Woo, spacefaring strategy! This all sounds very promising. Lots of races to choose from. Hours upon hours of potential gameplay. Be still my beating heart/central nerve cluster/pulsing core.
Horizon is a game of considerable ambition, set in a sci-fi world that bears a striking resemblance to the classic Star Trek series. It does a great job of explaining just why and how these races are all adventuring through space at once but in handling some of the more complex issues that plague the genre, seems to have completely forgotten about some very basic problems.
The premise is that an alien probe has given humanity masses of extremely valuable data, launching our development forward and sending us into space. Make no mistake, Horizon is huge. In fact, one of it’s main strengths is the sheer size of the map. Players more used to games such as the Dawn of War series and Command & Conquer will definitely find themselves in a whole new world, so to speak. It can, and will, take up hours of your life and you’ll be left with very little to show for it – but you’ll still keep playing. The variety offered by the other empires you come up against – some will be hostile and much more developed than you, some will take a more curious approach – is another crowning achievement. You’re starting out on the bottom of the ladder, and all the other rungs are full of slimy tentacles and matriarchal activists (Bioware called, they want the Asari back). It’s all turn based, with each turn representing a year, and so at first it’s going to take you a long time to build ships and get them to different locations to scout and explore.
The ideas are great and Horizon has several strengths – unfortunately these are weighted fairly equally with the bad. Cutscenes are reminiscent of the early 2000s, to the point where you’re left wondering why they didn’t just cut them out completely and fall back on text. The tutorial is longwinded, as you’d expect, but afterwards you’re still left winging it and hoping for the best. The most compelling aspect of the game is the amount of things to discover and the fact that you’re very much laying the building blocks of a space-wide civilisation, but Horizon is just missing that big hook. Combat is awful and can best be described as a menial chore. I muddled through by using the auto button because it wasn’t engaging enough to get my teeth into. The music swings from being serious, dark and moody to sounding as though someone threw a SNES against a wall and stomped on it. There’s just one, Mario-esque tune for combat, and that’s bad, because there’s a lot of it and it’s easily the game’s weakest point. It’s much like the Total War series, except it lacks the finesse to pull some grand ideas off well.
It’s a game of halves, constantly swinging from good to terrible, with not much room inbetween. There’s clearly a lot of passion from the developers and a huge amount of ambition but the production values just don’t do it any justice. Exploration is fun but the interface is clunky and cumbersome, there’s a lot to do and the tutorials don’t quite give you enough explanation to play the game as well as you could. The list goes on. I found myself playing mobile games or Skyping friends whilst playing just to kill time between turns, and that’s never a good thing. It just doesn’t excite in a big way like it feels it should.
In summary, excellent in theory, mediocre in execution. I wish I could rave about Horizon and slap it with a huge rating and tell you all in perfectly good faith to rush to Steam and download it immediately. But there’s just no real bang for your buck here. Quantity? Yes. Quality? Debatable. You might be able to spend upwards of fifty hours immersed in Horizon, but there’s a fairly solid chance you’ll get tired of the loathsome combat and clunky interface before then. If you’re truly desperate for strategy in space, it might be worth an investment as they don’t come around too often. Just don’t expect too much from it.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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