Perimeter: Emperor's Testament Reviews

Useless DLC.

never quite got into it -- not sure why.

awesome game :D

well a i can say is that its confusing but loads of fyn

the gameplay doesn't seem terrible, but there's absolutely no tutorial, and the UI is very difficult to understand

(copy of review for Perimeter) My favorite RTS of all time. Had it on disk for years before buying it again on Steam. Perimeter provides excellent story, an interesting and unique world, and fun mechanics all wrapped up into a game with far more flexibility than the average RTS. You can really choose your playstyle and adapt as the game progresses. Perimeter has immense replayability and is an excellent experience overall. The standalone expansion, Emperor's Testament, is also worth getting. It adds a fantastic new story arc and some new gameplay mechanics to keep you going.

К-Д ЛАБ was making new and original games one after another. But it seems once the publisher (or the other, or both) offered them to make an add-on instead of a new game, half the team including the lead started an exodus. Harkback never made another good game ever, and neither did the lead with the exodus team. This is an add-on to Perimetr, so the core gameplay is still good. But you can see that without KranK even an add-on is not on par with the original. Because it's kinda a budget release. There are no new cutscenes, only bits and pieces of the old ones with cheap filtres. Story-wise it's a more focused experience following the Mechanical Messiah, so it's not as confusing. And is not as psychospheric, it doesn't even involve the player in its storytelling. The emperor has a new actor despite the story starting somewhere in the middle of the original storyline. I really don't like the insinuation that crispo were made by Mechanical Messiah, and therefore by humans. Instead of real aliens it's now a very small world and it's a predestination preqel once again. Also there's often no logic in do X but not Y tasks. Gameplay options are limited by the story, and are sacrificed to make the levels into puzzles. Due to the story you play most of the maps as the "emperor" faction, with occasional missions with the "exodus" tech tree. But almost all of them are super short. And these puzzles are a bit more advanced compared to how what i remember the original. But also they are short. The amount is solid but most of them can be rushed, so this add-on can be finished in a one half a day long session. There are versus maps and PVE maps, all of the latter only ask of you to defend for a couple of minutes. A half of the versus maps also only asks of you to charge up and leave through a portal. The last map is a tad unintuitive. The trick is to not to land at first. You make the labs necessary for underground units right under the mainframe, while building bridges towards the enemy's arms. Once you cut off the arms and take them for yourself — it's just a question of moping the enemy up. There are some new electric units and buildings, and they are pretty strong, but not as strong as underground units. And with you playing mostly with the "emperor" tech tree — nothing beats the suicide digger. Perimeter is one of the best games ever made, so it was a very engaging play session. But at the same time this is just more of the same and the storytelling is just inferior, despite being more accessible.

Ok, no offense to fans of the first game (of which I consider myself one) but don't play this, seriously. The mission design runs the gamut from bland to terrible, forcing you through ever more ridiculously stacked against you scenarios. I'm pretty sure the final mission isn't even beatable without massive cheese. The story is, well, utterly incomprehensible, and I say that having actually understood the majority of the story of the first game. It's totally disconnected from the gameplay too. And the constant combat alerts over and over in game, utterly infuriating "frame under attack", "Enemy Frame Under attack, Etc" pure nails on chalkboard. Seriously, don't even bother watching an LP of it, play the much, much better original game, of which you can find my full review here: https://youtu.be/AupJmfznA9s

