The whole premise seems to be to conquer other planets that are connected in a chain and governed by what are called frames. At least that’s how I understood the directions, plus watched the opening cinema. From that point on it got somewhat foggy, which for me doesn’t take much. It does remind me of another game that I played quite extensively, so I had somewhat of a reference to go by. Not by much, mind you.

Now, I have a review copy of this game, so there is only one campaign game and no tutorial that could have helped this newbie. The retail version may have more scenarios, so purchasers read the box art carefully to find out what the game contains. I even had to print out the entire fifty pages of the manual so I could figure out how the game was supposed to work. That was a first for me. When I do these reviews I either just read the PDF file and get a general grasp right away, or reference the manual that comes with the game. Not this time it seems.

The only resource you need in the entire game is energy. That’s where the collectors and transmitters come in. Without them, you can’t advance in the game and you will jeopardize having units shutting down due to the lack enough energy. There are storage units that will hold additional energy, so you can build up more then the basic ten thousand units you start out with.

You can lower terrain, raise it, or build trenches to inhibit enemy troop movement. This is done using a marker and having these little black things do the actual work. They also seem capable of destroying your opponents stuff as well, though I didn’t realize it till the last minute. You can move your frame, but make sure there is enough room to set it down again or it’s stuck in the air. There are different ground weapons to deal with air, ground, and subterranean units. Your morphed troops can, depending on what they are morphed to, destroy certain items. Here’s a little secret, no matter what you morphed them to, they will die off really fast. Basically it’s a battle of attrition from what I’ve determined.

Yes, there are additional buildings that help build your war machine. We have laser labs, bomber labs, digger labs, and so forth. All require upgrading to make even more powerful versions of defensive weapons and additional morphed troops. Your squads can be morphed into anything any time as long as you have sufficient basic units to make those changes. Production is the word here people!

Graphics is another big problem though. The colors are so monochromatic that you have trouble finding things since they blend so well into the terrain. The only way you can keep up with everything is through the command center which has additional icons for movement, attack or defense. All I can say is it seems to be a hodgepodge morphed into some semblance of order. I never did get to leave the first planet I was on since the AI always whipped my posterior soundly. On this game you can put me in the “I really suck” category of playing I’m sad to say.

I never could put my game finger down firmly on this one. Personally I had trouble just dealing with the mechanics of the game, let alone thinking about winning even one match. For those of you looking to buy something totally different in the sci-fi genre then don’t look any further since you’ve found it. There is just to much in the game to cover in this small review, but it’s up to you decide if this is what you want in a sci-fi game.