Millennium 2.2
| Developer: Software Studios | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Electric Dreams | Sound: |
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| Year: 1989 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Strategy | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
7/10 | |
All the predictions had been correct.
The 20 billion tonne asteroid had plummeted to Earth, smashing through its surface like a bullet through glass.
Thousands of tonnes of molten rock erupted and spluttered over the Earth’s oceans, vaporising them instantly. Winds raged all over the globe; ferocious, relentless, carrying great plumes of dust and debris out into space and across the surface. Shock waves ran across the planet, the Earth rang like a bell, as all life form ebbed away.
Civilisation ceased to exist…
The Moon, 2200 AD.
As Commander of Moon Base, you witness the event with an astonished gaze. You know the task at hand. With the rich resources of the Solar System at your disposal and a small research team on Luna Base 1, you must secure the survival of the human race.
Any Asimov fans in the audience?
The premise of the game is straightforward: develop a self-sufficient “foundation” on the Moon, build spacecraft, and colonise other planets. The execution is even simpler—no manual required (a relief, since the one provided does little more than add another page or two of melodrama). You learn by trial and error, clicking on icons and poking around the interface. Naturally, you’ll make plenty of mistakes during your first game, but since the commands are sparse and the game keeps you from skipping steps, the worst-case scenario is wasting a bit of time.
The first step is to power up the generator, which takes all of two clicks. From there, you’ll begin researching new technologies (more efficient power plants, spacecraft, etc.) and mining the Moon’s surface to produce the materials you’ll need.
Once you achieve self-sufficiency, it’s time to conquer the system! This involves launching probes into the solar winds to locate rare resources—or better yet, a new home for humanity.
My first and only real hurdle came before establishing my first colony. My ships refused to land on a planet without a base. But how was I supposed to build a base without landing? I thought I needed larger ships, but these required metals unavailable on the Moon—metals found on nearby planets. Yet to mine those planets, I needed a base!
The solution—or rather, the detail worth knowing—is that the only ships you start with (the “grazers”) are meant to mine asteroids!
Behind the facade of a strategy game lies something closer to an adventure, as every event is predetermined, and each “crisis” has only one solution. Freedom is limited, and the decisions you make are few. The experience relies on atmosphere and scripted twists that only surprise you once.
Ninety-five per cent of the game revolves around repetitive tasks, such as managing shuttle trips to transport resources back to the Moon. An automation system wouldn’t have gone amiss, though it begs the question: what would have been left for the player to do?
Also worth criticising are the unpleasantly shrill sound effects and a pitiful 3D minigame (I’ll leave it at that to avoid spoiling the story). The overall impression is similar to Oil Imperium: a faux strategy game—accessible but extremely limited.
Despite its somewhat tedious progression, I couldn’t stop playing until I had colonised all habitable planets and identified every resource deposit. That took me two short evenings, and now I see little reason to start another game. Adding an option to generate a random galaxy with scattered resources and unpredictable events—similar to Colonization (1995)—would have solved this. Still, one doesn’t expect pioneers to invent everything…
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