Recent reviews by Titler

I came. I saw. I kicked the men. Indeed, the plot and justice demands you kick, as hard as you can...

It's a fun little time waster, but really pay attention to the description and tutorial; it's not really football, and trying to play it as such may explain some of the reviewers who found it too hard. Instead, treat it as the silly take on the national sport it is, and focus on showing off and earning money from fans who want to be entertained, which you cash in via Doing A Goal.

Don't take the occasional CPU insanity seriously either; the Goldkeepers who protect the bank are deliberately rubbish, and so once you get the sense of how to Do The Goal, you'll find you almost never lose; the 2 times I've played it from scratch on default difficulty, years apart and so I had to learn anew, I only ever lost one match each time, and beat the entire Big Boring Football Spreadsheet in 3 hours. Which is an ideal length as it lets you see the entire narrative without it overstaying it's welcome, and a most amusing narrative it is. As long as you aren't too puritanical about waving your football rattle about!

Possibly the first game I'm going to give up on shortly after buying; a terrible shame because I remember the earlier Spellforces fondly... but this is just awful.

In particular, it's the RTS elements that are so bad that they break the game. The wider content? The story is good, if generic. The voice acting is excellent. The graphics are fine. It all adds up to an engaging product... right until you run into the shockingly badly designed RTS missions, and the whole thing falls apart.

The problem is, you are expected to take single location flags to hold a territory, but even on the tutorial RTS map, the enemy starts with full bases and can throw endless waves at you straight away. And it can see where you are on the map at any time, so as soon as you move to one flag, it appears at the other to smash it and now you've lost everything you may have built or be trying to build there. You can try and put defensive buildings up, but the incredibly obtuse population mechanic means you have to first build homes in your starting zones, then wait for the people to safely get to the other zones... except there will be an enemy army there to kill them, which puts back your global progress. And the same population counts for army numbers too, so you can't think about fielding an army whilst trying to expand. And your heroes can't be everywhere at once at the start of the game, so...

On the second RTS map, I was fighting 3 different armies within a few minutes of starting the level, and the base under attack alarm was going off every 10 seconds or so. Not an exaggeration sadly. From other reviews, and guides, it seems your supposed to just turtle enough to get a basic army out, rush a nearby point to try and shove the spawning mobs back, then just firefight constant ambushes until you can tip the balance. But that's no fun at all. It's certainly not a Strategic game, suspiciously it feels much more like a MOBA where you're expected to level heroes, and your army are just creeps to act as shields whilst you leach that XP for your Hero units.

But I just couldn't go any further. After watching multiple different Orc camps raid me again and again, I just realised I was feeling utterly miserable, that the game just wasn't worth grinding through to see where the plot was going, and I suspected I could probably guess anyway.

As I say, damned shame. But for fans of actual RTS games, or just decent ones mixed in with RPGs like the older Spellforce games... this is probably an avoid. And bizarre that it's so positively reviewed..?

Damn shame.

It's Katamari, but more of it. And yet, strangely, worse too. The game is still as incredibly addictive to play compared to the original Katamari Damacy, a game I went for 100% in not just the achievements, but filling out the entire item catalogue in game... but there appears to be considerable Nostalgia Glasses being worn for the reviews for this sequel on Steam, as in many ways it's a large step back from it's parent too.

In particular, the main game screen becomes unbelievably messy, especially when you start opening up worlds to visit and the landscape is crowded out by huge NPC shouting messages at you; I gather compared to the PS2 original, there are sub-menus to get around the utter shambles of layout, but it still rapidly becomes very, very ugly and frustrating to use. Likewise the information on what you've collected wastes far too much of the screen adding a useless roll-wheel, there appears to be no way to track which Cousins you've rescued this time (but you can track the stickers you photograph in game), and the solar system display is just plain badly laid out.

The camera angle compared to the original seems much, much worse; there are fixed cameras around the Prince and the Katamari to help look around, but doing so costs you precious time in game. I think this may be to try and limit the amount of items rendered, as there's a much higher number of rollables in this sequel, something also hinted at by the loading mid-level, which was never a problem in the original. But so many times I just found myself with no clear idea of where I was supposed to go because the view distance ahead is so very, very short.

But then again, levels get reused again and again, so after a while memory of the layout built up; but this is a flaw, not a benefit of the game.

