Neo Terra

It's not often that a strategy game can be formulated into quick, easily digestible bites but Neo Terra manages to do that well. The basic premise is you have to conquer planets while your opponent(s) try the same. It's so quick paced that some games only last moments so your skills are constantly challenged.

While there's no online multiplayer there are enough offline options to keep gamers coming back for more. At 80 Microsoft Points ($1) it's difficult not to recommend it. For big fans of fast paced strategy games and a nice challenge Neo Terra is a no brainer.

Neo Terra is a strategy game that involves conquering neutral planets in order to use their resources to augment your own forces against an opponent doing the same. The ultimate goal being to take over all(majority) the planets.

Honestly this type of game is not my cup of tea but for someone who enjoys simple(to learn) strategic games it could be right up their alley. But for 80 points this is a guilt/regret free purchase for almost anyone.

I'll start off with the bad, because there's very little of it in this game:

1. I found the tutorial mostly worthless and it took me a couple times playing the game to really figure out what is going on.
2. no online multiplayer.
3. no story.

You probably noticed most of my "bad" points were me saying I'd like MORE of the game.

Now for the good:
1. This is a FAST and FURIOUS game. Some folks have compared it to Risk, which is reasonable. The gameplay is really quick and while it may look like a simple button masher at first, there are strategy elements to it and the game can go from easy to deceptively hard pretty quick.

2. This is one of those games that you can pick up fairly quickly and really get into. I just wish the matches lasted longer.

3. The graphics are simple but perfect for this type of game. The overall experience is very good and the game is quite polished.

4. The sounds are good as well, although the first time I enabled Solar Flares, the siren really freaked me out.

5. There are a number of optional game play enhancement options, including solar flare which I thought was pretty awesome.

All in all, for the price of this game (a measly 80 points) you really can't go wrong. It's quite a bit of fun.

Some great reviews of this already, so I'm gonna keep mine pretty simple :)

It's a fun real-time strategy game, where the object of the game is to conquer all the planets, turning them your colour.

First time I played, I had absolutely no idea what was going on :) The more I played it, the more I couldn't stop having "just one more go".

Another of those games you may struggle with if you are colour-blind, unfortunately :( and I wish there was a single-player campaign mode, rather than just choose your settings and battle. Or even just a high score board? But maybe these could be added in the future?

Anyway... for 80 MSP it's a bargain - recommended!

When I saw the first screen shots of this game, and even as I loaded it up, I rolled my eyes and thought it was going to be a gigantic time waster. I am glad I actually spent time with the game.

The game play is fairly straight forward - as time ticks up, each planet gains resources. The resources are translated in to ships that you can send out to try and take over other planets. If too many of your ships are out when your planet gets attacked, your planet can get taken over by an enemy.

Now imagine all of that, playing out in real time (turn based strategy is for the weak!), and it only taking a matter of seconds to win or lose a planet. A battle can last less than a minute, or several minutes. And that's what I love about this game.

Every time you play it's a new experience, even if the game looks and feels limited. It's very straight forward, but it is a game of skill, not just who can hammer the X button faster. It's about knowing if your planets need reinforcements, if the enemy has a planet that is weak and can be easily overtaken. It's about looking at the entire screen at once and knowing where to send your troops.

Graphically the game has some nice backdrops, but the ship sprites are a little juvenile. The sound suffers a lot from a very repetitive selecting sound being about the only sound you hear, but can be easily blocked out if you have multiple people in your living room battling for galactic supremacy.

If you're home alone, you may want to put on some music while you take on the five levels of artificial intelligence the game has to offer. From "Very Easy" to "Insane" the game offers a challenge for everyone. You can also take on the computer with different game modes, including a "capture the flag" like mode where the point is to overtake a planet at the centre of the map - all the while your opponent could be taking over your planets, thus having a larger fleet to send towards the "flag planet."

While there isn't much else going on in the game, it's really all you need from Neo Terra. The game's $1 price tag is a statement to that fact: this game is intended to be fast paced, hectic fun, and nothing more. And it achieves that in a way that is incredibly entertaining.

If the developers were to take this game and build a story line around it, it would be an instant buy for me. Battle it out in a "quick match" much like you have right now, then take a few moments to let a story unfold? A well deserved break from the frantic game play would be an absolutely perfect formula for Neo Terra 2. Here's hoping!

In Neo Terra, your goal is to move your fleets from their home planets to the enemy’s, and with each planet you conquer, your fleet grows bigger and bigger. Games are quick, and with up to 8 players (up to 4 players and up to 4 AI), ruthlessly enjoyable.

At the first glance, Neo Terra seems almost like a boardgame – you could certainly make a parallel to a game like Risk, where you have to simultaneously defend your realm of control while making headway into your opponents. Such an analogy is a simplification, however, as Neo Terra doesn’t stop the action until everyone else is dead – you don't have the luxury of a turn to catch your breath!

The gameplay itself is refreshingly unique in the XBLIG scene. Your planets continually spawn new units, and by selecting a planet, you can have units travel from it to another planet, either to reinforce or to conquer. Selecting and deselecting units is a cinch, although I did get the distinct impression that this game would have been better with a mouse. It’s a shame that the developers didn’t include some “hotlinks,” such as selecting only certain planets (ie: “All, Strongest, Weakest, or Under Attack”) with all those unused buttons on the 360 controller. It’s not too much of a gripe; I suppose an argument could be made that the game is even more fast-paced because of that omission, but the controls are certainly serviceable either way. To get used to the controls, there is an interactive tutorial that introduces you all the mechanics of the game in a painless manner. My hat goes off to mechaghost, because too often XBLIG games forget that strangers won’t intrinsically understand their game’s nuances.

While games are short and ruthless, you needn’t worry about repetition: Each game allows you to customize a variety of map features, which means that once you’ve grasped the basics, you’ll be picking this space gem up for quick bouts every time you need a fix.