TAE writes: " If there is any consequence to the release of Star Wars upon the collective consciousness that hasn't been looked at closely or already recognized and analyzed to death, it is the innovation in sci-fi movies (and subsequently other visual media) of multiple ships on the screen at once engaging in battle. To be fair, Star Trek implied space combat in a number of episodes, but cutting from the Enterprise firing phasers or photon torpedoes to the other ship firing their own weapons isn't what you would call a gripping action sequence. Star Wars seems to have gotten in the first fully realized space battles and the world has never been the same since. Without that, later iterations of Star Trek, the two iterations of Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, and countless computer games would never have had the punch they have now. No Wing Commander? No Sins Of A Solar Empire? Horrors!"
GSB and GSB II are real-time strategy games that you don’t play in real-time. That is to say, all the strategy (and player involvement) comes before the battle is joined and the death-rays leap across the void to destroy the enemy. Acting as a sort of grand admiral of a space armada, you design the individual classes of ships, determine the composition and formation of your fleet and issue general orders that affect your ships’ behavior in combat. Then, you sit back and watch the show, hoping your planning was good and your AI commanders know what they’re doing. “I wanted to design a game where having no control was actually the main mechanic…” Harris says.
So yup, GSB2 is now taking pre-orders direct from my site, and this gives you access to the beta. You can grab it right now from
the developers site.
Note that this is a proper beta, not some super-early-access proof of concept thing where most of it doesn’t work. In other words, most stuff works! it’s playable. Hopefully its fun! It’s PC-only and English only for now, but that will change come-release. There will of course be bugs, and myriad balance issues. And I will be adding some extra voiceover and a few other bits and pieces. But hopefully this is something you can play and enjoy right now. You get a download link, an online serial (for challenges, if you want to use them), and a steam code for its eventual steam release (the code obviously isn’t working yet).
This week, the Humble Sale has gone back to selling video games, with the titles up for grabs coming from strategy developer Positech Games.
