Minimum System Requirements
DirectX 9.0c compatible computer
1.0 GHz Processor (Pentium III/AMD Athlon)
256 MB RAM
32 MB 3D card with Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) Capability
8X Speed CD-ROM
100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Test System
1.84 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2500+
1 GB of Dual Channel RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro w/128 MB RAM

Installation

I purchased this game on Feburary 23rd, the Thursday it was released. As delivered, it's a mere 2-CD set which doesn't take very long to install. Installation, however, was problematic for me. As with many DirectX games, I was forced to re-install DirectX even though I confirmed that I had the correct version already installed.

After my install, I ran into errors saying that the game couldn't find the original CD. Scratching my head, I struggled with this for a while and ended up doing a complete reinstall of the game, thus solving my problem. Brand-new games often have initial issues and I tend to give developers the benefit of the doubt; at least time enough to bring out at least the first patch. Quality assurance isn't what it used to be anymore, but luckily by the Saturday after its release, the second patch came out that significantly improved my overall experience.

Initial Thoughts

The Galaxy View ... integral to your plans for total domination!

The layout of the game is intriguing, including a space view comprised of the many systems of the "Galaxy Far Far Away." You move your fleet into position about a particular system and engage the enemy in battle. Once the space battle is over, you move in for the ground assault. This makes sense intuitively, but control of the Galaxy view was a little kludgy despite looking rich and attractive. Zooming in on systems behaved in a peculiar manner: A little "+/-" sign in the far left bottom of the screen toggled the planet mode. I fumbled with this and was frequently frustrated by apparent slips of my fingers.

Being a musician and a touch-typist, I was disappointed when my confusion resulted in an accidental battle which I wasn't prepared for. I moved some units to an enemy planet and lost them all because I couldn't cancel the attack. Like any strategy game, one has to expect these initial setbacks while learning the game interface. An intuitive interface is, however, crucial for game performance and should not require the user to spend time consulting the manual and I have to take off some points here because I think more attention could have been placed on making things easier for the neophyte gamer. After fumbling around for a game or two, I began to get swing of things and set off to conquer the galaxy.