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One of the best games in the past few years!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 29 / 29
Date: July 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I knew before I brought the box home that I'd probably love Startopia. I love the Sims, I love the Dungeon Keeper series, and I'm a huge fan of science fiction. This seemed to combine my favorite game styles, adding in gorgeous graphics and a bevy of interesting aliens. I wasn't disappointed!

To start with, you get this GREAT send-off of 2001. If you haven't seen 2001 yet, rent and watch the DVD, and then watch the opening cinematics of this game. The graphics are incredible, and the whole thing is really funny. That's just to start!

The game gives you bulding power in a space station - you're trying to make the most interesting, hospitable and money-making space station around. You build power boosters to supply the raw energy for your structures. You get to build sleeping, eating, gaming, health, and other kinds of areas for your visitors. Taking it one step further than Dungeon Keeper 2, instead of just building a 'lair' for creatures to sleep in, you build the base sleeping area and then add in as many beds, lava lamps, and other items as you feel works well for your target audience. You even build recycling plants, turning litter and waste back into energy!

Each creature that comes to your starport has its own background, hobbies, skill levels, and more. You can hire people that seem interesting, and buy new items from travelling salesmen. Individuals can have criminal records that you can take into account. You can click on each creature and find out exactly how hungry, tired, bored, etc. it is at the moment, with cool animations.

The graphics are *beautiful*. Every room and item has its own animations which are very well done. Every race looks completely different from the others, and has its own characteristics. It's easy to get started, and as you go, you get space and more options available. The progression is very well thought out. Your robotic helper talks you through each stage with great deadpan humor, and helps out if you get stuck.

There are SO many little extras in this game that it would take hours to talk about them all. The security screens have us falling out of our chairs laughing, never mind certain character interactions, and a certain fuzzy pal/parasite, and much, much more. This is a game you can play for months and still be absorbed and finding new things.

HIGHLY recommended to any sim or Dungeon Keeper fan, and I have to believe that *any* gamer will find some aspect of this to hook you!

Good at first but starts to lack...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 15
Date: July 30, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have to start out by saying I loved Startoipa, I was excited to play it the first time and was stuned by its visual appeal... And I remained that way for about two weeks of excessive play. However after the first effects wore off, I was left feeling that the game lacked somethings that I'd like to share why I felt that way with you.

Each alien race has a specific job on the station, they each work in one or two rooms that you build. Some rooms don't require workers, (even tho you'd think they would), so right off the bat you can see there are some limitations, perhaps they should have had aliens that excel at certain tasks but can be used as general workers.

I was left feeling that the tutorials were inadiquite for my tastes, I'm a veteran video gamer and have played many games from many different generes so it shouldn't have been so hard for me to pick up the consepts. I also feel that the first 5 or 6 missions are basically tutorials. Each mission focuses on a specific room or race that the game wants you to build/learn about up until the 7th or 8th mission. (as a side note this agme only has 10 missions)

After playing a few "sandbox" missions i was left feeling like I had little control over the station I was trying to run. There are very few options you can set on each room/building and virutally no way to track things like cost/income ratios etc. Although these things may not interest you at first. Once you've been able to setup a successfull Starbase, you are left wanting. These tweaks could have made the game last longer, for those that wanted that kind of control.

Here's a quick list of other control issues that should have been addressed:
- there are "security bots" that patrol your station looking for bad guys, but you can't set patrol routes
- You only have to pay your workers when you hire them, and when you promote them, with no real reoccuring costs there's no real need to limit your hiring.
- Each alien has a few different ratings on how well they do their job etc, however these ratings seems to have very little impact on the actual gameplay.
- Aliens will sometimes quit and leave the station but there is no way to tell why (so how do you fix something if you can't tell what's wrong?).

Now don't get me wrong, a basic level this game is great fun, and looks great. The gameplay is good, well balanced, and there are VERY few technical flaws which is great in a game this complex.

However, I would say average life span of actual use for players would be 2-4 weeks depending on how much you play and how much control you want. If this is enough for you to get your money's worth I would suggest you buy it.

Wow! This one is worth having!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: July 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

....

The Game: In Startopia you are the manager of a torus shaped space station. Your responsibilities start out with some simple constructions and progress to more demanding arrays of resource management and defense/attack strategy. Concurrently, you must see to your alien's needs for love, fun, nourishment and rest.

