Eufloria Review

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NOTE: This review was written by me and is posted on a few other sites. However, please refrain from copying it yourself and posting it elsewhere claiming to be the author (that's called copyright infringement) as it takes me time to review a game. Thank you.

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My experience with Indie (Independent) games is not too well developed as I have only tried two from this category; World of Goo and Cogs, both are very well made games so therefore I decided to give another Indie a try, this time I went for Eufloria (which was not review at the time I purchased it). I have to say that I was impressed, but also a bit let down.


Graphics:
This game definitely deserved to be a finalist in the Vision Award given by Direct 2 Drive. It has a unique look that makes it stand apart from all other games in it’s genre. The soft colors, smooth animations, ambient music and sound effects all perfectly come together creating a well developed environment in-game, all this along with the simplicity of the game make it a very appealing palette to the eyes and ears. I can boldly state that you can take a screen shot of just about any part of this game and use it as your wallpaper, especially when you’re zoomed into a planet teeming with ‘seedlings’ and trees, it's just that beautiful.

Gameplay:
Eufloria is an RTS (Real-Time Strategy) game set in space; it places you in charge of a colony of seedlings (flying flowers that also act as seeds) where you must conquer asteroid after asteroid (which really just look like small and big planets) while conquering other colonies. Eufloria is more of a slow RTS with some Risk similarities than your typical RTS where-in you must rush to build and get units. The actual gameplay is quite simple; you have a few selections of trees (which are your unit-building-facilities) and a nominal variety of seedlings which vary depending on the type of asteroid you’re ‘growing’ your trees on. Gameplay can be a bit repetitive but I found it to be entertaining nonetheless since each level is a bit different with it’s goals and the layout always changes every time you play a level. That brings me to another point, the storyline.

Storyline:
I actually liked the storyline, it was simple but blended well with the aesthetics and theme of the game. Nothing mind-blowing or even as good as the World of Goo storyline, but acceptable (especially since we’re talking about an Indie game).

Dislikes:
When you first click on the campaign you are shown and are given the ability to play all 25 levels (all unlocked), I would prefer for the levels to be locked until the appropriate progress is made, I have to scroll all the way to the left to finally reach the first levels, which is annoying to be thruthful. Also, I was let down by the lack of ANY upgrades. It is a simple game but there was definatly a lot of ground that could have been covered.

Summary:
Overall, I was impressed by this game as I did not expect as much from it (especially the gameply aspect) and would recommend this game to anyone looking for a fun and beautiful – yet simple – game to play. Word of warning though: this game is slow and probably not for a hardcore gamer.

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Feel free to reply with your comments, suggestions, and disagreements!