And most disappointing of all, the soundtrack is noticeably weaker than the original. There's a reason why you see "Katamari On The Swing" referenced online so much, but very little of the rest of the soundtrack. There's some good tracks, but again repeated far too often and some of the good ones are just remixes of the original OST; where as the original had almost every single track being unique and memorable, this one has way too many bland, hardly even notice they're there tunes.

All of which sounds like I hate the game... I don't, it's still great fun when actually rolling, and I'd recommend this game without question to anyone who enjoyed the original. There's some fun variations on gameplay I've seen so far too, especially the feeding the Sumo to make him big enough to roll up his opponent, where he literally eats the pick ups and gets fatter. But if you're absolutely new to the series, I absolutely wouldn't recommend this one despite the almost universally positive reviews; Get Katamari Damacy first, which I think still holds up far better. And if you have KD, and were only "Meh... Ok" on it, the annoyances here will make it We Love Katamari not something you're going to grow to love more, I'm afraid.

Shorter Review In The Traditional Dwarven Style;

Attempting to remove the hoardes of kittens running all over the Fortress, I built my first butcher and turned them into kitten cutlets, only to discover my first clouds of Miasma, and then an angry avenging Snake/Fly/Spider Titan climbed in through the roof of the butcher and bit all the heads off my dwarves, arcing them into the corners of the room. And all they could do was hack at its legs.

10/10 would start a catpocalypse again.

Fuller Newbie Review;

Ok, I'd never played Dwarf Fortress before, but picked it up on the first day and have put er... oh dear... 26 hours into it so far. The first thing you'll want to know is, is it as hardcore as people claim?

Yes and no. I might have been lucky, but the tutorial put me into an extremely safe place, and despite the claims, you can make manual saves and go back to any of them as often as you wish, giving you plenty of ability to repeat and learn each step as you go. The only people losing their entire Fortress before they get to their goals are those who want to play it as a single, chaotic narrative, the game doesn't force you to do this.

But what it is, is obscure. The core mechanics are relatively simple, if you've played any city builder before you will be able to grasp them with a little patience, especially when all the guides are updated for this new user interface.... but DF is still heavily obfuscating, and much of the 26 hours have been spent reading whilst having dinner etc working out what exactly I need to do to progress. Some subtleties I still haven't grasped, such as for example I've worked out to trade with the caravans that come in, send a Dwarf to the Trading Post, then use them to order items into storage... but not why certain things like the bracelets I specifically crafted to earn money aren't eligible to be moved there. I did spot however that Elves get upset if you trade them anything made of their beloved wood... that's the kind of game it is, simple in structure, but potentially overwhelming due to emergent complexity. Set yourself small goals, ignore the huge numbers of overlapping systems. and take it step by step and you'll quickly work out what is required, but you do have to put the intellectual work in to get to that simplistic understanding.

Be aware though that how much fun you'll get out of it also depends on how much you read around all of the detail windows, and how much you like to write a story in your own mind; the Spider/Snake/Fly attack I mentioned? It almost certainly wasn't triggered by killing kittens, rather I suspect I coincidentally got to a high enough wealth level (I was at 99 dwarves, and ALOT of resources) and I just wasn't ready militarily for it. But just because it came in through the same butchers, and appeared so very close after it seemed to make a charming story for me personally.

Likewise my earliest awareness of combat was of a Capybara chasing a poet walking from another civilization to stay at my Tavern. You have to click the combat warning icon and read the combat logs to see it biting him in the thigh, and then each new report to see that he runs around the woods trying to escape it, getting to my Tavern seriously wounded, where I then refuse to let him join because I don't yet know how to make and staff hospitals. Go die somewhere else, Shortspeare. But if you prefer your plot to be narrator led, front and centre, you won't get the same experience.

Me? I'm definitely enjoying it. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has a passing interest in roleplay, creative fiction, or deep city building games. It's janky as all hell, as slow as you want it to be, and the only action you'll see is in sprites moving about and text boxes popping up... but there's a reason it has such insanely good reviews. It's not for everyone, but if you know you'll smile when you think you've found a bug with the bedrooms where you assign it to one Dwarf, but it always adds 2... and then you realise it's because that one is the first married couple in your Fortress and they refuse to be separated... well this is a game you'll love.

An actual 8.5, maybe 9 out of 10. Not perfect but you'll stay with this one and off for years if you pick it up.

