14 DAY TRIAL // Pandora: First Contact is a rather classic experience in many ways, designed to appeal to those fans who loved Alpha Centauri in the past, but there’s one early game twist that will pleasantly surprise initially and can then frustrate turn-based strategy fans.
The native flora and fauna on the new planet that humanity is aiming to colonize is very powerful in combat and even the lowliest of their units, swarms of what look like alien bees, can take out a colony if it is not well guarded by units, with more backup placed close enough to replace them.
Then, there are the hulking beasts that initially have eight points of strength when a human unit only has 2 at the start of the game and the flying enemies roaming in and out of player-controlled territories.
I was initially very aggressive and did everything I could to take out local life, which often requires big sacrifices in terms of troops, but can offer solid rewards in money and maybe research.
This left me with an expansion problem and, ultimately, I abandoned that game because I was way behind the other factions in terms of power.
In Alpha Centauri, which Pandora draws a lot of inspiration from, the native life was a threat but it was never something that could actually limit a gamer’s expansion, just a nuisance to be destroyed or tamed.
So I chose to turn the level of planetary wildlife aggression lower in the setting menu for my next attempts at mastering the title and I got a much better experience.
I still need to be careful when expanding my empire and units that use fire-based weapons are still my best friends in the first third of the game, but I am now more focused on the other human factions than on the strange animals roaming around.