Grey Goo

I really wish I could give this game a side-ways thumb. Did I enjoy the game? Yes. Do I think it's a good game? Yes. Would I recommend it to players looking for an RTS fix? No. Most AAA RTS titles keep players hooked with vibrant multiplayer content, or something like a 4x-style empire-building mode where you conquer your way across a world map (or galaxy map, as the case may be) Grey Goo... doesn't do that :B This game's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness: the factions are TOO unique! There is virtually zero competitive balance between races in Skirmish mode, and after you beat the Campaign (which is only about 15-16 mission long) there's nothing left to do EXCEPT Skirmish mode. In most RTS games, economy buildings and resource-gathering units are more or less palette swaps of one another - or if they're not, they're CAREFULLY balanced to ensure each faction / race gains income at the same rate for a given investment. Grey Goo LAUGHS IN THE FACE of that convention. The only way to realistically balance skirmish mode would be to specifically tailor each map so every race had their own unique starting location (which is basically impossible, since you can have any combination of races on the field during any given match) Traditional RTS games also ensure that unit and structure build-times are roughly the same across factions, but once again Grey Goo gives that the middle finger - the most extreme example are the Goo, which produce all of their units INSTANTLY, and the Shroud, who build units extremely slowly compared to everyone else. This segways nicely into the building mechanics themselves - every faction builds VERY differently from one another. *Humans - with the exception of Extractors and Walls, ALL of their buildings must be physically connected to their Core using Power Conduits. Conduits CANNOT be built on slopes or rough terrain, meaning on smaller skirmish maps it can be literally impossible for Humans to expand beyond their starting position, which is essentially a death sentence in RTS. On the flip side, they can build a wide variety powerful turrets to defend their bases with, and their conduits can be upgraded to deploy proximity mines, making humans very difficult to dislodge when properly entrenched with redundant conduits powering their defenses. *Goo - the Goo are on the opposite end of the spectrum - they don't build buildings at all! Instead you have Mother Goos, which are a mobile production / resource gathering / tech researching unit rolled into one. Mother Goos collect resources which they "digest" over time, restoring their HP. HP is expended to research tech and spawn off additional units from the Mother Goo, including additional Mother Goos (up to a limit of 12 mother Goos total). Other factions have no limit on the number of structures they can build, making it much easier for them to ramp up production early on and dig in and hold ground compared to the Goo. Oh, and the Goo don't build air units. Instead some (but not all) of their units can freely move across cliffs and other obstacles that other faction's land units need to path around. *Beta - the Beta are the closest thing to a "traditional" RTS faction. They use modular construction in that their production and tech buildings are add-ons that you build on hubs, but these hubs can be built anywhere on the map (they're literally flown in on flying construction cranes) giving them an amazing amount of flexibility. The Beta can't build turrets, but instead their walls double as garrison points for their units - a unit garrisoned on top of a wall DOES NOT TAKE DAMAGE until the wall is destroyed, effectively giving Beta ground units a massive secondary health bar. *Shroud - the Shroud combine the best qualities of all the factions. Like the Beta, they have no restrictions on where they can build (which is kinda busted, considering they can build turrets like the Humans can), and like the Goo, they don't have to worry about refineries or silos, instead having mobile Extractors that can re-deploy and refine resources on-site (they also move surprisingly fast when packed, meaning they can usually out-run incoming danger). Their only limitations are their relatively slow build times, and that their turrets and walls cost 1 pop a piece, (most units cost between 2-6 pop across factions, so 1 pop for a turret or wall is actually a steal) . TL;DR, playing Grey Goo is a lot like Bayonetta in Smash 4. It's a far cry from being fair and balanced, and whether or not you find it insanely fun or hella frustrating largely depends on whether you're the one dishing it out, or are unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end xD (Oh and if you do get the game, make sure you play through the Campaign before diving into Skirmish mode - it's the closest thing the game has to a proper tutorial, and has very solid lore for an RTS.)

Old school RTS game from the people who made Empire at War, Red Alert, and Command and Conquer. Horribly underrated gem of a game. Deserves much more love than it got.

Crashes, inconsistent/confusing UI, and a somewhat tedious campaign await you in grey goo. It does have some interesting gameplay mechanics for the less traditional factions in the game though, so could be worth a play around if you're a curious critter

I might be biased because I was the voice for some of the characters, but this is a really unique RTS with a great storyline. Quick to learn and tons of in game time to keep you interested.

