Amazons & Aliens (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.3 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Michael Ryan
• Reviewed on: 11/21/2000
• Updated on: 05/17/2006
• Released on: 09/30/2000
• Originally published on GameSpot: Amazons & Aliens (PC) Review

Amazons & Aliens tries to bring a sense of humor to the usually serious real-time strategy genre, but it doesn't quite succeed. The game isn't all bad, but its easy campaigns and straightforward, simplistic gameplay mean that it won't last you for very long.

Amazons & Aliens is a real-time strategy game that focuses on empire building - you build up a town full of specialized buildings and manage your population so that enough food and raw materials are available and in use at all times. The game pits three very different-looking races against one another: bikini-clad Amazons, blue humanoids named Pimmons, and an insectlike race known as the Sajiki. Each race is sufficiently different in physical appearance and building style, but each has access to the same basic technology tree, which makes them all virtually equivalent in how they play. There are a few unique buildings available to the different races - for example, the questionable Sajiki Hall of Orgies - but each building has a rougly equivalent counterpart for the other races.

The gameplay is fairly typical of the genre. You start out with a master builder and a pair of grunt-type workers who carry raw materials to each building site. When nothing is being built, your grunts can gather food from nearby bushes. If you want to do anything more elaborate, you need to build a school and train hunters, miners, woodcutters, and other specialists.

The 2D graphics are tile-based and are well detailed for the most part. In fact, the graphics may be the game's strongest point. The terrain is well done, and many of the buildings look interesting. The various units are easily identifiable. Some are rather humorous, such as the Amazon diplomat who struts around wearing a giant top hat and carrying a little black briefcase. But most of the animations are simplistic, and in some instances, the game could have used some more polish. For example, when a worker drops off some materials at a building site, there's no trace of wood or stone on the ground.

Continue reading