The Earth lays devastated from an attack by an unknown alien force, millions died in the last stand. The only survivors of the human race are pulled through a wormhole to an unknown region of space, alone and vulnerable. With few ships the survivors set about colonising close by planets, but the danger is still not past as the ships are attacked shortly after their arrival...

Legends of Pegasus is a new galactic empire building game for the PC, available via Steam, published by Kalypso. The game is a 4X, which means that the focus is on eXploring, eXpanding, eXploiting and eXterminating.

The game is a mixture of colonisation, resource building and military expansionism. The game starts with your arrival in a new star system and the immediate attack on your fleet. The first engagement is relatively automatic as you outnumber you opponent. The game takes you through the basic movements you’re going to need, before taking you through colony building.

Each colony consists of a number of squares, where you can place buildings. You also have the opportunity to place repair yards and shipyards in orbit. This phase of the game allows you to generate money which can be used for further colonisation, ship building and research. You will find that much of you time is spent flicking between the bigger picture of fighting battles, building more colonies and playing with the colony finances, all the time being under the imminent threat of attack. The game sports deep technology trees which allow you to mod your ships to your heart's content.

Earth-like planets are the easiest to colonise, but that doesn’t stop you terraforming unsuitable world, the game even shows the process. With a fully functional colony and shipyard you can start producing ships, which are highly customisable via the Starship editor. The action mixes turn-based elements, which cover moving your fleet, building the colony and research. The real-time elements are used during the space combat elements.

The galaxy is populated by three races, the humans, the X’or and another race waiting to be discovered, each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Visually, the game is a bit of a mixed bag. The colonies visuals look a little dated as do the cut scenes, the space battles and environment are stunning. There are a number of problems with the interface, the primary problem being the camera when trying to navigate space, you can zoom in and out as well as move by pointing your mouse at the edges of the screen, but the actual combination makes navigation difficult. The game also has a high number of controls represented by icons, however many of the icons do not have tags which accurately lets you know what they do. Still with a bit of practise most of the game's functions are accessible.

This problem with the interface meant that I could not work out how to repair my ships, which was a bit of a problem. The finances of the colony were a bit of a mystery as well and the first few play throughs I succeeded in spectacularly bankrupting myself.

The game has a single player campaign, which lasts around forty hours, as well as an extensive multi-player option. The game did suffer from a few bugs, on its original release and the version reviewed had a few minor ones, like the game getting stuck, temporarily, in a monologue. But thankfully the bugs are pretty minor now.

Although it looks great, especially the space combat elements, I found the navigation frustrating to use, which spoiled much of the enjoyment gained from blowing an enemy to bits.

6

Charles Packer