I got it on release and had no trouble maxing everything out, it ran fine on release.
There were a number of bugs and missing features on release that have been fixed. But, it is still not quite up to par with the earlier games.
I see GOG is having a MOO 1 & 2 sale. Does this game still hold up? I don’t think i’ve played it since the 90s.
They’re…two of the best games of their type, so yes, they still hold up.
Pretty much
“Hey, does Dark Side of the Moon still hold up?”
Meh. Not the same, (hell, I’m listening to Quadrophenia right now) but I’ll give it shot anyway!
Well then: I don’t think there has been a follow up to MOO2. Later space 4x games got chunks of the formula right – I personally have enjoyed GalCiv and SotS – but MOO2 brought the whole package.
There was an abortion called MOO 3, but we should not speak of it.
And whatever its name may have been, it was not actually a sequel to the Master of Orion games in any meaningful way.
moo2 is a timeless classic. the only game to come close to the greatness of moo2 was galciv2, and even after 2 expansions it still could not quite match moo2.
Bzzt, wrong. GalCiv is an empty shell compared to MoO2. The closest I’ve seem are Emperor of the Fading Suns, Imperium Galactica 2 and Sword of The Stars.
MoO2 isn’t readily comparable to anything but Master of Orion & Master of Magic. At least, not anything I’ve played.
Combat is very similar to Imperium Galactica 2, and research is a little bit like Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. But really, MoO1/2 & MoM aren’t pretty different from other 4X games.
The main attraction - at least for me - is how insanely sprawling and unbalanced the games are. Not that there’s very many ways to win. They’re not GalCiv2 or SMAX. But they have a ton of playing pieces, and the tech is hilariously over the top balance wrecking crazy. Of course, that can make the games a little bit difficult to get a grip on, but once you have a basic feel for what you can’t do, you can spend many, many-many hours devising new & interesting ways brutalise the AI.
The Master of… Games are indisputably 4X games. But I’m not sure it’s a good way to think of them. I mean, the actual “game of strategy” bit kind of sucks, because their AIs aren’t too good and they don’t really have anything that can be called game balance. So it’s not just that the mechanics are pretty different from other 4X games, it’s also that you almost certainly won’t play them for the same reason.
- If you compare it to SMAC/X, that is. Because except for the names on the tech trees, every other Civ clone is a giant sucking void in the personality department compared to GalCiv2.
No offence, but the Lasers II shit really needs to die. Judging a 4X game by the names on its tech tree is absurd.
I’ve never played Star Trek: Birth of the Federation, but maybe someone here knows how it relates to the Master of Orion games. How similar is it?
Birth of the Federation isn’t very good, but it has Pakleds in it. Tough decision, I know.
Let me put it to you like this: I didn’t play MOO2 for the first time until until the year 2002. Then I played it extensively in 2002, 2003, 2004, and every year since. Even though the game came out in 1996, I haven’t played anything quite like it before or since. It really is amazing.
I was even one of those who couldn’t get into SM’s Alpha Centauri because the science fiction setting didn’t appeal to me like the historical Civilization setting did. But that wasn’t a problem in MOO2. In SMAC, I was always wondering what on earth a particular technology would do for me, but in MOO2, the vast array of technological advances are pretty intuitive for me. Even though I didn’t know what things did right away, they used similar naming conventions to Star Trek, Star Wars, and other pop culture as well as other written science fiction, so the names all make intuitive sense to any science fiction fan.
Another thing that the game does incredibly well is to have a very usable and friendly interface. For the vast majority of the game, managing your growing empire through the colonies screen is a singe. Plus any time you ever have any questions about what something does in the game, including any interface element, all you have to do is to right click on it, and a tool tip with the appropriate help pops up. If only all older (and newer) strategy games worked like this.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: go get this game!!! MoO2 is amazing, and if you’re in the right mood, you’ll find yourself coming back to it again and again because there’s just nothing else out there as good as this game.
P.S. One last thing: Always design your own space ships. With the right-click help interface to help you, it’s very easy to learn how, and you’ll be having a blast right away, using the tech that you’ve been researching. And when your ships go into battle, you’ll see the fruits of your design come alive.
MOO2 is an all-time classic game.
I’ve played MOO 1 & 2. Hell I played BoTF and Rebellion for years as well. I remember many sleepless nights with those early 4Xs. I just don’t know if it will still satisfy my current gaming expectations which evolve over the years.
I bought the MOOs and MoM just because I wanted a digital copy for my collection. I’ll have to see if they suck me back in again.
Prediction: they will. :P
Wow. The Battle Isle games have not aged well. But I will at least play from 2 on. Incubation is also showing its age, blockier than I remember. But the play value is still there. Well worth the price for the package.
BTW, if you’re having sound problems make sure that you have no disks in any optical drives on your system.
I had to right-click on Incubation and Wilderness Missions and “Run as Administrator” to get them to work at all.
I’m on Windows 7 64 bit. The presets that came with the included DOSBOX setup worked for me. What OS are you running? Just curious.