Perimeter 2: New Earth

This is not a recommendation. This is not a positive review. If you like perimeter game —this game is not. If you like univang lore — this game is not. It's not a good game. But by itself as an objective product at least it works on WinX, it's short, and it's completable. As an icing on top it is not even hateable enough.

The steam release doesn't have the original language so instead i just installed the disk version and patched it to 1.01

The studio was doing one-off unique games all set in the same mindverse, while working for an AAA publishers with bug budgets. That model was destroyed by the 2008 yankee crisis, but the studio didn't live long enough to find out.

The lead has left to never do a good a game ever again. The remaining chunk of the team decided to just milk their recent project, the giant hit Perimetr. First they wrote a fan-fiction add-on which nevertheless has real gameplay. Then they continued their RTS spree with Maelstrom and Perimetr 2. You can't even imagine the speed with which they went from being the hottest developer to being unwanted and unneeded.

Perimeter is very stylized to be sterile, as an opposite to sensual Vangery. It's not warm and humane, it's disinterested and distant, describing events on a great time-scale, like Foundation. While the add-on went into predestination mode, it still was mostly in tone with the original. In this new game Ishod sounds like Vozvrat, and Vozvrat sounds like ass. The characters are whiny and emotional, and besides the robotic handlers there's the half-protagonist human-thing. It all is very out of character. And the storyline is not even trying. First it grounds you to one planet. Then it introduces more aliens, which are not krispo. And then the planet explodes and you open a portal to arse. Or whatever. It's not satisfying and the cut-scenes are pathetic.

The campaign's beginning is the hardest and longest missions in this game. It keeps you incapable — first you only have lowest tier stationary defences against an aggressive enemy, then no AA turrets against aggressive fliers. But the moment you get the fliers you solved the game, which is only sped up by upgrading the nuke. The enemy tries to send its fliers asap, but if you push hard and fast it fold for the rest of the both campaigns. The nukes allow you to outright skip some of the maps by wiping out the enemy's base from the start. In the second campaign you already have all the tech, and you know the strategy, but now you are playing the easy mode.

Instead of terraforming and energy chains, this game has only generators. And that is all what this game has. There are no frames, no even TCs. You play as generators that build more generators. There are no chains, you just create an MCV that unfolds into another generator. The generators do something like terraforming. You don't have real tools or diggers, you just pick a generator a demand for it to do something. There are two factions in this game and their split is dumb. One can only build on earth the other only on water. And the earth generators do not create more earth, they only somewhat level the land. Which, on most maps is below the sea level. Guess what the generators of the water faction do? Raise the sea level. The land is always uneven and ruined by combat, your buildings refuse to be created there. The water surface is flat. Balance much? In theory you can win with vozvrat by just flooding everything.

Most maps contain several upgrade points which you dig out by a dedicated tool, not useful for anything else. You spend the points on magicks, almost all of which are garbage. The most important magick is the nuke. You can destroy an enemy base and take the initiative. But guess what the second faction in the second campaign has? The second nuke. Balance.

The base-building is rather weak. You have pylons. You have towers: weak land, decent AA, artillery. You have three factories: light, medium, heavy. Each can produce only one (1!) unit. Not "one type of a unit", just one unit. If you want more build more duplicate factories. Each out of three units can transform between a land and an air form. While a big swarm of light air units cannot attack land units, it destroys pylons powering anti-air towers just fine. This whole game is light air domination (25+). There's also a research centre, which allows you to move up one tier. But most importantly it has minor stat upgrades for your light air units. At the maximum tier it can produce one unique unit. The land force got a stupid mobile stealth generator. The OP water force got a very strong attack unit. Balance. And if you capture enemy's research centre you can have both.

The combat is bad. Every pylon can create pylon MCVs. You destroy the enemy on the left flank, in that time it already created more pylons on the right flank. You just run around with a slipper hunting cockroaches, and the earth itself can birth more of them at any time in any place. The campaign maps are often give the enemy more useful ground so it spreads very fast. And then there's an upgrade to teleport the MCV around.

