Sid Meier's Starships

Technically disappointing, we expected more from this new Sid Meier title, but is fun, with a classic hex strategic gameplay.

More short-term play-friendly beast. [June 2015, p.78]

The first hours playing Starships is great fun, because it’s easy to get into and not that hard to learn the basics. After a couple of matches, though, it becomes obvious that the game is lacking complexity and depth, where it would be really needed: in tactical combat diplomacy and planet management. But even if Starships lacks long-term motivation, it’s a game you’ll be coming back to over and over again.

The enjoyment you'll get out of Sid Meier's Starships largely depends on your expectations. If you expect a game with the depth and engaging gameplay of Civilization you'll be disappointed, but treat it as an unusually deep and strategic tablet game and you will absolutely get your money's worth.

Sid Meier's Starships is a good strategy game with a strong combat system. But we miss more complexity in its gestion and diplomacy options.

Fast-paced and accessible are not words commonly used to describe turn-based strategy games, but Sid Meier’s latest is a fun, breezy strategic time killer.

Fun, quick and light strategy game, Starships is a great introduction to strategic gameplay or for those who don't have time for a longer experience. On its own, it feels shallow and lacks extensive replay value. Not suited to PC, I think Starships will do best on mobile.

Sid Meier's Starships is a good introduction to 4X games or a good way to entertain yourself during long trips. It doesn't have Civ's depth, but it still is a enjoyable game.

Starships is simple, slick, semi-strategic fun. It’s incredibly accessible and lacks the sometimes overbearing menus and micromanagement that can make strategy games dizzying and intimidating, making it a nice point of entry for those looking for a casual experience within the genre.

Sid Meier's Starships is a short and sweet companion game to Civilization: Beyond Earth that doesn't overstay its welcome.

A light and pleasant strategy game, with a slightly chaotic artificial intelligence and repetitive mission scenarios.

Sid Meier's Starships is a quick and quite entertaining turn-based strategy game. Perhaps it's the beginning of a new sub-genre that might be called 5X with a fifth 'x' corresponding to eXpress. It is often said that brevity is the soul of wit but any regular follower of the Civilization series will remain hungry for more. It just has to be seen for what it is: fast food or something to snack on between meals.

Even though the space ship combat is challenging and fun, I don't think it has a lot of long-term appeal. The supporting strategy elements in Starships are too shallow and there's no cohesive narrative holding things together.

If you normally struggle with the multiple complexities of a 4x strategy game, Starships is a great introduction to the genre.

The problem with Starships isn't its quick and light gameplay, which actually has some very nice design ideas. Its problem is a complete lack of balance and refinement: the AI is lacking, some mechanics are negligible and others are way overpowered. We expected more from a game with Sid Meier in the title.

Sid Meier's Starships is a light strategy games imagined for the tablet gamers audience. It's a good game, but not a memorable one.

The pace is a welcome relief from other Sid Meier games, and the ship customization is simple yet multifaceted. However, the game has severe tactical balance issues, and is lacking any multiplayer component.

Nothing more and nothing less than a porting from the iOS version. Buy it only if you have an immoderate love for Sid Meier.

Sid Meier's Starships provides a simplified, portable gameplay snippet of the series turn-based gameplay that ultimately makes it a difficult recommend for Civilization fans. While the game was clearly designed for a tablet, there is still some entertainment to be found in brief gameplay sessions.

Sid Meier's Starships lack of depth and features to really arouse the gamer's interest. Moreover the iOS origin of Firaxis's latest title really shows when you play on PC, and the result is unacceptable for any gamer that has played a real Civ game before. The game is still enjoyable thanks to a worth y gameplay, specially on a tablet, but the Sid Meier branding is more of a marketing trick than a real seal of quality.

It’s a nice distraction and even a good bit of fun depending on how much you enjoy space combat titles, but only if you go in knowing full well that this is a port a mobile game, absent of much the charm and detail we’ve come to expect from Sid Meier titles.

Every Sid Meyer production should speak to a very specific audience, but Starships is way to simplified to engage strategy veterans.

Although this is not a bad game, Starships feels like a simple version of Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations. It is fun to upgrade ships and fleet, but this is not an epic experience due to its small nature.

Starships is a small game. This in itself is not a problem as long as you do not expect a strategy monster the size of a Civilization.

Sid Meier’s Starships’ battles held my attention for a handful of games, after which point the tactical AI’s behavior became exploitable and the strategic layer became too muddled and unpredictable.

Overall, Sid Meier's Starships is simply too simple and bland to hold the interest of empire builders for long, and its best feature, the battles, is neutered by lackluster AI.

Connection to the Sid Meier's Civilization is just fake, this game doesn’t even offer any strategic orgies. Lower your expectations and you can have some fun making war not love... That counts, right? [Issue#251]

Sid Meier's Starships lacks depth and good graphics, but it's a fun turn-based strategic game that can be played for hours.

Sid Meier's Starships is a pretty good challenging strategy game, with tactical depth, but suffers from a lack of artistic ambition and a flat atmosphere that leaves one indifferent.

If you like those days-long Civilization sessions going through thousands of years of human development, the brief sessions of Starships leave you feeling like there's something missing – like you're eating a salad when you really want a hamburger.

Starships is, first and foremost, a mobile game. It’s way too simple and flat (in every sense of the word) for PC, but is OK for a tablet. [May 2015, p.72]

There are lots of things Starships does poorly, but at least as far as I’m concerned the lack of meaningful tech tree and shallow starship construction really don’t suffice in a game that, after all, has Starships in the title.

Starships isn’t terrible, but it isn’t the polished product you’d expect from a studio with Firaxis’ history. Comparing it to its full-scale PC competitors, like Endless Space and GalCiv is cruel, as it’s sub-par in every single regard: unbalanced, repetitive, badly explained, rather ugly, with a dreadful mobile phone UI, and buggy as hell. Even judged against Firaxis’ other mobile games, Civ: Rev and Ace Patrol, this is small and crude.

Hard to recommend over the far more accomplished "Beyond Earth." [Issue#160, p.94]

Rather than offering up a bite-sized entry into the somewhat intimidating strategy genre, Sid Meier's Starships serves up a half-baked entry that fails to provide much in the way of strategy.

Sid Meier's Starships is a strategy game for those that really don’t have the time it takes to learn complex mechanic. Sadly it’s lacking a good AI and feels a bit unpolished at the same time.

Had it been released as a good sized piece of DLC for Beyond Earth, it might have felt completely different, but as it stands I cannot help but feel a bitter aftertaste in my mouth.

There is no question Sid Meier’s Starships should have been much better.