A very good and unique RTS but NOT like the first! If you play this game first and you have NEVER played the first Perimeter please FIRST read the manual. You can also read [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/383854922/recommended/289440]here[/url] my review and [url=http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198120665353/recommended/289240/]here[/url] another one that is VERY helpful too. The game is very good in comparison with the first as a difficulty level and learning. This is the game that K-D LABS should propose as first instead of the original Perimeter that has a VERY difficult campaign and explains nothing. Here, as an expansion noone explains much either but ALL the campaign missions have tricks to be beaten. Really, in very few missions you'll need classic RTS gaming or vast armies. You can do with few and tricks. The story continues as the Steam description of the game writes. But the end was expected at some point. Human race will NOT survive after all those battles and a new Artificial Intelligence will be the NEW God. In "Nexus: The Jupiter Incident" we have the same ending but there is in good fortune as the new AI is the new God, a guide, but humans survive and expand. In Perimeter expansion human race has missfortune. "There is NO child of Earth between the worlds" are the words of the AI. The game is a very good experience as I said before. You have ALL the classic weapons, units and style of the first Perimeter but you have 3 more units that are based in a new lab, the Electric Lab. You'll like playing with maps in campaign. I liked it. The very BAD thing here is that the HeartBack faction is missing. HeartBack is included in story, NOT the story mode, JUST in story. Both in campaign and multiplayer there is NO HEARTBACK faction. So we have ONLY 2 factions, the Exodus and the Empire. The game story will be completed in 24 mixed campaign missions, so the missions are NOT organised as separate factions but like one story. The graphics are the same with the first Perimeter. There are fewer cinematics to none at all at some point. But the story is more interesting than the first game. The sounds are as Good as the first. you'll here some new but you'll not get stick with it much. After all those, I would say that you'll have to play it as a guide to learn the units and HAVE FUN, the one that the first game NEVER gave you. You'll have some fun with the new units as well. But as a multiplayer game I would choose the first because of the 3 factions and more complexity. Despite the great story mode I waited much more from the expansion. Something that could really change the experience of the game. So I will say that Perimeter: Emperor's Testament is a very good and unique successor RTS but NOT like the first!

Strategy game that really does it own thing, A.I. sucks after a while, but well its an older game. Would recommend playing this with people after you get to know the game. A bit more in depth: In Perimeter the most important things is your main building, to which your first energy nodes have to be connected, and energy. you build an energy network by building energy nodes, which will collect energy(only resource in the game) for you and allows you to build other buildings in an area around that node. Every energy node has to be connected to your main building or another energy node that is connected to your network. If a piece of your base becomes unconnected it loses power and all buildings and nodes in that area become unpowered(neutral) this allows you to steal portions of your eachother's base. Energy management is key to this game, because almost every action will cost somewhere between a bit and alot of energy. Luckily you can also create a rainy day fund by building energy storing buildings. Terraforming is the next important thing in the game. Sadly you can't build your own worlds. But if you want to build somewhere in Perimeter you need to make that area to "zero layer" (flat) ground. The closer the non-terraformed land is to zero-layer the faster it goes. You also can't extract energy from non-terraformed ground. You get 5 units that can terraform OR build. which gives you the choice for faster terraforming or building. Terraformed land can be destroyed again by any sort of explosive which leaves a crater that will slowly destroy any buildings on the now non-terraformed land, which could cause your building to blow up and leave another crater, which could cause buildings around it to be destroyed (and a chain reaction if you built all your buildings next to eachother). In Perimeter you don't just build units and attack. The focus lies more in attack with your base, by building your network towards eachother and start firing some howitzer turrets to destroys eachother's base and land. attacking weak spots of the enemy with units or just sending wave after wave on a spot you know is not going to hold forever. You also get some special units, like an unit that can steal energy from the other, one that makes your units (except the unit himself) invisible or a few that can ruin terraformed land in a few ways. Units fill more a support role or raiding role in this game for me, Turrets are your main way of attacking/defending. and the two factions each get a special turret (bit superweapon-ish but not OP, also costs alot of energy to charge) Another important thing about units is they can transform into other units. How does this work? you have 3 basic units in the game: The soldier, the officer and the engineer. all other units are composed of a combination of these 3 units, example: 6 soldiers, 3 officers, 0 engineers. This allows your units to transform on the fly if the need arises(altough it leaves your units exposed while the transformation happens). Or change the units later into something else when you have better laboratories set up. If all hells breaks loose and an area needs just that few extra seconds for your turrets to finish building and your force to arrive, you can throw up your Perimeter shield. The shield is indestructable but it drains your energy. Every energy node has the ability to throw up the Perimeter shield around the area of effect of the node and it will protect all buildings in that area of effect. Connected nodes will connect their shields. You can activate the shield individually per node or press Enter to activate all. You win the game by destroying or capturing your enemy's main building. NOTE: it took me a while to know how to capture a base. Some campaign missions ask for it and they don't tell you how to do it ingame. you have to build an energy node right next to the enemy's base and let his main building take off in the air. (destroy the ground under it so it takes damage) It's a bit annoying but you'll find out :P) Awesome Game for being something different even after 10 years. 10/10