Your station has three levels: the tech-deck, entertainment deck and biodeck. The tech-deck is where you build your industrial, medical and research structures and your most important item, your energy collector. Energy is the galactic currency and everything is traded in terms of energy value. The entertainment deck is where your aliens will go for fun and recuperation. There you will want to build pleasant diversions such as discos and casinos for your aliens to enjoy. Better entertainment facilities will attract more visitors. On your biodeck you determine the shape of the landscape, temperature and soil-moisture with a sweep of your all-powerful hand. Your workers will plant trees, bushes and cattails to name a few. You can harvest your plants for supplies that you can use or sell at a nice profit to a passing trader. Every plant yields different goods so there is plenty of experimenting to be done.

In addition to roaming the station to fill their needs, your aliens will provide you with an endless stream of humor. Security guards play asteroids on the security center screen and monks walk on water, to name a couple. Also, if you see a criminal being escorted by a security robot, do click on him to view the details of his crime, they are terribly funny!

Once the missions are completed, the gameplay doesn't stop but begins. The sandbox mode presents unlimited replay-ability and allows you to play against AI opponents. In both sandbox and multiplayer modes, you determine what the game's goals will be. You can opt for technologic advancement, total station segments, money or total score. You can pick one goal or a combination of goals. Truly, it is a very smart design.

Graphics: Startopia allow you to move the viewpoint anywhere in 3d space or view through the eyes of a roaming alien. There is a lot of detail on the stations' structures and creatures. Startopia's aliens are very smooth, colorful and detailed. Startopia lets you decide how much detail your pc can support with an array of video toggles and, you can run Startopia in any resolution from 640x480 to 1600x1200! The image artistry and video controls are superb making the views in Startopia delicious and smooth-flowing, simultaneously.

Sound: The sound is excellent. Sounds are localized to a region and fade outward allowing you to tell how far you are from an event by its volume. Position yourself in the middle of the busy entertainment deck for a moment and listen: nearby, love nest visitors receive a transcendental love experience, disco dancers boogie to a dance beat, the din-o-mat cranks out dinners for the hungry with vending machine precision, passing aliens converse, hilarious sounds radiate from the lavatron(restroom), and a bomb explodes on the tech-deck below you. In Startopia you get as much information from the sounds around you as you get from the sights in front of you.

Interface: The interface is smooth and attractive. A mini-station map in the upper left corner allows you to move to about the station with one click. You can view and interact with your staff and visitors from this menu. All the game menus are easy to use and self-explanatory. Startopia also features a brilliant 3 slot autosaving system that cycles through the slots and saves the game every few minutes. Its a great design that gamers will want every game on the market to feature once they have tried it.

now for the bad: Fortunately, there is very little bad to mention. There are a couple bugs but, I can't remember a game that didn't have any. The CrashToDesktop bug has affected many players who suddenly find themselves staring at their windows desktop. This has happened to me too but I found that simply turning the sound option down one notch to "medium" reduced the frequency of the CTD bug to very rare. When it did crash it didn't lock up my pc or require any reboot. All I had to do was restart the game and thanks to the brilliant autosave I lost only 1-3 minutes of gameplay. The other bug I found involves the pattern buffer - the place you beam items into for easy transport. Occasionally, an item gets stuck in the buffer and causes a CTD. Again, it didn't cause any grief because I just loaded the previous autosave, avoided the trigger, and carried on with the game.

To Mucky Foot's credit: I sent a save game with the one pattern-buffer bug that I experienced to Mucky Foot. To my complete shock and amazement I received a personal response from a real-live Startopia programmer in under 3hrs! ....

Making it perfect: A Mucky Foot programmer informed forum readers that the patch due out around July 25th will include the ability to map movement to the WASD keys and fix the couple of bugs known to exist.

Overall: In sum, Startopia is a beautiful, witty and original game that will deliver many hours of laughs and great gameplay at a very modest price. It will be very hard for competitors to top this game and very hard for gamers to stop playing it. With all its virtues, I can without reserve recommend Startopia with a hearty thumbs-up and a smile.

Experienced on an 800Mhz-AMD-Athlon, 256MbRAM, Voodoo5-5500, RoadrunnerCable, Windows98SE and latest drivers for all components.

