Cost: Free with an annual suboption of $ 17.00 USD / year
Modes: Two, Permanent and RLF (Real Life Friendly)
Style: Test-Based MMORTS (Massively Multiplayer Online Real-Time Strategy)
Final score: 4 out of 5
General description
Hyperiums is a space-based real-time strategy game. This is a game designed around the social aspect of online real-time strategy games. Although some will find mild success playing solo or hacking, as it is termed in the game, most players will belong to an alliance.
This game can be played at home or from work as there are no ads in the game and it is text based with very light graphics created by the game so there should be nothing to stop with traditional work filters .
The facts (we have a 5-star scale)
Graphics – 3
The simple fact is, this is a text-based game with virtually 0 graphics. There are some graphics of the space fleet scrolling in the background and the planet icons are simple but clean. The font is quite easy to read as a yellowish font on a dark background. Nothing is blurry or difficult to see. The only thing keeping this from getting a higher rating is the complete lack of actual graphics.
Repetition value – 4
I have been playing this game for six years. This game is NEVER the same day to day. You can be part of an alliance, you can commit treason and sell your alliance planet list (if you have access), you can try to be a peaceful merchant, you will fight in wars for territory, and the list goes on … The only thing that prevents you from this get a 5 is that if you are a warmonger, at some point you will get bored with the game.
Community – 5+
If I could give it a 6, I would. The Hyperiums community is unlike any other I’ve been a part of. They support and develop tools for the game and keep them up to date and are CONSTANTLY making some kind of improvements. Even the site’s author steps in from time to time and helps the developers with things. Please don’t get it wrong; There’s also a fair amount of whining, complaining, and calling on the message boards, but it’s all fun and it’s part of the game.
It is worth mentioning here that if you are not an avid mIRC user, you will want to play this game.
Mechanics – 4
The learning curve for this game is hard to explain (that’s why it gets a 4 and not a 5). It is somewhat difficult to master the game (not as difficult as saying EVE) but if you join a good alliance, you should be fine. This game is a real-time strategy game that is based on “time ticks” of certain events that happen every day at the same time (based on server time, of course). Once you learn them, the game will get a lot simpler.
The goal of the creator of this game is to create a permanent game that never has to be restarted. With that being said, in the time that I’ve been playing we’ve had 2 major restarts (not bad for over 6 years)
Feel- 4
The overall gameplay and feel of this game work well together, there’s really nothing about this game that makes it feel out of place or uncomfortable. It’s a fun place to play when you have 5 minutes or 2 hours to kill. As the game progresses, it takes longer. Once you get far enough in the game, it’s easy to spend 3-5 hours a day on this game, and sometimes more. This is for permanent play; if you can’t put in that much time, there is an RLF (Real Life Friendly) version of the game that moves at a much slower pace with more extended “time ticks”. Some people play both!
Personal impressions
As stated above, I have been playing this game for six years, so yeah, I really like it. We just did a hard reset of the game, so it’s a good time to learn as even veterans of the game have a few things to figure out again! I am not naive, this game is not for everyone; However, if you like politics, warfare, and strategy, this game is worth a try.
My only request is that you try it. Stay for at least 30 days to get a good idea! If nothing else, it’s a good game to play from work when your boss isn’t looking!
Starting
1. Start in a protected super cluster
2. Find an alliance to join right away