Recent reviews by Buggster3000

Overall, I like this game. It's a fun experience, though that does not mean it is without issue.

First, the good stuff.

* I generally like the political portion of the game.
* The research system is an interesting balance between keeping control of global research and completing faction specific research.
* There is a sort of truce with the AI, where initially nobody is taking overtly hostile actions. Very limited wars, tech stealing and spying, but not directly going after your agents. But once one faction, usually the player, crosses that line, it can get crazy. Common wars, offensive nukes, assassinations, space attacks, you name it.

Middle ground stuff.
* The game goes in turns equaling a certain number of weeks, and over time the turns will become longer. This is good in the sense that you won't have as many interruptions as your focus shifts more and more to space, but it will also make your agents much less responsive to issues that pop up.
* The nation building feels very strange, due to the way GDP scales into investment points. A nation with an economy 100 times larger than another will not be able to do 100 times, leading to odd situation where merging nations into one larger economy is better for some things, but worse for others.

Now some cons.

* I don't feel there is much replay value, even with the various different faction.
* There's no way to unify Earth without mods, or using legacy setting and doing a lot of finagling with capitals.
* Getting good at space combat all but requires looking at outside sources.
* When you're new at the game you won't know you're falling behind until you've got many many hours into a game.
* The end game can really drag, as you'll be at a point where victory is assured, but you'll have to go and mop up all the aliens around the solar system, which unless you're using the most advanced and fuel intensive drives, will take months if not years.

Good game.

Shoot zombies with the boys.

Learn of the horrors of war as you call in railway artillery on some poor pinned infantry.

Drifting around corners and smacking people with wrenches. Nice.

It's fun.

It's enjoyable, but can get grindy as you progress.

I can farm potatoes with my robot arms wearing a human leather cowboy hat. I think that's all that needs said.

Good fun.