Light of Altair Review

Light of Altair is an excellent video game for the $15 they're asking for this entry level economic strategy game for the PC. The concept for this video game is excellent but a little shallow in parts and is an excellent video game for casual gamers to introduce themselves to the genre. Hardcore gamers will be looking for a little more depth and detail after playing Light of Altair but even they'll be entertained for a few hours.

Gamers who love to expand empires and explore will love constructing colonies on planets and building up the resources they need and using those resources to build fleets of ships to take into battle. Light of Altair isn't as combat heavy as other video games in this genre. It uses a concept that's closer to Anno than Sins of a Solar Empire. The combination of game play types is well balanced and provides you with a nice variety to keep you entertained and the game play fun. There are no tactics used in the battles, so your fleets meet and the one with the higher numbers generally wins the engagement.

Light of Altair eliminates the necessity for deep consideration about how to set up your planets. This lowers the depth of this video game and makes the game play and concepts of this game easier to pick up for casual gamers. You don't have to worry about grabbing the mountains or desert to get a certain resource for trade or placing a city to block a rival's further expansion. What you add to your colony and how you grow your planets is more important in the game play of this video game.

Light of Altair includes a presentation that's not in the same neighborhood as PC video games like Sins of a Solar Empire or Galactic Civilizations. The ship designs are pretty basic and bland and they all look the same no matter what faction you're playing. Even on high resolution the textures of the ships and environments are pretty bad, but for $15 you can't expect a video game to look the best.