StarDrive 2
By Sarah Van Boerum,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Turn-based strategy explores space colonization, warfare.
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StarDrive 2
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What’s It About?
STARDRIVE 2 lets players use strategy to go on numerous campaigns, building and customizing alien races while using resources at hand to colonize planets. Much of the game is trial-and-error-based, so you must try different tactics to preserve your people while expanding your galactic territory. That means engaging in trade and diplomacy with different races while researching topics (food, man power, fuel, fleet resources) that prove beneficial to your empire. Battles will ensue, as it's impossible to keep the peace with other conquering civilizations, and fights break out over key planets.
Is It Any Good?
If you're into any type of strategy game, StarDrive 2 is right up your alley. The goal is to explore, battle, conquer, establish diplomacy with other races, and maintain life on several planets. Players pick and customize a race of people to traverse the solar system, using their home planet as a base where you use its resources to help you colonize other planets. That means figuring out the makeup of the world and whether it has the necessities to sustain life and keeping it within your borders to receive any bonuses from its settlement. Of course, you'll also need to build space fleets to protect your territory in combat, which takes time and know-how, since each portion of a ship has to be hand-picked and built.
StarDrive 2 has so much going on, and there are hours of gameplay in each aspect, from building and maintaining planetary life to researching scientific advancements to engaging in combat. Fortunately, the game comes with a tutorial and helpful hints to guide and provide detailed information during points of uncertainty. But we did find the game lagging during certain points, mainly during battles, which seemed to take a while to fight and finish; because it takes a lot of patience to direct your ship to fire at the enemy, fights can feel a bit slow and anticlimactic. But overall, once you understand the tactics and strategy of the game, it's all about staying one step ahead of your enemies as you continue planet exploration and diplomacy with other colonies. The nice thing about StarDrive 2 is that it's ever-changing, so you have to learn and adapt as scenarios change, making it a game that's not easily beat.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about space exploration and the vastness of the solar system. Do you think there are other galaxies beyond our own? Do you think there's life beyond our planet?
Discuss the mechanics and engineering necessary to build a space fleet. How much time would it take to build a single ship? What kind of features would you want to include on a ship you would build? Do you think it would be necessary to include weapons?
Which resources would you need to colonize a planet? Identify some qualities that make a planet habitable as well as some that make it uninhabitable. What are some resources that could be brought from Earth to help colonize a foreign planet?
Game Details
- Platforms: Mac, Windows
- Pricing structure: Paid
- Available online?: Available online
- Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
- Release date: April 9, 2015
- Genre: Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
- Topics: Adventures, Robots, Science and Nature, Space and Aliens
- ESRB rating: NR
- Last updated: November 24, 2019
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