UPDATE: Ok, many, MANY hours in, and the thing you really need to know about DF is... It's janky. Exceptionally janky. As I've expanded out and discovered new systems, I've found many of them are seriously buggy. In particular combat constantly breaks as Dwarves are trapped travelling across the map. Wells for drinking can get trapped with the entire fort attempting to empty a bucket that wont empty, until they all die of thirst. I've had a save completely fail to save, losing tonnes of progress. I've had 2 dwarves somehow get into a sealed off room and then drown. The UI lists Dwarven names in Dwarvish and Human in different places so it's hard to track dwarves across different pages...

It's still Fun, but much less so if your tolerance for having to work around game jank isn't high. Wait a bit if you're not sure and see how much patching comes along...

A small, but atmospheric game that it's best to go into blind; push your steam punk "Okomotive" from atmospheric set piece to set piece, ideally taking your time to enjoy the mood first run through. Refuel and repair through a world that shows, but doesn't tell until you get to the somewhat obscure ending...

The ending is a direct lead into the sequel, Changing Tides, where you convert the Okomotive into a submarine, apparently.

... But the game is so pleasant before then you won't worry too much. It has flaws; it's very short, 3 hours or so if taking your time but can be done in around 90 minutes if rushing for the achievement. And there's no way to actually die, even when you try too; in fact I wonder if dying actually makes it easier to move on?

I once accidentally fed myself into the refuelling hopper; you can resurrect on the onboard bed if you die and have enough fuel, so I wonder if you gain more fuel by feeding yourself to the Okomotive than it costs to bring you back to life? I forgot to check!

The puzzles are simple and, if you don't work out what the ending is hinting at, the world building feels a little confused as it can't resist the "Every possible environment as a set piece" cliche. But they're lovely set pieces so it's a lovely time to play through.

Much of the world seems to indicate that there's been a catastrophic drought, but later you see plentiful cattle, snow, and that watery ending..? It might be the case that some form of virus has killed most of the people and led to societal collapse, but then why are the former seas empty, and the ships converted to land walkers? Did both happen? Hmm. It doesn't tell and having not yet played the sequel, I can only guess

Definitely buy it on sale, it's nice to have small stories told with out Season Pass throw your life away nonsense these days... then spend a few days pondering what exactly it wanted you to feel and think.

Aperture Science; We flush what we must, because we've a can...

It's a quick (30 mins) visit back to a beloved setting; it's literally toilet humour, not quite as sharp or as iconic as Portal 1/2, but it's free so well worth checking out. There's a little replay value hinted at, in particular the way the voice lines are scripted it seamlessly adapts to your idle button pressing (or not) so you may want to go back and listen again, but I can't imagine it'll stay installed for too long after you've had the runs through it a second time.

If you've got a Steaming deck, it's a nice little way to check all the buttons work, but you don't need anything but a controller on PC. Possibly a microphone, but I wasn't so bowled over yet I made sure mine was plugged in to go back and check.

It always feels bad negatively reviewing Christmas Gifts, but... well, here we go I'm afraid.

What do you want to do with your Space Enginering? Build ships, or punch trees until you can build ships? As the game installed I was looking at the Workshop blueprints and I found all the ships strangely dull, but couldn't quite put my finger on why; so I leapt straight into Creative to have a go, because to me I have plenty of trees I can punch elsewhere, but spaceship builders are very, very rare and I wanted to make something I could feel proud of here... and after a 12 hour marathon, I discovered the actual building is incredibly simple, buggy and thus frustrating, and ultimately just not worth wrestling with to try and make it shine.

It's a voxel, 1 item per square deal, like Minecraft but with a TINY tool set. You have to choose Large or Small and by default the two don't interact once chosen; You can't choose large and then shrink items to try and do fine detailing. There are no real external decorations outside of the default utility items (weapons, an enormous antenna for the remote control feature, mining items). There are a few more in the paid add on DLC, but I didn't have that, which meant I was limited to the simplistic Squares and Semi Circles and a few Triangles, oh my. There is no way to paint a line on a square, or a half line. There's a few DLC textures but they're all also just whole block or nothing.

Once you start trying to use the simple geometric shapes to build something you're happy with, the wider issues become painfully obvious. There's a few utility squares which look like they can be used as exterior walls; only some of them have gaps in them which means now your ship isn't airtight. You can fix this by putting plates over them, but you can only do it on ONE face as they count as adding an extra square. Which now means you can't add most deco or utility on that side either, because if you've got a ship with two walls within a square of each other? Only one can be covered by taking the square in between. But some of the utility squares have massive Titles saying what they are on them; if you can't cover them up, it ruins the aesthetic to have "1x1 Storage" on the outside of your ship...