And all of that is controlled through a giant unwieldy bad GUI that takes too much space. It's on top of the screen and in most situations it's not even used. It's not constant like C&C panels, but it should've been. The main menu looks very cheap.

I've watched the credits and i saw a couple of people i met mentioned.

I don't say this often about games but this one is bad. Like worse than free games on the internet bad.

Have never seen such inconsistent Mechanics which are basis for the game, waste of time. bad AI.

so i just finished the game and as a fan of the Perimeter games i bought this 1 as its like this looks cool and well i was extremely DISAPPOINTED with it great grafix and only 2 races that sucked Heakback missions were pretty easy even on hard but the exodus missions were hard near the end and the final mission was very hard and that was on easy it was no worth the money i payed out for it and if i could get me money back i would multiplayer mode is only good when u have unlocked everything in single player mode u need special crystals to get the new powers of help / destruction u dont have a frame to help u get new stuff u only have a limited amount of troops like tanks / planes ( not actual tanks or planes ) this version of the game has just killed the fun its taken me almost 4 days just to do the final exodus mission there is only 10 missions in this version ok yes u can choose what side to start exodus or Hearkback if u want and u can finish either 1 and then go multiplayer and have all the tech but u cant capture the enemy cores like in the original version u can capture other buildings and use them but if u want them they need to either stay on land ( exodus ) or stay in the water ( Hearkback ) as the respective buildings get damaged by land / water depending on what buildings u capturing other than that its an OK game but i would NOT recommend this game unless u r a die hard fan but even then i still beleave the game has lost its edge even the PERIMETER Emperor's Testament was more on same lines as original version but again only 2 races i was expecting a lot more with PERIMETER 2 thinking like most people did its a new version will have better everything and maybe even find a new race making a 5th race they did away with the scourge from Hearkback u only get the Hearkback frame right at the very end of the game and even though the game shows there is still 1 more mission making it 11 missions there actually isnt another mission or if there is i cant get to it ive finished both sides of the campaign and cant gain access to the last 1 that shows up there it sucks badly if u really want the game then go ahead wast u money if there were some mods for the game like adding there other 2 races to the game and more single player missions that take days to do 1 mission on easy that would b better as well but heck there isnt i guess no 1 likes the game enuff to make any mods for it i would make a mod if i knew how to make them but sadly i dont so i wont make a mod

Tags: RTS - Real Time Strategy
Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library

TLDR: Suffers from classical case of "streamline-a-rts". Unit spawner HQ features and pylonspam. Blanket terraforming. Sloppy execution all around.

This dated game actually looks half decent but the mechanics are poor. As if it went to the C&C4 school of strategy. You get to setup a base but the unit roster is very limited. There is a terraforming feature which is very interesting and should be included in more RTS but the execution is sloppy and you will need to automate it to flatten the ground which just kinds of adds an extra step for no reason. Aside from the limited units which work in a rock/paper/scissor manner you get cooldown abilities that you can only use if you manually terraform special ressources. The absence of sound effects for weapons firing or buildings getting destroyed was a bit odd.

I was a big fan of Perimeter 1 and Perimeter ET, they are some of my favorite games of all time. I came into Perimeter 2 with high expectations and was extremely disappointed.

I tried replaying it again years after I purchased, trying to go in without the high expectations. I pretended the game was a standalone game, unrelated to Perimeter. I was still disappointed.

The mechanics are tedious and outright boring. Perhaps I could have enjoyed the story, but the gameplay was just so dull and annoying I could never progress.

The flooding mechanic sounds interesting, but the execution is quite dull and leaves little room for real strategy. If each faction had a good selection of buildings that worked in water, and a good selection on land, then water could have been used strategically. Instead, one faction is pure water, the other pure land. Rather than choosing to terraform some places to water, others to land, etc. faction A just changes everything to water, and B changes it all to land. To compare to Perimeter 1: Perimeter 1 would give the player a choice of terraforming the terrain to be usable, or destroying it to stop opponents from using it. That presented a far more interesting strategic choice compared to Perimeter 2.

