Lords of the Black Sun Reviews

The game just feels bland. I was excited when I read obout this game, kept an eye on it as it was being developed, and hungery grabbed it when it was released as a "full game". I have heard that there is still some development and work still being done on the game, wich I truly hope there is because if this is the final product then this is embarassing; as the game is buggy as all hell. Bugs aside, the gameplay itself is boaring and unispired. Every aspect of gameplay feels like it was half finished and left in it's most basic form. Nothing about this game felt good, why did I waste my money?

This is no MOO2 Plain and simple. MOO2 was created in 1996 with limited computer graphics and tech and was a huge success. This game LOTBS has no excuse. There exists now all the computing power and tech available to make anything needed and then some! PROS - Has really nice intro (PROMO) graphics found only on the product page thats totally deceiving, making you think your are really going to buy something special. Oh, and nice borrowed game ideas... CONS - The game crashes all the time. The graphics promised are not there. Mostly made up of place holder graphics. The game play 'depth and complexity' is just not there. This game is no where near being complete. If the team just spent half the time they obviously spent making the trailers, they'd actually have a really good game! This is one example of so many that give struggling developers a bad name. I say finish the product first so you have a really good product to offer then ask the price it is worth (wow new concept). I paid $45 for MOO1 (the original) and $65 for MOO2 and would gladly do it again to keep buggy, unfinished stuff like this off the market! The developers have been at this game since at least mid to late 2014, roughly 6-9 months (or longer)... There are really good games fully and completely (Oh, whats the words? Oh yeah, finished!) out there for less money. This game costs way too much for what is actually offered. I am returning this game for a refund and will not endorse this gaming or the firm any further. PS - In my line of work and in most peoples daily jobs (in which you work hard to earn our money) you must deliver, there is no room for 'just getting by'. And yes there is such a thing as 'stand and deliver'...my advice to the makers, try it...

A very disappointing addition to the 4x Space Strategy game genre. I love the genre, and it seemed to look very nice, but the actual product was not as good as expected from the description, screenshots, and video. It seems to lack polish and actually seems somewhat unfinished, with plenty of bugs and lacklustre dev support. On to the one pro I've found so far for the game... the hex-based, turn-based space combat is actually a quite interesting addition to the 4x space genre, and one that I quite like. Admittedly, it can turn into a bit of a chore once the participants have large fleets, if you can get to that stage... but I do like the idea. However... the game is plagued with a multitude of crashes, which makes any sort of progress, especially in multiplayer, very frustrating. Even when you're lucky enough to not encounter a Crash to Desktop, the gameplay itself is not quite up to scratch. The tech tree and units are somewhat disappointing, and there are many better games out there if you want to customise your own space ships as part of your plans for galactic domination - which brings me to my next point - the galactic maps are pretty sub-par. It doesn't look nice, the travel is boring (there are no restrictions or wormholes or gravity wells or any other mechanic) between systems. There is an arbitrary limit on which systems you can travel though, in an expanding circle, but I have not been able to figure out how that works, but apart from that, you can travel to any system without any changes. And the economic and diplomatic options are both also disappointing. This combos with the 8 "different races" you can play as or against - they don't look or feel different, and the bonuses and "unique generals" aren't very noticeable. In combination with the lack of options, and a lack of descriptions of the various pre-game setup options... it just doesn't make for a compelling experience. Especially for the asking price, you can do so much better if you are after a 4x space strategy game.

If I could refund this game, I would. I watched a review of this game from several months ago, and it looked promising. More than promising actually, it looked like it could be an excellent game that combines many of the aspects that I love. Overall, it appears to be something like Sins of a Solar Empire crossed with Civilization crossed with Democracy. The issue was that it was not a finished game. Jump forward to now, and it is on the front page of Steam, announcing that it is a finished game. FAR FROM IT. I should have looked more at the fine text, but the developer says that even though it is moving out of early access, it stills needs patching. This is evident from the start. The intro splash took quite some time to load, even on a fairly powerful computer and locked my screen to the program until it finished. Typos and grammatical errors are common, even on the first few small text boxes of the tutorial. Additionally, the textures are rediculously poor on higher zoom levels, even on max graphical settings. What sealed the deal for me though was the frequent crashing brought about by this game. Again, though this game has promise, it is not yet ready. I feel as though I was tricked into buy an incomplete game. The saddest part of it is that if this game came out in a ready state, I might have loved it. But my initial play has only served to frusturate me.

As of 14 Sept 2014 - This game is not terrible - just very very bland. You will not find anything really new in here - all of it exists in other, better made games such as Distant Worlds or GalCiv2. There are still some major bugs that have not been taken out - I can't even open the trade menu without a crash to desktop. Ship design is weak - from the start, you get 4 hulls that go from tiny to small - with only no improvements available to increase what you can fit in them. The techs for ships don't provide any options - the missiles, beams and lasers are essentially the same. There are no fighters or bases. Tactical fights are available but not terribly exciting - nor does it provide any depth as all weapons are in essence identical. Many of the "management tools" are absent or in very basic form - you can't rearrange build queues, set up rally points, understand how much science, industry, or trade any particular action is going to generate. It's weird how you have to close an empire menu before opening the next one rather than switching between them. The tech tree is pretty minimal - maybe 50-60 items in total. It gets boring in the 2nd part where you get solid lines of 3-4 consecutive "industry +1" or "research +1". It rarely opens up new abilities, just improves your starting ones. Minor races have no interaction, except for pirates. You can send a trade ship there, tho with the game maxing out at 4 trade lines, it's not clear why you should bother. What is working in this game is relatively fine. It just seems like they ran out of time to fine-tune and tweak the content in fun and interesting ways. Perhaps updates wil improve this solid, but it is currently an extremely bland X4 experience. Verdict - unless you are scrapping the bottom of the barrel for x4 games, skip until a few updates.

