OK!! this is what I signed up to the forums for... sadly its taken me about 4 days to actually be able to post, and now I'm going to be as active as I can be on here....
I think we can all safely say, that, we are hoping, and PREYING that this is going to be another SpaceRTS game like IG2 was.... Now, this post will be long and I apologize for that, but I'm so passionate about this game I have so much to say so I hope you all will bare with me here because this game could be one of the best things to come out to the PC gaming community for the best part of 10 years, so bare with me
Ok, Imperium Galactica 2 was simply the best SpaceRTS game of all time for a couple reasons, 1) you had some extensive ship customizations that had never been seen before in a game (at the time), 2) the planet interaction on the scale that was shown in IG2 had never been done before, and has never been done since!! This is one the most important game mechanics that was in IG2 without a shadow of a doubt! being able to zoom right down into the planets, build all the structures that we could, AND having a few tanks, and ground units to BOOT!!! to help defend the planets from invasion forces, this still has not been done to this very DAY!!! it actualyl BOGGLES my mind that not one single game since IG2 has come EVEN REMOTELY close to the complexity of this type of colonization in a SpaceRTS game in over a DECADE!!! 3) all the tech levels, back in the day, there was next to none in other games that had the extensive research IG2 had, and separated tech trees for buildings / ground units / Space units. Lets not forget the space combat as well, having to really think about how you were going to fit your ships, if you didn't, you'd loose them EASIERLY!! lol
These 3 elements combined into a truly immersive and fully interactive gaming experience left all other games in this whole genre to waste away. With more recent games such as Sins Of A Solar Empire and Sword of the stars 2, as fairly good games as they are, lack the depth, and feel that IG2 gave us. There is next to ZERO!!!! ............ZERO!!!! planet interaction at all... click something on a menu for a planet.. yay.. GREAT!!! there is no viewing right down into the planet surface.. manually placing buildings WHEREVER you want, and see it grow.. never lone all the weather conditions that IG2 had AS WELL!!! What sins does do well though is the combat, but for me, the mods are what make that game, the out-of-the-box gameplay is really quite dull without the mods, and what Sword Of the Stars 2 does well, is the graphics engine and ship designs, REALLY wacky, but so cool to look at, and the research tree is insanely complicated which is really awesome, but the gameplay again, so dull, lacking so much everything else and again missing any sort of planet interaction at all !!!
Now, I've been playing IG2 for a VERY long time, I believe I was the first one to play it where I lived at the time, and I remember me and my dad just in complete AWE over all the cinematics that was in that game, so well done for its time it took YEARS for anything to compete with those cinematics... I've struggled to get the game working on the newer OS's since windowsXP but the love for this game runs deep! i've always made it work somehow even on win7. I like to say its a game thats followed me since i was like 20 yrs old (now 32 lol) I was thrilled at that OLD IG III tech demo long long time ago before it got canned and then taken over, and turned what we all know as Nexus: Jupitor Incident. Was so bitterly disapointed with what happened to that. I've been waiting a very long time for something to come a long and re-do the magic and mind blowing gameplay of IG2 and now we are upto Stargazer....
I've read that Stargazer is more of a possible extension of the whole Imperium Galactica universe and all what it can bring, and I have to admit, this does scare me a little, because there is next to no really REALLY good SpaceRTS games out there, not really !!! nothing in the same league as IG2 is, even today, try find a game that had the planet interaction of IG2? you'll find none!! not even Hagemonia legions of Iron series even had that, and that was made by the same people!! A lot has to be said about IG2, but im scared and worried this is going to be another X3-Reunion game, or X-rebirth first person space shooter because this genre is just about to get completely full, last count there is about 6 of these types of games comming out, X-Rebith / Elite Dangerous and Star citizen just to name a few, and this type of game really isn't what I personally would like from an Imperium Galactica game. IG is a legend in its own right, it should stay as an RTS and bring in all what made IG2 so frakking amazing which even to this day no other game in the past 12 years has even matched half its gameplay.