Pandora: First Contact

« Pandora: First Contact does a good job in reviving the classic Alpha Centauri, though it lacks some personality to reach the same level. »

« Pandora offers a stiff challenge, and will keep space-faring strategists happy until Civilization: Beyond Earth breaches the event horizon later this year. »

« Pandora: First Contact delivers very decent spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri, but it unfortunately falls short on some aspects. It needs more focus on the story, diplomacy and the endgame in general. [Jan 2014] »

« Pandora is a good game in its own right, but falls short of recreating the philosophical implications and sheer depth of Alpha Centauri. »

« Developed by a small indie-studio, Pandora: First Contact lives the spirit of classic 4x-games, namely Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. The gameplay is fluid, the mechanics well done. Though it’s not that epic and complex like Civilization, it’s fun to play. Overall it’s solid, but not a real long-time-challenging game, because there is a lack of variety concerning the six factions and the small tactical possibilities during the battles. »

« A solid, fresh and addictive empire builder that is well worth playing for fans of the genre. But it needs more life and dynamic events, especially towards the end. »

« A space diamond in the rough, Pandora may not get everything right but exceptional combat and city management shines through. [Feb 2014, p.86] »

« Despite of its bad balancing and badly-arranged gameplay Pandora: First Contact is manna from heaven for gamers longing for Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri 4X's successor. However, this sci-fi strategy game lacks in balancing along with user's comfort to be truly excellent. »

« Pandora : First Contact was on my wishlist for a long time, and it was a pleasant surprise. It took me a while to figure out how the underlying system works (since there is no manual) and test different strategies, with different factions. This systemic exploration was fun and my first military and scientifc victory really felt great. Unfortunately, even if I find the micro-management of units and cities during the early game is really engaging, past the Messari invasion, most of the progression is mostly "+ something" or "+ %" hitting "End turn" many times because I don't have to move units anymore, cities are on autopilot and everything works as planned. So after 100 h I can see this game as a nice 1 to 2h engaging early game trying to beat you own achievement, but not that rewarding during the mid and end game (that's personal). And raising difficulty will just give the IA more potency, but won't make it "smarter" actually. »

« I bought this game with such hope and excitement, only to quickly relise that the replay ability is lacking, the tech tree is the most confusing thing i have ever seen and is not helpful at all, and that the game play is weak later on in game. If you want a game like this then go buy Sid Meirs Beyond Earth, it is better in every way, encounters are interesting, game play is varied throughout and i thoroughly loved that game. This game was so unmemorable that when beyond earth came out i completely forgot i had it. I know that a lot of time was put into this game and i hate to just slander it like this but it is just a bad game, and it is definitiy not worth any money. Please look at reviews before you buy this game as i regret my purchase. »

« Pandora Provides everything I've been waiting for in a strategy game and nothing I haven't. And for those who say it's too easy, turn the Aliens to Extreme and the AI to max diff and see if that makes a difference. The only complaint I have is that the AI don't seem to have much personality either built into their behavior, their technology, or their landscaping. For example, when I play as the Tree Huggers (Terra) I building nothing but tress across my landscape, but because I get a Min bonus from forests it actually works amazingly. The AI doesn't seem to do that at all. A GREAT first attempt at a game for a brand new gaming company, the foundation of their game is really great, they just need to add a lot of flavor to the mix, the aliens are really neat also, although I think we all agree that we would like more variety, maybe get an expansion out with a playable alien race or two? Maybe 10? Anyways, great game. Thank you! »

« Overall, a soulless and bland rehash of Alpha Centauri that won't last nearly as long. I did like the gameplay innovations like a worker only harvesting a single yield type from a tile, and global resource stockpiles; these were surprisingly fun and sensible deviations from the Civ standards and made the game as a whole more interesting. I also liked the initial struggle against native life, but it becomes irrelevant pretty soon, even with the expansion and even on the hardest setting. Artwork like the unit models and leader portraits get old really fast. The story is very lame, the leader backgrounds are exaggerated and annoying stereotypes. While this game directly copies the personalities of Alpha Centauri's faction leaders, it changes two non-white leaders to Caucasians (Morgan→Preston and Santiago→Heid), and drops another non-white (Lal). For such a similar game, this change from 3/7 to 5/6 white characters is very obvious, and I can't think of any excuse for this other than blatant racism on the part of the devs. Finally, victory was unrewarding and lacking. No end game cinematic, no replay, not even a high score table to make my playthrough memorable. Entertaining for maybe one or two games, but too empty and disappointing to have real replay value. »