Great potential, but many small problems

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: July 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

To me, this is the best game I have ever played (from a god game/strategy game/sim game perspective), and that means a lot, because that means that I place this game both above classics like Civilization, Command&Conquer, etc. as well as new smash hits like Black&White. The gameplay, graphics, sound, jokes, etc. are all perfect.

So you may ask why I only give it four out of five stars? The answer is that there are a lot of small problems which result in frustration. The first thing is that the manual is nearly non-existent, i.e. it is only a small CD-inlay-booklet, where half of the booklet is taken up by installation instructions and credits. That wouldn't be so bad if the game wasn't so incredibly detailed. There is a tutorial and an in-game encyclopedia, but that still doesn't cover all the essential aspects. There are many things that you can not figure out on your own, because the effect of your actions may not be immediately noticeable. Some examples: You can not find out easily what the effect of promoting (or not promoting) someone is. The effect of placing artwork or artifacts in your station is not described anywhere. The problem is that many players probably don't even know what they are missing, because most players would not even expect such a depth in a game, and thus they would not look for all the little details that were left out of the manual.

The other problem is that the game is very buggy in its current state. I have never had that many small bugs (e.g. the sound or the controls going crazy in the game, etc.) or big bugs (i.e. crashes) in any game, not even in more complex ones like Black&White. There is supposedly going to be a patch out at some point, so let's hope for the best.

In any case, if you don't mind the lack of a manual and the fact that the game may not run totally smoothly on your configuration, you should definitely get the game! Even with the problems that I described, it is still a LOT of fun!

A top-notch title ... so where are all the fans??

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: June 27, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game isn't getting nearly enough attention. I mean, I could understand if the game wasn't all that great ... but this game is AWESOME! I downloaded the demo a few weeks ago, and that's what got me hooked. I went out and bought the game that same day, and I haven't left the computer since! It's very challenging, while still being enjoyable. I've been playing for about 4 days, and I still haven't completed all of the 10 missions yet. There are 3 different modes in this game. Mission mode (where you can try to complete all 10 missions), Sandbox mode (in this mode you can start from scratch and build freely without any objectives), and Multiplayer mode (where you can test your skills against other players online). With so much to do, this game will keep you interested for weeks ... even months! Bottom line: If you like games like The Sims, Pharoah, Age of Empires, SimCity, Dungeon Keeper, SimTheme Park, Theme Hospital, and Black & White, then you will LOVE this game! It mixes all of the best elements of the games listed above, plus a lot more. If you've read all these reviews and you're still not convinced, I suggest you go to www.startopiagame.com and download the playable demo. Be careful, though. This game is very addictive!

Fun while it lasts

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: November 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

When Startopia first arrived at my house, I eagerly tore open the box and installed the game at once. I had played the demo already and was very impressed, and I was extremely anxious to get my hands dirty with the full version. Everything--the graphics, the gameplay, the theme--impressed me from the get go. Before the day was over, I was hooked.

Basically, Startopia is a city-building simulation, except that instead of a city, you're building a space station. There are three decks for you to dedicate your attention to; the first is like your main level, where aliens can board your station and where the most basic facilities are; the second is the "pleasure deck" where aliens can spend their leisure time. The third is basically a biodome, where you can grow crops and where aliens can get a breath of "fresh" air.

As I already said, the gameplay of Startopia is excellent. The three decks, along with the trading and combat systems, provide for a relaxing and enjoyable gaming experience. The problem with the game is that it simply doesn't have lasting power. After completing the ten single player missions and playing one or two "sandbox" games, where you get to do pretty much whatever you want, the game just isn't that fun anymore. I'm sorry to say this, because there's really nothing wrong with the game; it's very good, but, alas, it's not destined to be a classic.

I still recommend at least trying the demo for this game. It should keep most people occupied for several days and perhaps even weeks (the game, not the demo). After that, it will most likely collect dust for a few years. Then maybe you'll play it again once or twice and finally put it down for good.

Basically, what it comes down to is this: are you willing to buy this game just to be entertained for a week or two? It may be worth the money, it may not. That's for you to decide.

If you're just looking for an ephemeral way to kill time and have fun, Startopia may very well be a smart purchase.

SimCity, But Much Better

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: July 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The game is the same as SimCity, but there's no annoying and costly monthly fee!

The network gaming feature doesn't work well, and it uses gamespy, but playing over a LAN works great.

Compared to the graphics of current games, Startopia is only average, but the fun factor is high, making it a joy to play.

