izigame.me

Intro -
Is this a game?
In Imagine Earth you play as what feels to be no one while simultaneously controlling the levers of an entire private colony operation company (or... small private venture funded by the state). You are made to feel like nobody because your existence in constantly having the limelight taken away by other characters which you are dragged along by for the sake that you get to work in their next operation like an unpaid intern. Your name is shown in some of the dialogues, but characters will cleverly omit this in their verbal addressing of you.
Let's go back to that first question, "is this a game"? It's a difficult one for me because I do not feel like I am playing a game when I play Imagine Earth. I feel like I am reading a book. All of the interactive elements would should make the game unique to my experience are wiped away under mechanics heavily decided by what the devs think you should do instead of what you want to do. As a player I wanted to "play dirty" with nuclear energy and pump the atmosphere full of toxic chemicals. I thought that we were running a corporation, but what you really run is this glorified merc company with a government contract. You will proceed to be punished for playing the way which is deemed unfit by the developers it feels, the government will constantly attempt to nickle and dime you over your carbon footprint. Your citizenry, regardless of their race, will always prefer to live by big buxom mountain and trees which should be unfamiliar to them, woods which somehow inspire contentedness within every creature regardless of the leanings of their parent faction. For example, the mining dudes or whatever made up name they have will still enjoy loving being by these alien trees because supposedly every alien species is made up of the same brand of hippies which populate the human faction. Nay, they will be outraged for deigning themselves to live by heavy industries which they strive to create so much according to their backgrounds. Forget this love of gold, I can't wait to go for a merry jaunt with my pickaxe THROUGH THE WOODS! Heaven forbid that you cause the temperatures to rise, during my session even if I was trying it was a struggle to get the temperature to fluctuate whilst every character is browbeating me (needlessly as I might as, since the devs presuppose you want to do good for these alien worlds) for that scary temperature counter in the corner which I have never seen tick up! Of course, I don't doubt the consequences of it ticking up are just as annoying to players like me who will, instead of being rewarded for being morally bankrupt, are judged by the gods of the matrix for being dangerous to their playground. I'm not an environmentalist, I don't particularly care for oil either, but why would you ever tease me with the prospect of being able to make a world write beneath oil slicks if I am expected to abandon my tantalization because the slick which covers the ground afterwards I am the one left holding the mop to clean up? I wanted to dump these spills onto other players, put some actual economic use into them instead of banishing it all to the void while my hippy citizens pat me on the back for doing something right. I am given a chore list of responsibilities rather than fun, intractable mechanics. In a nutshell, you are playing the games the devs WANT you to play instead of the game you desire to play.
Problem Areas -
Art design: I don't know who is sitting there deciding the facial cues for the lady with green hair, but her and every other human individual fall right into uncanny for me. Their immovable, gnarly appearances punctuated by a slight change in the position of the facial orifice do well in their part to remind me I am playing a horror game. Even the aliens do not feel alien to look at, most space critters seem determined to be as sickeningly friendly as a Who in Whoville whilst trying to make you digest their aberrant visage. To reiterate, they do not feel alien, but rather something else completely foreign which tickles your primal instinct to dislodge them from your presence, Anthony Fauci occasionally pops up at the bottom of my screen as I watched horrified whenever he croaks that he may yet need another science facility to huff the blue fumes just to make sure that they really do taste like Gatorade. Oh and the buildings couldn't hurt to have some colored highlights in accordance with their building type, whenever I look down I see a mess of huts representing what should be my colony indistinguishable from each other while I click around looking for whatever I actually mean to click.
Economy: I find it quite annoying that any number of things can happen to my buildings which I must spend 50% of my income on. Meteors and tornadoes feel attracted to my hippies as God's way of punishing them for loving patches of flowers. I never get the random explosions of heavy industry going wrong as thousands of my workers (Aside, the game does not actually consider your "workforce", presumably every building is ran by automatons) perish in some chemical fire. If it isn't that there is some unseen timer constantly ticking down as your million districts become progressively more dirty, for a world that seems to have nearly every person obsessed with the environment and its consequences the general populace must be full of rabid animals which love to roll around in mud, because they cost me upwards of thousands of dollars for simply existing in my streets. As if littering draws everyone to its criminal goodness since they aren't allowed to have weapons. Mind you that the Space Government in the game has gone the European route of banning weaponry in Space, where Space has many foreign dangers which do not adhere to any law and force themselves upon you, mocking you for being weak as a decision which you hadn't even made for yourself.
Writing; Characters do not seem to be aware of their own existence, they play themselves to the lone tune of a single note, orating in their pastime is a reminder seemingly to themselves that they are there. Whatever or whoever the boss is, he does not feel like he has a motivating force behind him to drive his actions. He's simply there to "be the cool boss", get tranqued by some purple woman who seemingly understands how corporations should work, then discarded as a side character for one of the shops you can purchase from throughout the campaign. Your companion in arms, the grass-haired lady seems to pride herself on your accomplishments before deciding to quit temp work because of a "6 month contract" which is just some passing comment made by a ruthless bazaar lord tripping on her alien tendrils. Instead of discussing things she opts to start a business, which solely relies on you dragging your feet and following, seemingly from nowhere. I don't know the requirements to become a corporation, but surely you need to be of some influence to convince literal millions of people to come colonize some backwater no one has ever heard of before? Not to mention starting capital, as it appears that characters don't even get paid in this universe. That it operates on some backwards logic where your motivation is making sure Anthony Fauci gets his next science fix while you work for the reputation of another person and are nary recognized for it. In one of the fail states YOU seem to be fired by the government without so much as a word from your supposed tight knit boss bestie to ham one in for you, her beef seems to be more concerned with the bungling purple bazaar demon betraying her own people.
I'm sorry, but this has been a headache. I hope that the DLC remedies major issues with the core gameplay rather than a continuation of whatever rhetoric this game is trying to shove down your throat.