Perimeter 2 suffers many other flaws akin to that terraforming flaw, and other gameplay aspects that are just boring. I cannot recommend this game, even if it is on sale. If you are looking for a great RTS, go buy Perimeter 1 or Perimeter ET.

Perimeter 2 and Strong Hold 3 have ruined the concept of sequels for me. Perimeter 2 is nothing like Perimeter and is a bit of a scam to be honest. It is one of the worst RTS games I’ve ever played and feels as if no effort went into making it. It gave me the distinct impression the developer was just trying to cash in on the cult like success of the original Perimeter, but with minimal work. Ignoring all that, Its just a terrible, boring game, please for your sakes don’t buy it, even if you refund it, you still waste your time (unfortunately for me, like stronghold 3, I bought this game when it first came out, expecting it to share the quality of its predecessor, before steam refunds existed, so I can not get I refund).

First I just want to say besides my number of steam hours I've been playing this game since it got out, I bought the game on the wintersales because it came with the other 2 Perimeters.

So this game is different from its pre-quels but not by a long shot.

PROs

-The new terraforming system which for Harkback is awesome, flooding the map (or drying if you are Exodus) it's a game changing mechanic.

-The territorial mode in battle mode which is great since you don't use units, only terraforming elements(and turrets but I tend to destroy them to keep the game longer).

-Element SuperPowers, if you are Harkback you'll have a freaking meteor that when it hits the ground not only destroys everything but also produces more water.

Neither PROs nor CONs, just IMO

-This game doesn't use frames which I like when they were the center of the network, instead you can move your build masters and transforming them into geo/aqua cores where you want.

-No underground units(which they would be pretty useless vs Harkback) but could be nice if Harkback use ground and underground units while Exodus still used ground and flying units

CONs

I'll start with the Exodus

- First the Terraforming
It would be expected that if you are terraforming land you at different levels of landscaping you could build your buildings there or you would be a great disadvantage. Well nope, even if you have a pixel of uneven landscape, you are pretty much screwed since you won't have enough space, which Harkback doesn't suffer from this even if you build 10 aquacores close of which other and terraform to make a "water mountain" and uneven the water you can still build there.

-Second the Powers
Well if the Exodus is land their powers will be earth related like the ability of scum disruptor to create volcanos. For some reason the devs missed this part or they had the brilliant ideia in turning the Exodus in the new Empire, because Exodus got a freaking nuke, Harkback got a meteor that blasts, annihilates everything and produces water, Exodus got a nuke the dries everything and does damage equal to the distance of the ground, if there is plenty of water good luck trying to destroy anything but if harkback is close. Clearly the devs missed the Empire. Atleast their secondary powers is to make a twister which is much, much better.

-Third the "Special" Unit
This is what I believe was the discussion of making the Exodus Special Unit by the devs.

Dev Group Leader: "Who has some inovated ideias about Exodus special units?"

Random Dev nº1: So the Harkback use water, the water level keeps raising, it would be smart to use some unit like the previous games, like the scum heater, a unit the flies and has a powerfull beam the could also dry the water."

Dev Group Leader: "Nah scrap that ideia."

Random Dev nº2: "Since the water level keeps rising, we should make a giant catapult like scum thrower, to one shot cores like the golem of the Harkback does."

Dev Group Leader: "That ideia is stupid, you're stupid."

Random Dev nº3 that worked there and no one knows why: "I know we should make a unit that makes the other units stealth like Empire had."

Dev Group Leader:" I love it, you get a raise the rest of you are fired."

Yes the special unit of exodus is another copy from the Empire, a unit that makes the other units (but only ground units stealth and the aoe is so tiny that you either use only on tier 3 with them above of each other or that thing is useless, even in certain maps although it's hovering it's many times buggedand just flies randomly. Even in the previous games the Empire stealth unit could hide flying units.

-Fourth Perimeter vs Golem

Don't even bother to use the perimeter(or Shield) to protect you from golem because it won't work.

This is for both Factions

-Only 3 units (light, medium, heavy) that have flying mode or ground mode.

-The unit cap is related to the number of factories of both factions.

-Since the moment a factory is built it starts to consume energy even if it's not working.

-You only have a building that works like the many labs you have in Perimeter 1.



