Star Reach (also known as Space Federation) is a game that has you commanding one of the seven races that are at your disposal. There are a variety of maps to select from. Each one has different goals and differs in size (1-4 players) and difficulty.
You can choose if you want to play as a ship or a phantom. The ship mode allows you to get right in the combat while the phantom mode is more like a traditional RTS game that involves you having an aimer where you issue commands. There are pros and cons to each control type depend on your strategy. The ship allows you to help attack enemy strongholds, but you run out of fuel if you don't dock at friendly planets once in a while. The phantom allows you to quickly give orders to units and check on planets, but you can't help attack with your friendly units.
Basically, when you play the game you will have a certain number of planets and the enemy will too (depending on how many players are in the match). In the planet view mode, you can look at what is built, build a new building, check the economy, produce units, create trade routes, etc. You can produce a number of things including Satellite defense systems, troop transports (used to take over enemy/neutral planets), fighters, bombers and the like. In order to get all of these nice units in the production list, you must build another factory which, in turn, requires good economy and a lot of resources from the strip mines.
In most maps, if you destroy all enemies by capturing their planets, you win. The sound and music in Star Reach are pretty good. I find that the music gets repetitive and some of the ships attacking sounds aren't as fulfilling. Overall, I would say this game is well worth a try; me and my friend have had very long nights playing it as its pretty darn fun. Give it a try!
- Run STAR.BAT