Not the Star Ship I was Looking For
It took me a long time to get into this game and, after several days of play, eliminated it from my list of games worth playing. I was attracted to it at first because it was described as a 4X game of eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate which has always been my favorite sub-genre of computer games. The classic 4X game is Master of Orion 2. Other famous 4X games for the Mac are Civilization and Endless Space. Starbase Orion is another very good 4X game for the iPad and other mobile devices. Unfortunately, StarDrive 2 is more of a 1X game and concentrates more on the eXterminate mode more than the other three modes of game play.
I like 4X games because the player does not have to rely exclusivey on combat to win the game. True 4X games can be won by economic, diplomatic, and technologic means as well as combat. The multiple paths to victory make 4X games enjoyable for many repeat plays and gives the game a sense of reality as opposed to simple slash and burn. In StarDrive 2, it is only combat that is important. It is a cruel universe out there and all other aliens are your enemies and they will destroy you if you do not kill them off first. With this in mind, the game plays very well as a combat simulator but not as a true 4X game.
The heart of the game is actually the older StarDrive 1 in which you are tasked to design and build warships to fight and conquer every other alien species. This section is very good and relies on your abiiity to build combat worthy warships over the game's timeline. The other 3 'X's of this game are there but seems to have been tacked on to the basic game of build, hunt, and destroy.
StarDrive 2 is a graphical outstanding game and will you will see quickly that it is an excellent graphic upgrade of Master of Orion. In fact several parts of the game will remind you so much of parts of Master of Orion, Galactic Civiizations, and Imperium Galactica, that you would swear that you played some of these sequences before in those older games which are no longer available or playable on modern computers.
A manual is included but it is not downloadable. The included game tutorial is very good though often hides the game screen beneath it. Luckily the tutorial window can be moved which you will do often. Also, the instructions on game play is incomplete. Nowhere in the manual will you find out how to set the game play computer settings. One setting option that is critical is screen size. The game sets the screen to '1080p'. This is not an option for Mac users and it makes the game unplayable. However all you need to do is press the 'option' key on your keyboard when you start the game to bring up important setting options such as screen display sizes and mouse controls. You may have to fiddle around wih the settings to find the right ones for your Mac.