If this game had come out in the mid-90s or so, it would probably have been much better received. Definitely not at the level of a Westwood or Blizzard type RTS, but infinitely more memorable than it is in the 2010s-2020s. The game itself tries so hard, but it's just bland on almost every level. The decision to start the campaign with aliens rather than humans was a risky one that ultimately doesn't pay off, because these aliens, the Beta, have absolutely no personality. You could replace them with humans in the story and absolutely nothing would change. The story itself is so incredibly sparse that I felt a sort of imposter syndrome on behalf of the game; I had no idea what was happening, figured I might have missed some important cutscene or exposition dump, only to go back and realize no, I hadn't missed anything, there's just barely any story there. I haven't yet got to the Goo portion of the campaign but the Human portion is exactly the same. There's nothing interesting going on yet tons of exposition is devoted to these bland talking heads droning on and on about something or other that all just screams generic cliches scraped together from a number of different scifi properties and mushed together into a familiar, but formless gray blob. So in a way, the story lives up to the game's name. As for the gameplay... It's just not good. It's not fundamentally flawed or awful, but it's just not good. The unit design is horribly uninspired, resulting in bland units with generic names like "Titan" or "Lightning" or "Hunter" or "Predator" or "Trident", and only 1 of those names I made up. They all look like a random assortment of shapes, so while you eventually get used to figuring out "Big triangle is good anti-armor" or "Little triangle on legs is good anti-armor", that's pretty much as far as it goes in terms of pattern recognition for these units. As well, every single unit moves painfully slowly, so when there's timed checkpoints or objectives on the map, it becomes incredibly frustrating seeing just how long it takes to do what should be simple things like reach a waypoint in time, or clear out all enemy units from a map. And despite going for a Starcraft-style 3 separate race gameplay with completely different styles and playthrough, they don't stand out very much. There's not much to actually build and not much to do in terms of strategizing. If it weren't for how painfully slow all the units move, each mission would probably take 10 minutes at most. It's really frustrating to see that a genuinely unique attempt at a new RTS just doesn't try hard enough. If they'd sold the game engine to some other IP like Warhammer it might have made for a fun game, but when the very base game foundation is just an exercise in "adequate", it doesn't really matter how much work gets put into the CG or the lore or the cutscenes. It just becomes bland, boring, and forgettable, and you get reminded of just how forgotten this game is every time you go to the main menu and see the long abandoned Message of the Day greeting you with "Message of the Day is currently unavailable" forever.

你官方没有汉化，民间做了汉化补丁给你补完，然后打了汉化补丁就被VAC直接ban掉，真有你的啊，八国语言就是没中文

To explain my problem with the game, I'm going to discuss the "not as succesfull as AOE2, Red Alert, Dawn of War, or Starcraft but still balanced" Age of Mythology as I feel that would be the most fair study as to why this game fell flat. AoM had a intertwined set of triangles throughout its unit. Infantry beats Cavalry, Archers beat Infantry, Cavalry beats Archers. Add to the Myths and Hero units you get Hero>Myth>Human>Hero. They even did the same with their naval combat. Not really extravagant, but it gave reason to mix units. Grey Goo on the other hand has only anti-infantry and anti-armor so all units are either armored or infantry. Every factions basic barracks (save for the titular Grey Goo) Start with access to cheap, quick to build light units who are one or the other, and for the price of a vehicle you could amass a squad of anti armor infantry. There is little to no reason to invest in heavier units. Also, since almost all units are ranged, aerial units make less of a difference in combat aside from ignoring terrain while traveling. AoM had only 3 factions in base game. Greek, Norse, and Egypt. Each faction had its own unique quirks and play styles. Greece was your generic but balanced run of the mill faction the only unique thing being citizens worshipping at the temple to generate favor points, Norse had it's soldiers build stuff instead of citizens while generating favor points through fighting, and Egypt had pharoahs who could buff buildings, heal people. and were hero units while generating favor by citizens building monuments. If that wasn't enough, as players upgraded to the next tier, they would pick one of two gods who had unique units, upgrades, and single-use powers. This produced a very unique experience and style between each faction, and the multiple combinations of gods and their tech trees/units allow for much replayability. Grey Goo also has 3 factions, but the Beta (Aliens) and the Humans feel too similar. With the exception of Human base building gimmicks, there just isn't enough to separate the two in terms of tactics. With a selection of only three factions to choose from, the differences needed to be more than what amounts to visuals. The titular Grey Goo is vastly different and possibly unlike anything i had seen. Homebase is a blob that produces units via mitosis and is completely mobile. This allows the players base to act as a barracks, gathering point, and unit all in one. rather than producing light or heavy units from a building the goo creates varying sizes of copies to form into whatever unit the player wishes. I'd argue the AI in both games feels basic, but AoM wins that one too because I can put my troops in formation and i never had a flying unit in that game think it was being blocked by a hill that a blob could crawl over. TL;DR For a game with only 3 factions to choose from and probably 9 units each, there isn't enough variation to justify putting thought into combat let alone replaying the game.

underrated