Battles between other players is an option, but the game mainly focuses on city expansion.

The BioDeck level proves to be a special challenge presented to players as a terraforming minigame, from a moonscape to a wooded forest with animals. Of course, the terraforming experience takes time to evolve from nothing into something.

Depending on your choices, terraforming can produce special resources that you would normally have to buy or create.

Events, such as solar flares, can add unexpected challenges to the game. Such settings can be toggled, and the frequency of their occurrence can be set.

There is a handful of different aliens in the game, and each specializes in a different job. Their roles range from Security to Medical Sickbay Personnel, Researchers, and Monks. (The Monks can produce over 5000 credits, used for tasks such as powering the station or buying resources and buildings.)

The fun factor is well worth the price!

A wonderful game from underappreciated talent!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: June 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game's Achilles' Heel is the stealth marketing campaign being perpetrated by its publisher, Eidos Interactive. It is unfortunately quite likely that you haven't heard of Startopia (until now, that is) or seen ads for it anywhere. Your local software retailer probably hasn't heard of it either. This is a shame because Startopia is a MUST HAVE for any fan of similar Bullfrog games such as Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park and Theme Hospital.

Startopia was created by Mucky Foot Productions, a UK-based company founded by ex-Bullfrog talent (not to be confused with Lionhead, another Bullfrog spinoff). They brought with them an amazing sense of game play and humor and produced this "glistening jewel" of a game. There isn't much innovation here, but this game excels at what it attempts to accomplish. It has a great combination of familiar concepts in a delightful new setting.

My biggest complaint so far is that the built-in missions are over just as you begin to feel that you've mastered the game. On the other hand, there is trumendous potential for fan-created scenerios and network play. Now I just have to get my friends hooked on this game too...

A good game, but this early version is buggy.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: August 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game has a lot of potential. It's a relatively original sim with a hint of real time strategy thrown in the mix. The general idea is that there are nine different races that you hire to work in the various facilities you build on your space station. There are three types of facilities you can build, maintenance, entertainment, and spiritual facilities, each of which is built on a particular deck. By balancing the needs of your residents and visitors, you can build up your section of the space station to its full glory and destroy your opponents.

Sounds good, so why do I think this game is only three stars? When playing it, I really got the feeling that this game was a wine released well before it's time. This if for a number of reasons. First, there is very little documentation. In fact, there is absolutely no manual of any form. No in game help and no hard copy booklet. The F1 key will provide a very minimal bit of context sensitive help, and there is a brief tutorial at the beginning, which is helpful for game basics. Otherwise, plan on discovering the remaining features of this game by trial and error. Second, the game only ships with 10 levels, which shouldn't take anyone too long to conquer. There is a sandbox mode, in which you can toggle various settings and play against computer opponents, but this gets repitious quickly. The third and final reason I think this game deserves only three stars is that it is very buggy. On my system, 1.3GHz Intel P4 running Windows ME, the game crashed out to the OS about once an hour. Thankfully there is an autosave feature that backed up most my game play. Interestingly, the tutorial starts with a warning about how "fragile" it is. The unfortunate thing is, the rest of the game is just as fragile.

My final recommendation is, unless you have absolutely nothing better to do with your money, wait until the expansion package comes out.

The kind of game many of us have been waiting for.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: June 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Most games of the strategy genre have two strong leanings: either to total design games (for example SimCity), or to games which focus entirely on individual elements (SimPeople). Although Startopia is clearly a design game, more elements of individual development (such as the aliens which come aboard your station or technologies which can be researched) are stressed. This compaires somewhat to SimAnt from years past, which itself did a fair job of mixing both the macro and micro in gameplay.

The graphics are wonderful, but a slower machine with older equipment will feel the bite for it. Even on faster machines, when action gets too hot and heavy and all of your physical memory gets used up, the time for memory swap-out to your hard drive will be noticable. Even so, gameplay itself is affected to the minimum. There is little that needs to be done so quickly (within a second or two) in the game.

The sound is good, too, but there are a total of about 7 tracks of music in the game, making for a bit of repeditiveness. A tad bit more variety would have helped, or even the ability to add one's own music to things. A minor point at best, but still a consideration for a future version.

Overall, this game is sure to please anyone who plays strategy/sim style games. Management and editing are two areas which have been made both easy and dynamic, allowing for a large variety of possibilities.

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