Did you choose Large as your ship stance; now some of the things that are essential, like atmospheric engines are HUGE, far dwarfing what you might even have be building. In my case, I found that I could at least hide Hydrogen engines, which could be shrunk to a reasonable size and used in both space and atmosphere... only to then discover they need actual piping to two different 2x1 items before they'd work. And in Survival, would need time to recharge and fuel as well. The piping of course uses up your precious squares and if you go for the full size one, to try and make them exterior walls, has huge titles announcing they're "Conveyors". So need covering unless you want to be ugly. And in Survival, would need time to recharge and fuel as well.

Why the ships all look bland and like blobs of PlayDoh thus becomes apparent, you have to keep them as very simple, flowing lumps of clay to keep them at least practical and thematically consistent. Fine modelling is right out.

Meanwhile sometimes your artificial gravity works; sometimes it doesn't, maybe some other gravity nearby is over-ruling it, or maybe it just wants to be fiddly. You have Button terminals, with 4 buttons, but you can only map ONE command to each. There is a "Scripting Computer", but it requires a completely different set up, in game power, and of course, more internal space. It's also solid at the front, but round at the back and so it doesn't seal the air if used as a wall...

I finally got as close to the small, fighter part of the grand idea i had overall (the LegTrax from the Dai-X from X-Bomber, ship fans) and started a Creative Earth game to test it; and found that the speed limits inherent within the engine mean it took 20-30 minutes to get back into space. And if you get almost all the way there, but not quite, the gravity doesn't model orbital speeds etc, and you fall straight back down from high Earth orbit with minutes. It's a truly Sisyphean experience, rolling that ship up the gravity well only to have all your work instantly reset.

Maybe you can start modding the game to be better? Ahh but then you can mod Kerbal Space Program or Minecraft and get a much better basic game experience too. That isn't to say that people who love Space Engineers are wrong; there's certainly a lot of them as shown by the Very Positive review score, and this game does have the "You built it, you'll be proud of it" feel... After struggling for 12 hours to work around the limitations of the engine though, I just felt frustrated and empty. I knew I wouldn't be able to build what I was thinking of unless I did it in such a huge, bland scale that it would mean hundreds of hours more... just to say I'd done it? The idea doesn't appeal.

Sorry to be a Grinch, but reviews are for the world, not just gratitude. Have a look at the workshop before buying. See what the actual fans have built; don't assume you can do better, the engine doesn't really allow it and the item count is so small you'll not have the opportunities you might dream of, even with forking over the money for the DLC.

It's terrible, even after months of desperate patching. There's no excuse for the horrendous state of this expansion which not only adds so very little to the game, but actually breaks outright much of what we already had.

So what does Odyssey supposedly bring?

Not VR support, for which future development is now ended.
Not ship internals, with the excuse being Frontier can't think of how it might actually add to the game; don't make suggestions, they aren't listening.
Not quality gameplay. It's the bare minimum to at least say they've added something...

Elite Feet?

You have guns and weapons. You are expected to upgrade them from G1 to G5. Why? Because that's the only structure the game provides. You could just buy the G3 from a store, if you can find which stores have them, at which point you're already strong enough to do any of the content. But if you don't grind the upgrades, you've literally got NO POINT to playing the ground element. Better play it to persuade yourself this was worth buying.

Go to a settlement, try and follow the obscure, confusing, frustrating steps to allow you to loot the required chest. Do it hundreds of times. Sometimes it won't work. Sometimes the item you're hoping for won't be there.

Now do the exact same grind again to unlock engineers. Who will add attachments. That you can't ever take off, so choose right. Now do the exact same grind AGAIN to get the resources to make the attachments.

Done that? Well congratulations! Now you can play end game! Which is;

Capture the Point in war zones.

Use only one weapon, the Manticore Executioner. Because there are bullets for shields and bullets for bodies, but Plasma works on both. Now if the NPCs didn't stand still and fire, they'd never hit each other. So wait until they stand still and snipe them with your plasma Executioner. Move to the capture point, snipe the NPCs standing still and firing at each other, or wait for them to walk directly towards the point you're on and massacre them as they do. Beat even the Hardest zones solo with starter equipment. Ask yourself why you're doing this at all... ground combat rank? It unlocks bronze/silver/gold variants of the same ground suit. Is it worth it? Is it? Is it REALLY?

