Anno 2070 Collector's Edition

This game is great! I have ANNO 1404 and this one just builds where 1404 left off. Better graphics and interface, and the bonus materials with this set are beautiful.

This is a fine game, unfortuantly I had a number of problems from the start with ubisofts copy protection/DRM.

It's servers seemed to be down when after I installed the game, making my online activation and auto updating inpossible resulting in me wasting my entire night after work. NOT FUN. It also won't let me play in offline mode (when i click the offline mode option the game closes) which is annying as I like to keep my gaming PC off line as mush as possible.

This is extreamly annoying and greatly reduces my precieved value of this game (what happens if ubisoft abandons U-play and I wan't to play this game in 10 years-) which I payed good money for, thus as of today I will no longer be buying any games that require connection to the U-play system.

Sorry Ubisoft but when you treat your paying customers like criminals while pirates get a clean game without any DRM you deserve every lost sale.

Game itself is fantastic and has consumed many many hours much to the rest of the households disgust.
However as others have remarked the whole DRM/Uplay issue really drags it down as at times it's ridiculously difficult to even play the game.

I would like to begin by saying that the game itself is most definitely five stars worthy, however Ubisoft has screwed it up by integrating Uplay.

<Rant> I understand having to activate the game before playing it, that is just part of playing games on PCs nowadays. But it had to update itself first, a 500mb+ patch that constantly dropped out on my connection. After downloading it elsewhere the next day I installed it, then had to wait for Uplay to install and update before I could finally activate it. The other day I was trying to play it while the servers were down for maintenance (which I only found out through Google). So I clicked Play Offline, which refused to let me play since it couldn't verify my details against the online server. This puzzled me, since surely trying to play offline, you wouldn't expect to need an online aspect. It was at this point I gave up. Turns out, you have to disconnect from the internet entirely to force it to check login details against a file on the computer.</Rant>

When you can actually play the game, it is brilliant. Graphically it is better than 1404, the two factions are unique enough to have individual tactics, and the future aspect is quite cool. The campaign is a little off if you dont do only what the missions ask. I realised that you are kept on the same island for successive missions during each of the three acts, so I built up quite the nice little ECO empire during mission one, only to have to demolish most of it during mission two when I had to then add Tycoon buildings to my mainland. On the plus side I did have lots of credits, on the negative, I had wasted time on the ECO side and had resources that Tycoons didn't use.

The continuous game is still fantastic, and the AI assigned to you records down almost anything you might need to know in a handy primer for you to access as needed. There are apparently Facebook related achievements if you care for that sort of thing.

The only negative aspect about the gameplay is the truly awful voice acting. I don't know if they deliberately tried to make it as grating as possible, but every time you click on an allied trading post to sell or buy something, they have to repeat the same yarn about how they are expecting X amount of subject Y to be delivered. I had to turn off voices in the end. 1404 was bad like this as well, so maybe they think reminding you constantly to do something is a selling point. “YES MOM, just sell me some tools so I can build the Glassworks I need to give you what you are nagging me for!”

It's the beautiful big sister of The Settlers, some very similar mechanics but far more complex and a stunningly beautiful game. The AI telling you to go take a break every 2 hours is a nice touch and sometimes required as you can get thoroughly absorbed in building your metropolis.