Recent reviews by Jalnor

I always did like this game on the '360. But this version has an annoying tendency to freeze for 3-5 seconds every minute or so, while the sound continues to play. Not sure if that's due to my system, but I would have expected to resolve that by lowering the graphics settings or something. In any case, my system far exceeds the recommended spec. I haven't experienced a remotely similar issue with Siege or any of the ported Halo games, so it's not anything inherent. Something unique to this game.
There are various positives and negatives about the gameplay itself, many of which have been done to death in reviews over the last decade and change, but the most irksome issue that still stands has to be the menu system. Why can't I quit the game entirely from within the Animus? There must be a way to do that without breaking immersion, surely. Instead, I have to wait while it loads the Desmond world, then wait while the Animus shuts down, then tell it to exit, select a player profile and *then* I can exit the actual game. I can recall being infuriated by it back in the day and my first shot at it today after getting frustrated with the freezing, that added frustration was the last thing I needed.
Can't recommend the game at this time, as I don't know how prevalent the freeze bug is... and that quit issue really gets to me.

Edit: I've found a workaround online. Apparently, the game is still trying to update a server (that no longer exists) with gameplay and usage statistics. You can fix that by telling your OS to redirect those queries back to your own address. I'll let you search the internet yourself for that, but I still can't recommend the game because Ubisoft clearly considers the case closed since a user-end fix exists. (Actually, Ubisoft's solution was to turn off your internet connection when you want to play AC1 - WHAT? That'll really help people who want to nostalgia-stream the game, won't it? You're not short of some cash, Ubi, stop ignoring your bugs!)

This can be a difficult game to get to grips to at first and, sometimes, it seems like a bit of a grind - especially if you play solo. Don't do that. It used to be relatively easy to find any resource you needed within a 5 minute walk, usually just sitting on the surface somewhere, but that's changed. Ores and coal are a bit harder to find, so you really need a community spanning a decent sized area to have a chance of finding the ore you need to jump start your metallurgy.
The whole caring for the environment side of the game seems to have fallen by the wayside: most of the worlds I've played in the last couple of years have basically seen dozens of players industriously consuming resources and running their pollutey industry at max, with very little in the way of consequences for the environment. There's also a new breed of player now... the ones that think "Eco" means "economy" - that it's just an economy simulator, that you win the game by collecting the most money. You know the type, they wear red MAGA hats in the US or top hats and monocles in the UK and money is their god of choice. You get one of those in your server, you'll need some robust socialist laws to keep him from destabilising your economy and making the whole world about him.
However, if you get 5 or 6 people who really want to work together, you can accomplish great things. 10 or 20 people all working together will go much faster. Especially on a server where the owner doesn't set up a government and economy that you have to play under - I always have the most fun in the worlds where the owners just allow this to happen organically. Then you get to choose what you want to be. You can find a gap in the market to start on a skill that's not being fully utilised by the other people in the world, or you can be a travelling merchant - find people selling stuff for less than other people are willing to pay for it, go trade it. Usually that's because they're far apart and can't be bothered running down the road every half hour to buy or sell, so they just hope someone will do that. Or you can be an architect/builder, creating structures for the community or for other players. Ultimately, the game is what you (and the others in your world) make it, so find the play style that works for you and then a group of people who like you playing that way, you're winning. It's still in development so a few things are works in progress, but it's always felt like a complete game with free DLC waiting in the wings.

The one serious "beta issues" complaint I have is the memory management, or lack thereof. I'm operating a computer I built 4 years ago on a shoestring, expecting it to last a year, so it's not that powerful. 2 hours of Eco and all the memory is full, to the point where I have to restart to be able to play Solitaire in real time. Hopefully that's among the issues the devs will see to soon, though, as it must still be an obvious issue on more powerful computers too.

I've loved this series of games for years. Some pretty great stuff in it, you can make your civilisation as simple or complex to manage as you like thanks to the planetary administrators and choosing your galaxy size etc.
I also love being able to create custom races. Whether you want to play as your own imagined civilisation, or just make yourself the head of the Terran Alliance... or create some of the civilisations from your favourite fictions. It's all there.

A nice little free game, quite addictive. I managed to hurt my left wrist from some intense WASD in my first 12 minutes, but that's my fault LOL The multiplayer segment seems to have a population of 3, so a few more people playing this wouldn't hurt, but the arcade version is certainly fun if you just want to hide and be asocial for a while.

Gift from my cousin and I'm really glad to have it. This is such an improvement on the game I sunk hundreds of hours into throughout my late 20s and early 30s. The graphics, gameplay and storytelling, all much improved from even what they were. The addition of multiplayer support is a very welcome one. It took me some time to figure out the ship design functions and I don't like that you can't pick up and move a piece that's already placed (I made so much use of that in GalCiv2) but there are so many new options that I can live without that.

One bug that's begun to annoy me, however: when playing a custom game, if a race surrenders to you, they aren't entirely eliminated. Other races will still think you're trading with them and you'll occasionally get Random Event communications from them. (2 years after the Altarians surrendered to me to avoid death at the hands of the Drengin, they call me to say they know I was responsible for the assassination of their ambassador, for example)

This was given to me by a friend, I'd never heard of it... but damn am I glad that happened.
It's worth reading about before you dive in, learn how to use things and when, but once you know what you're doing, it can be a lot of fun - either on your own with a crew of well-directed bots (you get to give them a lot of customisation on priorities, looks and name) or with real people. The developers are still adding extras in every update... new places, new missions, bug fixes, even whole new features from time to time.

I'm looking forward to seeing the addition of some more research options, because you can power through them before you've done half the non-combat missions if you're in an Outrider and know how to use it. Some more system types would be nice - though the game isn't short on them, if you traverse the galaxy looking at every named system, you'll encounter a few duplicates. (Also, who builds and abandons an enormous facility on a lava planet, four times, to manufacture drugs? LOL)
I'm also looking forward to learning some of the mysteries that have been presented in the game. What happened at Outpost 448? Why was intergalactic warping cut off? Was it because of the Infection? What can be done about those things? I made the mistake of going to a neutral sector adjacent to Infected space today and thought that seeing an Infected carrier was a great opportunity to study... after a few seconds of looking in horror at its stats, I warped out a millisecond before this enormous *thing* was about to nom on the back end of my ship D-: Terrifying, would totally recommend trying if you've recently saved your game.

It's quite an addictive little MMO... I downloaded it on Friday night, played it for most of Saturday and a fair portion of Sunday... now I'm about to go back on for the start of my bank holiday Monday. It's first and foremost a roleplay game, where you have a character. You can get to all of the features without paying any cash if you're sensible and patient, which suits those of us in austerity-stricken Britain.
All of the tasks in the game are represented by addictive little minigame puzzles - so when you want to repair your ship, it's a fill-in-the-holes puzzle, when you're in a sword fight it's a "send things to your opponent's board" Tetris-type game... all the puzzles are imaginative and varied, keeping the pirate theme quite well.
My one complaint is the screen resolution. It runs in 800x600 and always in a window, with no scaling options. On a 1680x1050 monitor, that makes it pretty small. Even if the game's native resolution stayed the same, a little upscaling algorithm and full-screen option would be awesome.

(Edit: Said algorith has since been added)