Planetary Exo-Biology.

Walk around trying to find random spawning plants on the ground. Out of a tiny selection of repeated models. Some of them won't render until you're right on top of them, some of them are just very subtle swirls in the ground texture. There's no way to track where they are. You have to find 3 of the same type far enough apart for it to count. No, you can't track more than one at once. Accidentally scanning the wrong thing deletes your progress towards another one. But at least the reaction-mini game that you had to beat before it even counted is gone now. Find and look at 3 of the same type for hundreds of hours to reach Elite in this. That's it.

But the bugs. Oh, the bugs...

I could be here forever trying to explain how badly coded it is. Let's just stay with a single part of the OLDER content, a "Tip Off Mission".

As we approach, the planetary texture is broken; There's no way to locate the target automatically so you need to manually fly to match the longitude and latitude co-ordinates. When you try and land, they've changed the way gravity works and you find you crash into the surface again and again. Once you get down, you find that the throttle on the SRV (ground vehicle) is bugged and occasionally becomes hyper-sensitive so you go boosting into the air or ramming into rocks. You can't get out on foot because apparently the planet is now too extreme for your space suit.

You eventually find the target; it's a base, and you immediately are given a fine for approaching and attacked which triggers a bounty.

You've forgotten the walkthrough you read years ago which says what you can do here, and there's nothing in game, but you fight your way through the defences, to find...

The base is hovering in mid-air.

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2556339574

On the way back to your ship, you notice the ground nodes with resources in are spawning under the terrain.

So you log out in disgust, and go and update your Steam review to warn everyone else away from wasting money on this.

Furst fingz furst; da demo fer diz pretty much tellz ya all ya needz ta kno abaht diz, so giff it a go if yer ain't sure if ya wantz ta buy diz.

Right, wiff dat outta da way... It'z time fer da orky kno-wotz on Dakka Squadron! Da fing iz, it'z right Orky. Right proppa Orky. So Orky it'll 'urt if ya aint down wiff da green. We talkz like diz all da way froo, dere'z no uvva speciez to play az, nor wud ya want too, cuz Orkz iz best! Dere'z snotz an' grotz runnin' abaht bein' cheeky to yer, an everyfing. It'z glorious stoopid brutal fun, just as Gork an Mork would haff it.

Also it followz da physikal laws of do Orky Ooniverse; if ya paintz yer plane red, it rightfully goez faster. Slap sum yellow on dere an' ya get a bit shootier. Dere'z no alternative skinz, ya get wot paint bonusez ya uses...

Gameplay wize, it's like an Orky themed arkade shooter, sommat like da old classic Afterburner an' wot not, or War Funder (especially wiff mousy-key kontrol) except not az greedy or az grindy, with a few different planez an a lotta kustom Mech built dakka an' boom an' stuff ta strap on to ya planez. Dere'z bombin an' dive bombin' mechanicz, but dey izn't all dat gud an' da battlez dunt really need dem, so it's best ta ignore dem an' go fer pure dakka. Maybe sum rokketz. Den ya fly around makin' uvva Orkz an' dem Ded Boyz an' a few pink an' weedy Oomanz who kant keep dere zoggin' noses out of Ork buziness go SPLAT. Dey all sukkz, diz system belongz to yoo, da biggest an baddest Ork Flyboy dat dere iz an ya iz gonna shoot dem until dey get da message and zog off...

If ya like fast paced, aerial dakka dakka dakka, it'z zoggin' gud fun. Very wun-note an best played in short burstz only, but fun.

Dere'z sum problems wiff da gameplay tho; Multiplayer, which is deffmatch only, is completely dead already. Datz a shame. But ya kan set up some basic defmatchez with da AI. Unfortunately dey iz as fikk as a snotling wiff arse implants, so even with 29 or the maximum 63 AI all tryin' to kill ya on da Flyboy settin', dey'z ded easy ta shoot down.

An dat poor AI showz up in da single playa too; yoo'll sumtimez see da AI get confused and get stuck flyin' into a wall. Mostly dey dogfight normally and da missionz dunt suffer fer it, but difficulty iz from more scenery or mission objectivez, and it kan spike insanely until ya learnz how to cheeze de specifik viktory conditionz. Little hint fer ya stoopid gitz; rokkitz. Lotz an' lotz of Rokkitz. Dey'z da answer to most problemz.