So, why do I reccomend this game you ask?

I reccomend it for the simple fact that I always enjoyed terraforming and it's unique concept, even thought I wrote so many CONs, to me that concept outshines the CONs, this is why I spent hours of playing this game, trying to flood dry maps and dry flood maps.

Perimeter 1 is a much better and more interesting game. They really lost their way with this one. Buggy, irritating terraforming system, fewer factions than the previous game, terrible UI.

Just get the first one and its expansion and pretend this game never happened.

I had to actually had to check the release date on this game after I played it the first time. For something that was originally release in 2008, It felt like something hot off the presses from back in 2000.

I don't really have anything good to say about this one really. You only get 3 offensive units per faction. 3. One for each tech tier you have to research. I have never, in my life seen an RTS that only had 3 offensive units. While this could be offset by emplacements, 3 offensive units. That is not right.
Both graphics and Audio feel very retro, and not in a good way. For something that was originally released in 2008, this game is a far cry from a standard at the time. Perhaps the only interesting thing I can say about this game (not necessarily good), is the ability to terraform. But that in itself is nowhere near enough to make up for its shortcomings.

Overall, This one should be avoided. I was so dissapointed by the tutorial, I never actually made into the campaign. As far as RTS games go, this one in below the games you get from scraping the bottom of the barrel.

No. Stay away from this game and watch letsplays of it instead.

They had great and easy terraforming, unit morphing mechanic, energy network mechanic, territory control mechanic... AND THEY DONE SCREWED IT UP.

While most RTS entertain player with interesting missions, cutscenes, story arcs, Perimeter II has enemy base destruction for breacfast, lunch, dinner and supper. Combined with horrible UI, unbalanced terraforming (exodus strifes for every scrap of perfectly flat ground to build something larger than small turret, while harkback gets infinite ammount of perfectly flat water surface) and cosmetically different sides, this gives you that one game you don't want to play.

0/10, with Epic Fail seal of disapproval for MUTILATING the source material.

Game is terrible overal.

- Graphics aren't that amazing. (But ok for a game it's age I guess)
- Terraforming doesn't work propperly at all.
- Doesn't follow it's predecessor in any way. (Didn't need a single shield in the first 3 missions.)
- UI is not that great.
- And the voice acting is worse than Microsoft Sam, or is basicly that I could say.

2/10 for effort

A game that LOST its roots.

The game passed to another developper and another publisher. Things got worst.

I explain. The designers tried to differenciate things more by building the races in a different way.
In this game we have ONLY two races comparing to the 3 plus the scourge we had in the first Perimeter, the Exodus and the HeartBack.
So, the story says that the new world those races were searching finally found. But the Exodus still can colonize the surface while the HeartBack can build in Water.

If you are a Perimeter Veteran please read the differences below, after the many dashes.

For the Newcomers to this game.

Here we have a simple strategy game. You first build the energy cores and terraform the ground so you can move easily or build upon it. To do that on the easy way build every NEXT energy core to the change of the levels of the ground and press the terraform button of the NEW energy core. In other ways you'll get yourself saying some bad words if NOT smushing the PC or leaving the game completely. The manual terraforming controls are buggy so don't be frustrated. The only thing you'll need the manual terraforming is when you want to get some blue crystals and you'll need to dig the ground.

Every technology as the game says must be researched first. So if you want to build unit factories you need to research them first. So level 2 and 3 factories. The factories create the pop cap. But you can't have as many factories as you want as the preserve energy. The units from the factories have ground and air mode. You change them dependant on what you want to attack or defend because ground units don't fight air.

Generally is a very simple game that tricks your imagination. Nothing more.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have played the first Perimeter....

The game differences are Massive.

