Stars! 2.0

A GLIMPSE AT THE STARS!

A Review of Stars! 2.0

by Mark W. Frantz

Computer games have come a long way in 15 years. The graphics have improved

exponentially, sound has gone from tiny beeps on a speaker to CD-quality

soundtracks. And in this day and age, it is the rare game that succeeds

without the Super VGA graphics, full motion video, and 16-bit sound effects.

But once in a while, a game comes along that sacrifices the graphics and

the sound effects for pure strategy, and in the process, establishes itself

as an instant classic. Stars! 2.0 is such a game…

Since the game has no sound, and relies on its interface and game concepts

rather than hi tech graphics, Stars! Can be run on almost any machine with

Windows 3.1. The only recommendation I need to make to run the game is a

color monitor, but you could surely play it on black and white. I say this

because Stars is a great game for laptops. It’s a relatively small program,

doesn’t need much to run, and is GOSH DARN addicting!

Stars has the plot that just about every other conquer-the-galaxy game has.

You start off with a planet, and some ships, and from these humble

beginnings, you are to forge a galactic empire and achieve victory over your

enemies. You achieve this by colonizing nearby worlds, amassing many

minerals, researching new technologies, and building your fleets to attack.

It’s really straightforward.

To begin with, the game offers A TON of customizable options. You can set

the size of your galaxy, the density of the stars, the proximity of your

neighbors. You can even create your own race with six different pages of

customizable options. Of course, you can always you the prebuilt races, but

hey, that’s no fun! The race builder is the most powerful..uh..race builder

of its kind. The amount of options you have available to alter is

staggering. And this is all BEFORE you start the game.

Once you do begin, scouting becomes your first priority. Just about every

race starts with a scout, and it’s in your best interest to get a good look

at your neighboring planets. Like Civilization, all the other planets are

mysteriously blank until you explore them with your ships. Once you locate

a habitable planet, you’ll probably want to send a colonizer to begin a new

colony. Build a new colony early. You’ll want to expand as quickly as

possible.

Once you’ve got that other colony up, you’ll need to delve into remote

mining. This is my personal favorite aspect of the game. You send

specialized mining ships to mineral rich worlds to mine the minerals you

need to build things. Then, using the easy to understand ship controls, you

set up a route for a transport to follow, picking up the minerals and then

dropping them off at the nearest colony. It reminded me of Railroad Tycoon.

I found it gratifying watching my mineral piles grow.

Once you begin to amass minerals, you’ll want to push into research and

development. Setting aside parts of your colonies to research, you learn

newer technologies, that offer better things to build. There are six

different fields to research, each having 26 levels of technology. The new

technologies allow you to build bigger and better ships. This system is a

lot like that of Civilization.

Soon, you’ll begin to notice your neighbors. There can be up to 15 of them,

so it can get very crowded. Unfortunately, there are no diplomatic

opportunities. You’re at war with everybody, no matter how nice you think

you are. But no to worry, your research teams have come up with some good

weapons and defenses by now, so you begin to build your Doomsday fleet. In

the meantime, your minelaying ships are laying a webwork of space mines

around your territory, destroying your enemies, or at least slowing them

down while you amass your fleet.

So you need to design your fleet. You bring up the ship designer. This is

pretty standard fair, but it’s quite customizable, allowing you to build a

wide variety of vessels, from the mighty Battleship to the tiny scout. You

can even change the names and the pictures. This is good stuff. Certain

ships are specialized, like the B-52 bomber. It has no shields, but can

carry many bombs which you can use to remove enemies from planets. These

specialty ships create a need for unique management in order to protect them.

And then you attack. Although you cannot handle the actual battle itself,

you can customize a battle plan. The battle plan allows you to change the

way certain ships react to enemies. It is an interesting feature that

alleviates some the repetition that fighting out all of the battles by hand

would offer. Destroying ships with greater technology than your own offers

the possibility of finding some wreckage that would boost your research.

This is neat stuff.

But how do I win?, you ask. Well, there’s a victory condition screen when

you begin, that allows you to set what the player must do to win. If you

want the player to be a resource building fool, than check the Production

victory box. Or check the Galaxy Dominance button if you’re a war monger.

You can even change the percentages required on these options.

This game is so customizable, so replayable, so much fun, you can’t be

asking if there’s more. But there is. Up to 16 human players can play by

email or modem, offering brand new possibilites in strategy. And there is

human diplomacy involved.

I must commend Jeff Johnson and Jeff McBride. They have created a game so

massive in its depth, so large in complexity yet so simple to use, and a

game of pure strategy that relies on its own merits to succeed without the

help of glittering graphics and killer sound. Thorw in an awesome tutorial

that will help both novice and veteran, and you’ve got an instant classic,

and I recommend it for anyone who likes this genre of games. Bravo!

Gamer’s Zone Scorecard

Product:	Stars! 2.0
Company:	Star Crossed Software 38451 Harrington Road Lebanon, OR 97355 (503)451-1635 http://www.webmap.com/stars!

Cost:

$34.00

IBM-PC or compatible, MS Windows 3.1 or higher, mouse