This is quite the harsh review

http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2014/09/12/wont-live-happily-ever-planetary-annihilation/

And has a lot of information wrong.

He doesn't know about PiP. He doesn't know that you can click on a notification and go straight to the event. He thinks that spherical planets means you lose "half of everything" and gain nothing. Somehow he concludes that you can't turtle, but it's a glorified city builder at the same time?

However, he has a lot of valid criticism. Online only, no saves, lack of tutorial, selling of commander skins (and not explaining that they're just skins), bugs, performance...

What's everyone's thoughts?

Personally I don't think it's a valid point when you're against the selling of skins.

That's completely opinionated.

It is a valid complaint when you don't know what the commanders do and buy one thinking you get a better commander, or don't buy one thinking it's pay to win.

But there was no indication, at all, that there'd be differentiated stats? If it did it'd give a little stat list on mouse hover surely.

He mentions PiP, and tiny "Little Prince" style planets do lose you 1/2 the map and gain nothing over a flat projection of a geoid. Wrap around is great, a mercator projection would get you the same thing and let you work with the whole map at once. If the planets were actually planet-scale, you would simply zoom in like you do in google earth and the map would be flat and large in an area. That's what I expected from PA. In the end we are working with a 2D projection of the spheres anyway, it's just a very inconvenient projection.

He's dead on with most of the review IMO.

After a glimpse of a few paragraphs, it's as if this guy NEVER asked anyone for help and based everything of past RTS learning.

I do agree that a lack of tutorial is hurtful which probably lead him to these misinformation. Hopefully someone will clear up his misinformations through a small comment.

There is no true way to turn a sphere into a flat surface without some form of distortion. With distortion, you cannot judge a unit's range, speed, and effectiveness.

If planets were actually planet scale, games would last a week and require a super computer to run.

It is simply impossible to turn a sphere into a flat surface.

Spherical gameplay is nothing short of awesome. So much better than a flat surface.

Remember when reviewers did their research?

Just comment on the review. Discuss OP.

His review is however making people shy away from the game itself, just check the comments

A lot of these "reviewers" are seriously getting out of hand with their stories

brian just make an account and very clearly and concisely explain what he got wrong and why.

Agreed, not to mention having to learn topography. I don't care what a couple players say, having to learn the topography of multiple planets on the go is a game breaker.

Seeing blob of icons moving to yours isn't all.

Just posted a comment that should hopefully set this guy's review straight.

That response you posted is about as inaccurate as the actual review... @Christer1966

I am a retard.

I still think torus is much better than sphere for RTS gameplay, it can be projected into a flat map perfectly.

A 1998 RTS game with torus map, notice how the minimap works:


Combine this with multiple battlefields in games like Metal Fatigue or Dragonshard, you bascially got what Uber originally was planned to do, before they gave up that plan under the pressure of the backers.

"perfectly" – you use that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means...

It distorts the map which means we can't know what what their ranges are. And when we have super small planets/asteroids, you can't convert it into a flat surface without major distortion.

What you're seeing in that game isn't actual spherical gameplay. It's a flat square where the map moves over to one of the other edges. That's two very different things.

This may help explain things:

He could have written a less scathing review, but he has one major point that rings pretty true: There's no in-game documentation, and no easy way to access a tutorial. There are no help tips save the standard tooltips either. I have to admit, if I were a total outsider and hadn't picked up the Beta, I'd be a little confused too.