I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, though: Endless Space inundates its players with options from the moment they choose to play. Races have an alignment, on the axis of 'good' to 'evil,' but this only seems to marginally affect how they interact with each other diplomatically, with no greater narrative to explore. I may have been hallucinating, but I'm pretty sure the amoeba-like race got the entire galaxy map unlocked from the get-go rather than having to explore it star by star. There's no campaign mode or anything like it Endless Space provides multiple races with distinct backgrounds, which hint at a deeper storyline, but in the game your race is only functional in that it comes with certain technologies unlocked and is geared toward a different play-style than others. Before one can play, though, the game must be configured. I figured, worst case scenario, I'd restart and try again. Thus, I jumped into the game without a safety net. The same applies to Endless Space's manual, which provides a little more information, but is largely useless without time invested in trial and error in-game. I'm not ignoring the tutorial system-it's there, and they pop up almost incessantly if you have them enabled, any time you want to do anything new-but they're kind of just information dumps, most of which won't be relevant without the context of having actually played the game. So, my observations as a neophyte to the genre: Endless Space does not have a gentle guiding hand. I haven't played a true 4X game (having used that term twice now, let's define it: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate), not since the old days of Master of Orion, and I'd barely even consider what I did with those 'dabbling,' much less 'heavily investing my play-time in them.' It's not that I didn't enjoy playing it, but I didn't really have context for what to expect from it. Imagine my frustration, then, when Endless Space landed in my lap and I was told, 'Okay, review it.'

I'm far better at tackling things linearly, proceeding from one obstacle to the next and surmounting them in turn. I've never been comfortable thinking on that large or broad a scale or multitasking with that degree of efficiency. Don't get me wrong I love attempting to play in-depth strategy games, especially if they're turn-based, but it's just that: an attempt.

Endless space disharmony cheats