Gemini Wars Reviews

I really wish I could reccomend this now, I played it in the past, beat it, enjoyed it. It's now somehow buggy - mission critical components are missing or broken, unit cap mechanics are broken, steam achievements aren't registering, and even 'easy' throws so many enemy ships at you that it is just frustrating. Once was good, at least I remember it so, now, it's not worth the money or the time.

The game is old so, don't expect next gen graphics here. But it's a cool RTS with both campaign and skirmish mode. Good enough to spend a few hours.

Ships are slow and space is huge. While realistic, this results in slow burner battles. This isn't particularly bad, especially if you like to slowly build your forces and plan your attack plan. But no 10 / 15 minute matches here. Every battle builds up to a huge confrontation here.

I hate this game, because I could have spent those five hours playing something fun. This game isn't fun. The screenshots and the trailer will show you big ships and big fleets and big battles, trying to make you think that's what this game is about. They're lying. This game is about waiting for your resource counter to uptick just enough to build another tiny ship that will ignore group move orders to go check out some incredibly interesting space dust. About 80% of my time spent on this game was spent just waiting for the resource counter to uptick to the point where I could afford another [i]basic unit.[/i] That wait time might have been tolerable if they'd included a variable game speed option. They didn't. There was a lot more playtesting needed here, because there's something very wrong with the basic setup. It's either that ships are too expensive, or resources just take too long to gather. Given the relative fragility of most units and the intolerable wait times between being able to build stations as well, I suspect it's actually both. TL;DR: Don't buy this game. Don't even buy it on sale. Just ignore it and look for something else.

This game is passable a passable RTS in space; there's just not enough here to keep me interested for long. Graphics are meh, strategy is so so, and the story is cliche. Manuevering your ships for that perfect ambush can be fun for a while. Get it on discount, and it might keep you occupied for a night or two.

Gemini Wars is a good game with a solid science-fiction story. It doesn't deserve the bad rating. I tested this game in 2012 and completed the campaign back then. Now, about 10 years later, i am playing the full campaign again. There are some minor bugs in the game but none that prevent me from finishing the game. Some of the smaller bugs are solved by loading a save of the current game. Most of the negative reviews are on the drm (which was terrible but removed) and the slow pacing (but pressing B speeds up the game 4x when not in battle). I like that you don't have to restart searching everything during the campaign. Technology you already researched in a previous mission is still available. My favourite parts are the briefings, the different videos and the variety of the missions. Game has been done by a small team (indie game). I wish Sins of a Solar Empire had a campaign like this one. I am having fun with this game again. Thanks Camel101.

This one is a tough one to rate. But in 2019 the game got a large patch that fixed a lot of the reasons people gave it a thumbs down. The game is stable now and no longer requires a registration. Is it worth $15? No. I think if the dev lowered it to $5 he'd probably make a lot more money. The story is not original, pretty much follows the exact storyline and game mechanics as Haegemonia. Though, I will say Gemini Wars was a little easier to get into. Both games involve wars between humans in space and having to unite to combat an alien terror. Pretty much the same story as Descent Freespace or dozens of other games, movies, TV shows. It's a well-used trope and Gemini Wars didn't bring anything new to it, except maybe a small twist at the end which sets up a DLC or sequel that'll never come. I like this trope though, it's one of my favorites. But the alien threat never felt mysterious and never felt personified making it kind of meh. The UI is workable. My biggest complaint is camera angels. Maybe I just missed it, but I couldn't figure out how to rotate the camera. The second to last mission was definitely the worst with it almost impossible to see things correctly with only being maybe 15 degrees above the plane it was hard to click on the right objects. The unit shaking is still there after the 2019 patch but not as much. I noticed it only a few times. Often though units would warp to the wrong point on the map. I can't tell you how many times I lost a ship because it went to the wrong warp point. Unit building allows a queue of 10 units, which is okay, but you have to manually find the structure to build more and when the maps began to take on multiple systems it got difficult to do so in a hurry. The last level for some reason many of the mining sectors I couldn't build mining facilities on, not sure what was up with that. Also, at least two of the achievements are bugged. Overall a fun little campaign. Some UI issues detracted from the game. Graphics it's about what you'd expect for a 2012 indie game, which is fine because space with ships gives you more to work with. Unit roster is fine. There's really no reason to build frigates but destroyers, cruisers, battleships, and carriers each have a distinct role-- if there was a formations button I'd have built smaller missile frigates but they just raced ahead to die too much.

Game requires a username and password everytime you play even when your not online. Also password recovery is a poorly designed system. While gameplay is good for an indie game it is not worth even a small amount of money considering the number of restrictions the creators put on the game. When games use too much DRM like this you basically buy the game to not play it.

This game feels like it is still in beta with all the glitches. Pros: Good concept. I enjoy how quickly bases can be built if you have the resources which makes comebacks not entirely out of the picture. Easy to pick up. Cons: Ships will shake violently when trying to move and sometimes won't even move when part of a large selected group. AI is horrible for skirmishes. I played a skirmish where the AI player sent its starting construction ship to where I was building my fleet about 5 minutes into the game and it was destroyed easily ending the game. Gameplay mostly involves waiting around for resources and ships to build up while the AI does nothing to stop you and then easily winning, but if you move into their space too early they send massivly overpowered waves to crush you. Full of glitches that simply freeze the game and make you have to re-launch. Research points are hard to come by at first, but then there isn't enough to research and you have an abundance of unuseable points. If you can deal with all that is wrong with this game or if any patches come out to fix the many problems, then this is a decent game.

I'd like to post a review, but I can't play it. Apparently, a very common problem with this game is that it won't let you register the CD-key. You have to register an account with the developer (even if you just wanna try the single player campaign), and the registration system is broken. It seems you can fix it by contacting support by email, but let's be honest: If you can't even get past the main menu without contacting support because of a bug that is still around after more than two years, is it really worth the effort? I think not. TL;DR This is broken. Don't waste your money.