--There is no Frame here. No main building. No King of Chess. You start building like any other strategy game.
--The energy cores can be built anywhere at start. The terraform process is included in them and can be set at automatic mode or manual. Manual terraforming is crap. You use it only to level the ground where you want and then auto. The controls for the manual are buggy. A very easy way to keep the level of the ground the same(but you lose space) is to build the energy cores to the gaps that the ground changes levels. When you press the terraform button the ground will be in the same level as the OLD energy core. But as you can see in this game you have to be occupied even to that.
--Population cap is related to the factories and is NOT standard as in the first game. Every factory places about 2 more squads and the squad units number is about 1-4 dependant on the unit. Factories preserve energy like in Command and Conquer and NOT like in the first Perimeter when ONLY working. In this way the squad number is limited.
--You have a Research Center to advance your technology. To build the 3-set level of factories you have to research them as much other techs like PLUS in Weapons or Shields for your units. The first level builds light units, the second level medium units and the third heavy units that are effective in buildings most.
--So we have ONLY 3 units per race that can be changed from ground to air and vice versa depedant of the opponents offensive and defensive. For example fighters confront fighters and the vehicles other vehicles. There is NO unit from the ground to hit the air.
--The chess game that we were playing in the first Perimeter with the capturing of the energy cores or buildings of the opponent is VERY limited here, because the Exodus structures are damaged from water and the HeartBack structures from the normal ground.
--There are NO subterrastrial units on this game.
--Ahh yes, I almost forgot. New power-ups like Nukes,mass terra destruction and such are coming from the blue ingame crystals like OLD techs that you find on the planet's surface. To get those crystals you'll need to build an energy core on them and MANUALLY terraform the ground in DIGGING mode.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whoever wants to read my review about the first Perimeter, he/she can find it here.

The AI is very easy even in skirmishes. Don't get amazed by the new graphics of the game. I was and there were NOT many youtube videos to see what is happening In Game.

As a result his game has NO FUTURE! If you want to relax by playing something ok. But NO MORE than that...

Game is absolute garbage compared to the one it's based off of.

Don't be fooled: this is a sequel to Perimeter in name only. The game appears to be a cheap knockoff of the original.

Quite possibly one of the worst games I've played.

Nothing like its under-rated predecessor, this game has boring mechanics and a lack of polish. At one point, the cutscenes switch to Russian for no good reason.

It's not even worth playing as a so-bad-it's-funny game.

It's been a long time since I played this one, but my recollection is that it has some good ideas, but they're let down by flaws in the execution - terraforming on land, you end up with different levels of terrain competing for space, and it's hard to tell which level you'll be terraforming to.

The water faction was much less fiddly to play, but not sufficiently for me to want to go back to the game.

the idea behind this RTS game is not bad: build and mantain a perimeter of "energy" while expanding and crush enemies.
but it's technically horrible, boring to play, with a poor storyline
it's a shame, because the gameplay is not bad at all, but you will soon be bored by the overall lack of other point of interest

How about a worthwhile review?

Two sides, two advantages, capture mechanics (it's been a very long time, i remember capturing something), generate your power levels unlock new buildings, build units to defend or attack, turn towers into defences, use ground or water as weapons. Create a long gameplay by flooding back the enemy using water, or build the tallest plateu with ground. Artillery is an option.

The game had much promise, very similar to maelstrom, but of course without the masses of armies and first person view of a hero.

That all being said, the problem is how the game is not going to work for everyone, it ran out of compatibility for some systems, while it had compatibility for others with the same hardware, go figure.

I enjoyed it while it lasted when i first had it, but eventually after changing systems i couldn't play it without a crash. Also the variety and diversity in the end just run out, nothing new to do, nothing new to find, just kill that in your own way capture that somehow, etcetcetc. A one way ticket to a game that has no real end, until you decide when you had enough.

No. Don't do it. Not even for cheap.

This game could have neat terraforming mechanics, but the UI, dialogue, tutorial and basically the whole presentation is painful. I literally got a headache trying to get into the first level. During which the gameplay was sub-par and unintuitive.

A huge disappointement. From the 15+ units from the first game, we're down at 3 units per race, with only one ability once. From the 3 races from the first game, we're down to 2 races. From the huge shitload of defensive turrets from the first game, we're down to 3 turrets.
This game is the perfect example of what happens if you're oversimplifying a sequel. Sure, it's easier, but it's also BOOORING, as all you have to do is spamming the unique Tier 1 unit and spam Tier 2 turret.