« i feel i will be very unfair. When i played this game, i "felt" like i was playing a mod **** game - and i could not shake the feeling that it was "only" a mod. Now - that does not necessarily mean that a mod is generally less than the parent game, but it does mean that one often has the feeling as if a mod is mostly cosmetic, rarely shaking the foundations of the game it was built on. And that is my feeling with this game. Even after so many years - Alpha Centauri .... IS clearly the better game in ALL - but graphics compared to Pandora. 3 points for effort, 2 points for dedication - 5/10 in total from me. »

« This is a very strong game for people who like this genre. It is not flashy, and likely won't win and converts from people who like FPS's or whatever like a Ci might. But for people who like 4X and/or liked Alpha Centauri this is a lovely entry into this space. It is well worth playing a few campaigns to explore the solid mechanics and interesting if familiar story. The writing is good, and the graphics while not spectacular are totally sufficient for this genre. A solid B+ IMO, but I am also a stingy grader. »

« It's a great game if you can't deal with SMAC's atrocious GUI and getting hyped for Civ:BE. But it also has a great potential to be a GOTY if the game ends up having better production values, better unit distinctions, balance tweaks, and a better narrative. »

« To all turn-based strategy, 4x lovers (such as myself), I highly recommend this game. It's the best thing out before the release of Sid Meier's: Beyond Earth. Anyone who is wondering what this game is like, I'll give you a brief idea on what it is like by saying that it feels like Civilization V with a few major differences, such as: 1. Random tech trees for each faction - you also discover new technologies after every era you pass through, to give a sense of wonder of the future 2. Unit stacks - infinite number of units per tile; like Civilization IV's stacks of death. The game has actually balanced it so that attacking with stacks is less beneficial; bombardments hurt all units within a stack, flanking (putting units next to each other in separate tiles) gives an attack/defensive bonus. 3. Customisable units - yes, you have a unit workshop and can fit different weapons/bonuses/abilities on them. There are a lot of different chassis to research (e.g. infantry, fast-attack vehicle, tank, watercraft, and more). 4. Planet wildlife - at the beginning of the game, they are not hostile. However, the wildlife can get more and more aggressive if factions fight against them, or produce a lot of pollution. They may then become the equivalant of barbarians, or even worse (if aggressive enough, they can launch a full-scale invasion on humans, threatening everyone. It could prove to be a good tactic, for militaristic players, to annoy the local wildlife so that peaceful players are threatened with annihilation). There are multiple types of wildlife, ranging from practically harmless little xenomorph drones to gigantic aquatic monstrosities. 5. City management - it works something like this; morale (happiness) is local, rather than national. Local morale has an affect on local growth, and local growth depends on whether or not you have enough food stockpiled (food pool is national). Growth is also affected by habitual space; if you don't have enough space, migration to other cities (ones which have more habitual space) will occur. Production requires minerals (also stockpiled nationally). If you run out of minerals, production will be hindered but not stopped completely. Science is gathered normally (1 scientist = +1 science). There are buildings, natural resources and tile improvements which produce percentage increases and/or a small increase in that stat. You can also move your citizen's roles (there are four roles; farmer (food resource collector), miner (mineral resource collector), worker (city producer) and scientist (science producer)) around manually, and they will automatically go to the highest yielding tile. There are other factors as well (such as wars, pollution etc), but that's just the gist of it. 6. Alien invasion - around turn 200 (normal pace), an alien force (size depends on how difficult you set difficulty level/alien aggression level) invades the planet and the world has to rally together to fight them off. It's a nice twist and a breath of fresh air, especially if the local wildlife is almost extinct by that time or if you have been playing a peaceful up until that time. In addition, the game's presentation is very nice (introduction video, graphics, artwork, quote voice overs), soundtrack is great, UI is intuitive and smooth, optimisation is smooth as well; never lags or crashes (runs a lot better than Civilization V). The game is, amazingly, roughly 500MB, so it's a very fast download. What can I say which is bad about the game? Well, currently, the game has more focus on combat than Civilization. The game still needs, in my opinion, to add more content which aligns the player to a more non-combat style of gameplay (e.g. something similar to culture with wonders). There are multiple victory conditions other than conquest, such as economic and research victories, but it'd be nice to have more. There is also no indication of how far ahead you are when compared with your opponents, until the last few turns before your, or your opponent's, imminent victory, warning the player. The good news is that the developers have pledged to add more content to Pandora: First Contact, maybe in the form of expansions, if it proves to be successful. So far I think the game has been successful, hence the Steam release (the game was released months before Steam). For people hoping this to be the next Alpha Centauri, I wouldn't get your hopes too high. The game is good, and it is very similar to AC in some respects, but it's not exactly the same (e.g. no mind worms). Judge it for what it is. I played a lot of AC back in the day, and I thoroughly enjoy this game for what it is. If you're still not convinced, or somewhat unsure whether or not to pay for the full price of £22 or $36, just wait for the eventual sale. I'd definitely call you a madman for not getting it then. »