The game's depth does not extend to its media, though. The graphics,
sound, and music in Space Empires IV are all pretty basic. The graphics are functional without
being crude, but they do have the look of a game ten years older. The alien
portraits do look a little cheesy, but if they bother you, you can replace them
with graphics more to your liking. The music is akin to the type
heard while waiting in line for Space Mountain at Disneyland - kind of cool and
spacey music that puts you in the mood at first, but grows to be quite annoying
after a while.
There is a very large amount of detail in the game - you can
easily find yourself playing for an extra hour or two more than you expected as
you wait for just one more tech advance. However, the detail is also a potential
problem for some players. Games last a long time. A long, long time. You can
play for hours a day for an entire week and still not finish a game. Also, the
documentation is inadequate - despite a printed manual, a disk-based manual, and
online help, Space Empires IV leaves a lot of vital information on ship
upgrades, technology, and facilities out of the documentation. At the very least
a tech tree would be nice to have for those players that like to know where
there research is taking them.
The Space Empires IV's AI provides a good game for the most part. The one
area in which it exhibits inconsistent behavior is in the area of diplomacy. All
of the alien races appear to be fickle, switching from friend to foe seemingly
at random. Also, the races are pretty interchangeable without individual racial
personalities. Your benign trading partner in one game may insist on making war
in the next.
These problems aside, Space Empires IV does an excellent job of providing the
detail-happy player with an engrossing and engaging game. Players with shorter
attention spans are better off looking elsewhere, though.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 80%. Despite basic graphics and
a few shortcomings, Space Empires IV is worth a look for players that enjoy
space empire games.
System Requirements: 66 MHz 486 CPU; 16 MB RAM; CD-ROM; 4 MB
Hard Drive Space; Mouse.
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