You should check that one too.

I have a 3-year old laptop with 2.0Ghz dual-core 3GB RAM and a nVidia 9600M GT and I play normally in large games. Regarding which monitors and resolutions are best I'm not sure. I think it has to do with running the game in non-optimalresolutions, for your display size I mean. Say, if you have a 17'' monitor probably you should use 1024x758. I know that Matrix is preparing an update to this font size/blurriness issue where they promise at least to clear out the research screen a bit more. Here is the thread were they've announced that.

I'm also a TBS kind of guy. I also like Sins but when it comes to 4X strategy games I prefer TBS no doubt. However Cauldyth and juryal already said it all. I'll just say that you will not feel tension or the need to pay attention all the time as in traditional RTS games. I don't have a problem with DW being an RTS whatsoever.

Well, GalCiv2 doesn't really have combat, or at least tactical combat that requires your input, pre or during combat. DW's space combat is definitely not Sins, it's also not 3D (as Star Ruler) but it's not cinematic (as GalCiv2) either. I think it's much superior to Armada 2526 combat also. In DW you can give some orders on how your fleets shall behave, and you can give specific orders to individual ships at any time. It's not flashy, not spectacular, but the controls are easy, the explosions are kind of nice too. And let's face it, 4X games are not about flashy / 3D combat but more rock/paper/scissors or mildly tactical at best.

Thank you very much again for your feedback.

For the record, I found vanilla DW to be intriguing but ultimately unsatisfying, and never finished a single game of it.  The first expansion was similar - I'd play a game for a while to do the exploration and watch the automation at work, but then grow bored and never return.  Legends changed all that though.

How about "you can add additional gameplay mechanics and make additional improvements to the user interface; but it still will not be entertaining to someone who doesn't like the game's scale, its implementation of the civilian economy, or its combat model." Is that more fair? I'll probably end up buying it after the price drops - if for no other reason than to be able to say "I told you so."

@Cauldyth

I know, I was just teasing zigzag

I know what he means. I also didn't like playing DW vanilla. RotS (and now Legends) fixed most of my issues with the game, and I know that many other people's also. But of course that may not have been enough for everybody, and I respect that.

@ post #10    re: TBS.    I do not playe RTS games.  With the exception of DW.  This is because DW has a signifiant number of options to put game functions under the control of the AI.  So, when deciding on the kind of galaxy, etc., I can also put as much, or as little as I choose, into the hands of the AI.   This keeps the RTS aspect at a mininum... and I can handle it... even with artheritic fingers.