Reviews// Etherium

If I discovered a magical space egg, my first instinct would not be to try and harvest it for energy, but apparently the denizens of the Etherium universe don't think like me and the battle to harvest the eggs has led to a galactic war in this new RTS.

On the surface Etherium seems like a fairly simple affair, the grown-up grandchild of the golden age real time strategies. There are base building and defending elements that, while different, are completely recognisable as being inherited from the likes of Age of Empires or Command and Conquer. At first play, it definitely feels like familiar territory. Click a unit, right click to move. Defend your base while trying to destroy your foes'. Strategically, it is a case of building more units and sending them to attack. Or so I thought. After my first disastrous attempt at playing it a more complex game was revealed.

Set in our far-future, the science fiction setting will feel tired to some: three factions of standard sci-fi fare (ultra-capitalist humans, fanatical aliens, mysterious insect things) are locked in a war for apparently the only resource in the galaxy: Etherium. Etherium is harvested from the eggs of ultra-dimensional beings who lay eggs once every so often on six sacred planets, beginning a hatching cycle during which everyone competes to harvest them.

The single-player conquest mode, as many strategy games are nowadays, is a blend of real-time combat and turn-based machinations. In each turn you have a limited number of action points in which you can build fleets, play politics cards or embark on espionage. Fleets have their own action points to be spent on moving, repairing, attacking other fleets (which, whilst being a valid tactic to prevent a foe reinforcing or invading a planet is sadly just a non-interactive animation) and invading planets.

The planetary battles are the meat of the game and each battle starts with your home base, where each of your units will deploy by drop-ship. Sadly, the difference between the three races here is only cosmetic, although there are specialist units, the actual gameplay is the same. Each map is divided into territories, each of which can be captured, some of which contain space eggs to allow you to generate the resources you will spend on buildings and units. Victory is achieved by one of two ways - either wipe out the enemy base or build a planetary canon and hold out long enough to take out the enemy fleet in orbit.

Each captured territory contains either an outpost or a colony, the difference being that a colony is larger and can therefore contain more modules. The modules are what adds a different tactical dimension to the game. There are a good dozen modules to deploy, some being limited in number, but each leading to a differing strategy. Building technology modules allows you to field better, stronger units, but without that space to build logistics modules, your force will be smaller until you gain more ground. Spaceports allow you to have more deployment zones, refineries give you more resources etc. Each territory can also house a number of turrets, (three or four depending on the map) of which there are six types. Whilst these can often prevent the one-unit attacks the AI is very fond of, don't rely on them to repel anything bigger.

Each conquest game has three phases, each of which has the resource-eggs behaving differently; during the hatching phase the eggs will randomly appear across the map (although with no snap-to events ability, figuring out if they have appeared in somewhere you own can be annoying.) During the gestation phase nothing in particular happens, and during the hatching phase some of the eggs can't be used. This does create a distinct difference in combat styles throughout the games - in the laying phase you are far less bothered by losses and far more likely to build your defences. The lack of Etherium in the hatching phase means you are pressed to lose and build as little as possible.

Each planet in the game (of which there are six) has its own distinct look and feel, from lava planets to ones ravaged with sandstorms or EMP-storms. Each planet has it's own different ecological hazard, from Mars' sandstorms to the ice planet's blizzards. They can change the terrain or area of combat drastically. If a sandstorm rages through an area you're defending, your soldiers take a big hit. Arctic blizzards turn water into solid ice, opening up new avenues of attack.

Lastly, you have a number of abilities or “special commands” that you can deploy on the map during combat using action points that slowly build up throughout combat. These include things like planetary bombardment and speed or shield boosts. Ultimately, they are not altogether that useful and are merely annoying when deployed against you.

All this means that actual unit-to-unit combat is a fairly dull, unimportant affair. Pushing out from your base, establishing a front line, building forces and pushing out again is the name of the game. There are epic opportunities for rush tactics, of which the AI unfortunately does not take advantage.

The game feels like it could have accomplished so much, it has many great ideas that work quite well, but ultimately while it seems like that friend from your past has grown up, it really is just a façade.


Pros:
+ Some interesting new ideas/approaches to a familiar genre
+ Good looking factions and combat
+ Pace changes during the egg phases
+ Good opportunity for competitive mulitplayer games

Cons:
- Poor AI (enemies often attack fortified positions with just two units)
- Lack of difference between factions beyond cosmetics
- Tactically shallow at times
- Clichéd and overused faction backgrounds

SPOnG Score: 6/10