Grey Goo

Honestly this games feels unfinished. This game could have been the next Starcraft, but it feels unfinished. First it feels like the games story never got finished and the gameplay need more testing. The game has a terrible flow where you get intense action grinding to a halt because of resources. The one good thing about the game is the graphics and cutscenes. OTher than that this game is mediocre.

If only it had been grey goo'd.

Just no..

Crashed on 4th skirmish. You can't tell me that playing a skirmish battle against an easy AI 8 years after release should have any chance of crashing the game, at that point you just don't care about the game. I was planning to try out all 4 factions, but getting rushed with an "epic" unit (most powerful unit type in the game that suddenly cloaks from a defensive 'easy' AI does highly suggest that the developers have clearly no idea of what 'balance' is supposed to be. The unit play is not fun, you choose between 4 researches divided over 5 structures, for some reason your unit availability depends on how many 'upgrade' structures you can cram onto your production buildings. Building a base in the classical sense is limited depending on the faction chosen. Damage output is meh on most units, which I feel devolves into just spam something rather than making a unit composition. I do not like the hotkey system as they have it, in particular repair should not deselect after clicking on 1 structure. Even then building a unit should be 2 hotkeys (select factory => queue unit to build), not the 3 it is sometimes in this game. You'll hear me more often complain about bad "easy" AI's for the simple reason that 'learning' the game should be possible, even without a tutorial that tries to force you into re-learning the camera controls as so many RTS games do. Take the easy AI in CnC Generals Zero Hour, it sits there for 5 minutes before sending a few soldiers at you that can basically be stopped by a single base defense or vehicle. Compare that to a 15 minute 'Epic' unit rush in this game by the easy ai and there's quite the contrast. An easy AI should be easy, and feel manageable for a new player. It should not be a demigod. All in all I did not enjoy learning the mechanics of this game as I did with many other RTS's, couple that with crashes to desktop and I'll look for my rts fun elsewhere.

This is on my list of favorite RTS. It's based heavily on Command & Conquer which I need to look at some point. Grey Goo manages to have a good premise and voice acting (in a way that isn't ironic camp like Command and Conquer). The story kinda flounders at the end and the addtion of the DLC race sorta kills the suspense that was built for them as some unknowable and unstoppable threat that seemed to be what they were implied to be. I am a bit sad this game didn't take off but maybe it's better that the Devs are doing the whole 8 and 9 Bit Army series which scale everything down a bit as RTS just isn't a popular genre these days so the budget this game's development got is unrealistic even for the time it was made. If you want a more active playerbase I highly recommend those games instead. The Human, Beta, and Shroud sort of make up a Starcraft-esqe set of factions which manage to all feel similar but different. Beta are more like traditional human factions while Humans are more about drone armies. Shroud have some protoss resemblance with pylon like structures boosting how buildings work with a strong late game army. The most unique faction are the titular Goo however; their Macro is Micro because their economy is powered by their only building having to micro over resource points rather than gathering them by healing the building HP and healing by gathering resources. It makes them a really faction when compared to any faction from any RTS as finding them can be a challenge and keeping units next to mountains if you can't see both sides is a deathwish for opponents of Goo. I guess I should mention the downsides. The story was never really finished as an entire Faction never even shows up. The unit variety can be on the bland side as competitive balance was a heavy focus during the main development meaning each faction has very similar units with little functional difference until you get to the DLC units or a few exceptions on the Goo and Shroud. Also active playerbase is going to be low so keep that in mind if you want to look into PvP. One of the more popular Command and Conquer games/mods or 9-bit armies will probably be safer bets for consistent multiplayer and a larger playerbase.

So far SO goo

The only Command & Conquer game I would compare this to is Tiberian Twilight; slow, clunky and restrictive (you're limited to building in hubs rather than free building). It's closer to a knock-off StarCraft than it is to the likes of Tiberian Sun or Tiberium Wars.