Missionz currently has ta be beat all in one go; we'z given da Mechboyz a kickin' abaht dat, and dey iz lookin' at patchin' in sum save pointz. Da achievementz ain't fully workin' right now neitha, but da tech gitz iz workin' on dat too.

Game kan be completed even wiff many, many mission deathz in abaht 12-14 hourz. Dere are a lot more unlockz ta get, which wud take another 60 or more to get da teef ta buy, but ya don't need dem to beat the campaign, an ya will hit da weight limit fer all yer planes at dat point anywayz, so ya'll haff ta strip yer planez of some uvva stuff ta get da outstanding unlockz on. So ya shud be 'ard enuff in multiplayer wiff what ya get fer beatin' da game, if ya kan evva find somewun elze to test it.

Anywayz, ta sum up; Dere'z neva enuff dakka, but if ya want sum simple, loud an' flashy shootin' fun wiff a fair bit o'dakka, diz iz a right gud fing ta get yer mittz on. Just goez in knowing it's simple an totally orky. No stoopid weedy Oomiez 'ere ta mess up mayhem with dere poncin' abaht and zoggin standin' in a line an' whingin' abaht da Emperoh an' stuff. Just a right proppa Air WAAAGH like it shud be.

Green iz best. Yoo know itz tru.

A game I'd been meaning to try for years, but a colossal disappointment when I did. And the reasons why can be summed up with one single experience in game; one of the vital resources you need to even grow your civilization in game is only generated by choosing up to 3 civilizations to be your rival, and thus an enemy. You have to deliberately hobble your own diplomacy in order to actually play the game.

Oh, and technology is random. You have to choose one of 3 random options offered to you. In the tutorial, I was offered the opportunity to "Uplift" a pre-intelligent species. The technology to do that never randomly appeared in my game before I finally uninstalled.

At first, the game seemed to have a lot of promise; sending out scouts and discovering little stories and problems to solve as I explored systems was charming.

However as my very first game, and learning as I went, I rapidly got surrounded by aliens and fighting was the only way to progress... a decision made for me by a war being declared against me. I start taking systems and see the map wasn't really changing at all. I looked it up and you can't just fight a war to the death, you have to declare limited War Goals before hand, which was immediately obvious would string the game out pointlessly. And unless I missed it somewhere, as I didn't declare war, I wasn't able to set my own conditions for peace...? Either way I was deeply put off by how they'd limited your freedom and world events to try and add artificial politics.

So I restarted again; and the cracks really started to show. I saw almost exactly the same exploration quests again. They even seemed to be coming in the same order.

All the other races again had far superior military forces, so I tried to grow my own, only to discover I needed to declare 3 rivals to have a chance to catch up, as above. The only sensible option was to declare them as far away as possible until I could fight against one. From the research I did to see how I could improve my own empires efficiency, the only way to improve was micro managing your cities; this has always been the absolute worst part of 4x Strategy games for me personally, and I didn't really fancy doing it here with the incredibly messy UI and tiny relevant windows.

Especially when I captured more planets, and then suddenly "Regions" started to be created, autonomous small colonies which insisted upon AI control, for no other reason than again trying to force artificial limits in order to generate later politics... Except the AI was also using it incredibly badly. I was now fighting to control my own empire, and I wasn't even at the borders with the aliens yet.

I really had a look at combat this time, and it was shockingly bad. Move the fleets next to each other and watch them auto resolve the battle. There's some tiny things you can control, but googling revealed they weren't required. Upgrades have a clear path of superiority and so customization is pretty much irrelevant. From what I could see, the aliens were just building a single big fleet, and the limits on size from the 3 Rival limit left me with no choice but to do the same ... which meant I couldn't risk upsetting any other civilizations as I only had one fleet to fight with. Which meant stringing out the game even more...

I got 10 hours in before I decided this just wasn't for me and uninstalled. I wish I knew where all the incredible reviews are coming from; is it people who enjoy the roleplay aspects of forced situations, and don't mind that the underlying game is so terribly poor? If so, that's fine for them; but be aware that Stellaris isn't really a strategy game in the classic mould. If you're looking for another Civilization here, it's not that kind of game at all.

And it also has ALOT of DLC. Which, when the game relies upon contrived, artificial situations so badly, leads me to suspect there's a few "essential" ones you'll need to cheese the mechanics. But it will be an expensive mistake to get it when the game is clearly appealing to a very specific, niche user base only. Buy the base game ONLY and see if you actually like the gameplay as it is first. Maybe you will. I sadly, absolutely did not.