System Requirements Minimum Pentium 90 8 megs of RAM 4 X CD-Rom 50 megs free hard drive space SVGA 640 x 480 @ 256 colors Windows Compatible soundcard mouse Preferered Prentium 166 B RAM 6X CD-ROM It's the year 3569. In the Typhoeus system, a newly-discovered jumpgate will allow massive expansion and wealth to the corporation that controls the gate. Eight corporations will fight for this right. Cyberstorm 2 was a major disappointment from the minute I loaded the game. However, despite the overall Joystick down that this one rates, there were some hi-lights. First off,there are simply tons of weapons and Hercs to choose from. Combined with the new "open" campaign system, this game seems much larger in scope than its predecessor. They also added some very cool animations when you purchase a new Herc in the Herc Bay. The battle music was also rather neat and I liked the fact that you're required to manage the base facilities. Graphically Challenged But unfortunately, there's more to dislike than there is to like about Cyberstorm 2. The graphics are very poor by 1998 standards. In fact, I doubt they changed much over the original game. Cyberstorm just wasn't very pretty to look at; in particular the combat screen and a poor battle screen presentation. I believe that the game runs way too fast, which causes some problems if you want to play in "Real-Time". Everything occurs so quickly that you don't have the time to react before the comps kill you off. Poor Game Design Whoever made the decision to make this a hybrid real-time / turn-based game made a big mistake. The RTS portion seemed to wreck Cyberstorm 2. Many of the convenient interface features of the original game are sadly lacking. I felt this greatly hindered the game playability. The feature of having an open technology tree was also quite disappointing. I expected something like Civilization, where different tech advancements allow further advancement along a non-linear, interesting technology tree. The advancement method was actually very linear and boiled down to just, "Should I buy slightly better Cannons or slightly better Plasma weapons.... Oh the choices!". Now, everything you just read must be taken with a touch of caution. I only played the game for a week. It was too annoying to invest any more time in the game. Now I don't want to give the impression that the game is completely worthless... (ahem!) It is about as good as the original game if you ignore the degraded combat interface and false claims of wonderful improvements. But you'd be better off spending your money on some other cool game out there. Sadly...The Joystick is all the way Down!!! CyberStorm 2 was reviewed by: Dominic (Enforcer) Remane