Under no circumstances should you buy this game. There are plenty of other 4x space games out there that are a) actually finished, and b) a hundred times better than this game. It is a shame because during early access it did show some promise. But then one day the developer decided it was finished and it went from early access to released. "Abandoned" version would be a more accurate term for what we got. There have been no updates for months now, and it doesn't look like we'll get any - indeed at the time of writing this review the website for the company behind the game is no longer there. It would be less of a waste to just burn your money rather than buy this game.

Once upon a time, an intergalactic warlord colonized a planet with their species. This game is the result. It's not often my lead-ins to my reviews are so short, and it's not often that I review a game prior to spending at least 24 hours in-game with it, but this game isn't one I can recommend, for various reasons. First things first - "Lords of the Black Sun" is a space-based 4X game, where you attempt to conquer the universe, [b]Cid Meyer's Civilization[/b]-style. You build installations on planets, create colony ships, build pre-defined military vessels, and can even create custom units. Units stack, and space battles take place in a sort of [b]Final Fantasy Tactics[/b] cut-out battle scene. All of this sounds like a strategy gamer's dream, so why do I sound so against it? First, the interface is horrible, and I'm not merely talking about the presentation, though that's pretty awful. The UI isn't optimized for a player's experience; it's hard to see even a neophyte developer looking at the UI and thinking, 'the players are going to [b]love this[/b].' Most of the menuing takes more actions than is really necessary. Second, the game itself feels utterly [b]soulless.[/b] It feels like someone started by taking a look at [b]Cid Meyer's Alpha Centauri[/b], then proceeded to put it [b]further into space[/b], but instead of hiring a writer, gave it to someone's nephew. The result is an experience that doesn't capture the wonder of interstellar colonization, or galactic politics, but is rather an experience that it's hard to care about for even a single session. Mechanically, the game is sound - as stated above, it's the sort of thing strategy gamers claim to [b]love and want[/b]. The execution is so terrible, especially given the [b]$30 asking price[/b], which is entirely too much for what you're getting. Firaxis Games, these guys ain't. [b]PROS:[/b] [list] [*]Mechanicallly sound game [*]Great space visuals [*]Interesting fleet-to-fleet combat [*]Good custom unit creation system. [/list] [b]CONS:[/b] [list] [*]Uninspired, forgettable writing and scenario [*]Ugly UI that impedes the player [*]Forgettable music [*]Unstable game - the end of my expeirence came after the game just crashed for no apparent reason. [*][b]Way[/b] too expensive for what you're actually getting. [/list] Verdict: Avoid it. The developers need to do some serious work on this game and lower the price for this game to be worth it. If they will do this, I will take a second look and re-evaluate my review.

God I want to like this game. MoO2 is in my top 2 games of all time. The problem is that this game is ALPHA. Not Pre-Release, not Released, not Finished / Supported. So many bugs, so many crashes, I can't load from a savegame, so every game is "rogue-like". Seriously! A Rogue-like 4x game. The Devs have all but left this game. Even at 75% off, it's just not worth it. Plenty of 4x games on steam and GOG has MoO 1& 2. Steam should be ashamed to have pulled this out of early release and the publisher should be strung up for asking $5 for this game, let alone $20+. 1/10 for potential but worth $2 at most.

The game feels very simple and basic. There is nothing to this game that I wouldnt expect from any other x4 game, and this is still on the light side of 4x games. It does not get very in depth with any game mechanic. Combat is mediocre, Diplomacy is mediocre, research is very limited with a relatively small research tree compared to other more recent 4x games. All in all, the game is just bland and sub par. Honestly, it feels like playing a unity based game in a web browser. I would expect to find similar mechanics and gameplay from a free game site. Its also not stable. When creating a game, picking certain map settings could cause a crash. First battle I lost, caused a crash. Within a period of 30 minutes just to check out the full release version, I had 3 crashes. I really love the sci-fi space based 4x genre, and I wanted this game to be good because there are so few games in this genre that can hold a candle to what MoO2 was for its time. This game does not get close. I would not recommend this game to anyone, not even casual players.

Buyer Beware! I bought the game during early access, participated in the forums and suggested ways to make the game more thematic. The Devs responded with a "yea...but" claiming money and etc as a limitation. What they managed to put together is not a finished product and is by all means an early access build. No polish, no depth or immersion and absolutely no support post release. In recent posts, the Devs cited financial difficulties and made empty promises for upcoming updates. There are NO updates for more than a year now and their website is dead...In the meantime, the game is plagued with the same bugs and CTDs that it had in earlier builds. You want to open trade routes? Crush. You want to play a long game? Crush on random turn and crush again later on. Another Early Access scheme: promising the impossible and blaming bad finances for their complete and utter failure to deliver. An almost formulaic approach to risk-free-failure: promise A, receive payment for A, deliver B with promises of A but without the means of delivering A…Classic bait and switch tactics under the grey area of Early Access.