“Offworld Trading Company” (Early Access)
Early Access, Shmerly Access!
I know, I know, we are all getting tired of Steam Early Access games. Too often the developers release a game into this state to generate a cash flow while gaining an audience of (seemingly) devoted beta testers! Sometimes the games are just broken beyond belief, other times you wonder why they are in early access at all. This, thankfully, is the latter.
The first impression I got from this game while moving through the tutorials was that it was going to be easy; that was up until the point that one of the AI players detonated an underground nuke in the middle of my big cluster of buildings. Oh, now it is on.
This brings me to my one and only real gripe with the game; I hadn't really had the whole espionage aspect explained before the AI started bombing on me. There is a whole aspect to the game where you can deploy different subversive measures to slow down (or even destroy in the case of dynamite) your opponents buildings. Luckily later in the game, when you are playing against AI at least, they tended to target each other and leave me out of it.
One thing you really have to account for is that once your 'claimed' a tile on the map, it is yours. Removing the building that is on it doesn't give you a new claim, you can only build another building over that same tile. That might seem all fun and good, until you find yourself out of water late in the game and having to buy it.
Some tiles are just regular tiles that can hold anything, while others have specific resources under them. You can place buildings like food, power, and fuel generators anywhere (even on a water tile, for example), but other buildings like metal mines and water pumps have to be placed on their respective tiles. This usually isn't a factor early in the game, and when you are placing a tile that requires a specific resource the game draws lines from your base to those tile locations supposing they are not immediately visible from where you are.
Another thing you have to look out for in playing this game is both clumping your buildings together, and spreading them too far apart. The former leaves you vulnerable to attack, while the latter means that the transports are going to take longer to get to your base and deliver their payloads. The attacks come in the form of underground nuclear detonations that freeze your buildings and stop them from producing, but can also show up as dynamite explosions that render your buildings inoperable.
This is one of those games that leaves you frustrated beyond belief, but eager to come back for more. In the game I just played, I noticed that the computer opponents were buying up my stock rapidly (signalling my game over condition), so, as any sane and normal person would do, I scrapped all of my buildings and spent all of my money; driving the stock prices of Aluminum through the roof, the back down through the floor. If they were going to take my company, I was going to make sure it wasn't worth much!
Offworld Trading Company is being developed by Mohawk Software (headed by Soren Johnson who worked on "Civilization 3 and 4" with Firaxis Games), and published by Stardock Software ('nuff said). It is available on Steam Early Access for $39.99, but is currently subject to a 10 percent discount. Grab it up while you can!
Pros
- Non-violent (for the most part).
- Gorgeous graphics.
- Familiar game play.
Cons
- AI starts cheesing you before you know what to do about it.
