Sid Meier's Starships review

[Administrator]

Sid Meier's Starships shares one crucial theme with Civilization: Beyond Earth, the game whose story it loosely continues. Both titles hinge on a very simple idea, powerfully stated: the worst thing you're ever likely to find floating around out in space is another human being.
In many ways, Firaxis' latest offers even greater scope for our wretched species to express itself. Well, a greater stage, at any rate. Beyond Earth limited itself to the atrocities we might cause when scouting a new homeworld. Starships, however, throws open the entire galaxy. We're not finding out feet anymore. In fact, we've been granted wings. Cue gunship diplomacy. (Just me?)
Beyond that - and beyond a few themed unlockable treats - actual links between both games tend to be relatively cosmetic. Before you begin each match here, you choose from a familiar muddle of affinities and faction leaders, but they're all just starting perks, really, and while the game that lies beyond these choices is a turn-based affair, it's far breezier than Beyond Earth: a nice territory-capture strategy treat as you move between planets, a compact hex-based battler when you get into orbit around one.
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