From: mmwang@adobe.com (Michael Wang)
Subject: Utopia Review (LONG)
Organization: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 21:23:17 GMT

I haven't seen any discussion of Utopia yet, and I know a few people
have asked about it so I thought I would offer my initial impressions
of the game.

Utopia is basically like SimCity with a military aspect thrown into
it. The basic idea is to colonize a planet and to achieve a 80% or
greater "quality of life" rating for your colony. Once you have
achieved this rating you have "won" this scenario (you can keep
playing if you like) and can choose another scenario to play.

Complicating matters is the fact that another alien race is also
trying to colonize the planet and will try to attack your colony
whenever they get the chance. Of course, you can do them same to them
by building tanks and ships to attack their colony.

The game mechanics in general are good, though the user interface
could use some work. For example, some actions are performed with the
right mouse button and some others with the left, and it gets
confusing to remember which one to use. The graphics are decent, but
the sound really sucks. The game could have used sound to give more
feedback on what was going on. Instead, you have some simple chimes
and explosions, even with a sound board. The game does have a few
minor bugs, but nothing that seriously affects gameplay. The manual is
decent, though the manual lookup copy protection scheme is more
obnoxious than usual since the pictures you have to match are hard to
differentiate (at least you get more than one try).

The playing field uses the same isometric perspective as Populous. You
build structures by picking the type of building you want to build and
then clicking on the map. Some scaffolding goes up, and after a period
of time, the building will be completed. There are a variety of
building types that you can construct including: housing, stores (to
store surplus food, etc.), hydroponics, life support generators (for
air), power plants, hospitals, laboratories (for doing research),
mining and chemical plants (for ore and fuel), shipyards, sport
stadiums, radar stations, and so on.

You start out with a certain amount of money to build these various
things and your money will increase depending on the tax rate that you
set and whether or not you are getting some support funds from Earth.
The revenue you generate from taxes depends on your population, so the
faster you can grow your colony, the more money you will get.

In addition to the basic things like having enough housing, food, and
air for the colonists, there are other things a busy colony manager
must keep track off.

Laboratories are needed for doing research. When you have scientists
working a lab and are funding them, they will periodically make
scientific discovers and breakthroughs expanding the types of
buildings and weapons you can build and also improving the quality of
the colony in general. For example, your scientists may discover a
better method for growing food increasing the food production of
future hydroponic plants. Or they may design a better tank for combat.

Hospitals are needed to keep deaths down and they are also needed to
control the population growth rate of the colony. Without at least one
hospital your colony will grow at a steady rate, possible outstripping
your capacity to support them.

Once the colony gets to a certain size, you have to start worrying
about crime. To keep the crime rate down you can build security HQs
and staff them with security personal.

Mines are needed to extract ore from the ground which is then used to
build tanks and/or ships. The ore deposits are scattered around the
planet so you need to first scout around to find a place to build a
mine. Similiarly, chemical plants are needed to extract fuel from fuel
deposits to power your ships. Without chemical plants and fuel tanks
to store the fuel, your ships will never get off the group. Also, to
build tanks and ships you need to build weapons labs to build weapons.
Tank plants will build tanks, provided all the necessary raw materials
are available, and ship yards will do the same for ships. In addition
to the tanks and ships which you can send to attack the enemy colony
you can also build laser turrets and missile launchers to help defend
your colony.

Now we come to the biggest gripe I have about the game. You cannot see
what the enemy is doing! The enemy colony that you are supposed to be
competing against is not even on the map. You can send spies to first
discover where the enemy is (which edge of the map they are off of),
and then later keep track of what they are doing to a minimal extent
(the spies will tell you what they are researching, how belligerent
they are, etc.). But you can never see what they are building, how big
their colony is, etc. Combat against the enemy is completely static --
you send your forces off the appropriate edge of the map, and some
time later you get a report back on how you did. However, when the
enemy attacks your colony, you do have full control over defending
your colony.

I feel that not been able to see what the enemy is doing takes a lot
away from the game. You lose the sense of competition since you cannot
see what he/she/it is doing (Damn! He built another shipyard, I better
get cracking on my air force!). Attacking the enemy colony also
becomes a crapshoot because you don't know what his defenses are like,
so basically you are attacking blind. Also, since the enemy is not on
the map you never have to compete for resources like ore or fuel.

Once you get the hang of building stuff to keep up with population
growth, managing your colony because fairly easy. The only tricky
thing is deciding how quickly to build up your military forces. Since
you can't see your enemy, this becomes guesswork, and probably the
most prudent thing is to try to wipe them out as quickly as
possible. So each scenario becomes, in effect, a race to destroy the
enemy colony and once they are gone, building up the colony until you
achieve the 80% rating.

I'm not sure who this game would be most appealing to. The hard-core
simulation fans will probably find colony building in Utopia too
simplistic. The military conquest types will find combat too
frustrating because of the complete lack of information about the
opponent. I don't feel that game has the same staying power as SimCity
or Civilization, but those looking for some "lighter" entertainment
may find Utopia appealing.

-- 
Michael Wang
mmwang@mv.us.adobe.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games