Graphics: Immortals is not graphics-intensive; the battle replays are the only parts of the game that might make your video card break a sweat. But considering the lack of real action sequences, a fully animated opening cinematic would have been a welcome change from the series of static images presented.

Things get a bit better in-game. The top-down zoom feature is excellent and very useful, although not being able to rotate the map in either of the two dimensions is something I would have liked to have been able to do; having a 3D galaxy map wouldn’t have added to the gameplay, but it would have offered a bit of graphical zing to the proceedings. Displaying the name and affiliation (if any) of the newly discovered planets on the map helped me avoid confrontations for which I was not ready, and I appreciated the added detail involved in animating each planet’s moons and their orbits, but first impressions are everything, and the opening cut scene doesn’t get things off to a flying start.

Interface: In map-based games such as Immortals; the interface is the most important element. It has to be laid out logically for ease of use, yet it has to be tucked out of the way so as not to interfere with the main map and in this Immortals is largely successful. The placement of the menu buttons is excellent, and the menus themselves offer a well-organized look at the volumes of information the player needs. News and completed-research notifications pop up in the upper-left corner of the screen, and then disappear at the beginning of each turn, and dialog and quest screens collapse into the upper-right corner when you are finished using them. But not being able to drag the menu screens out of the way without closing them forced me to constantly close and reopen them before making certain decisions, and the system panel at the bottom-right sometimes gets in the way; being able to collapse this item would have been a big help.

Gameplay: I’ve always believed in the importance of a good story in gaming, so it’s going to be tough for me so say this, but here goes: the backstory in Immortals is almost completely superfluous and could have been removed without impacting the gameplay. The Eonian immortals Enias and Bythos are not to be found for most of the game, except when Enias decides to cruise through your galaxy and declare war on you for no apparent reason. This happened at some point during the first 50 turns of almost every game I played (perhaps she didn’t like my face; I played most often as the Alkiths, whose chosen representative isn’t likely to win many Miss Universe pageants). In addition to the weak story element, some suspect writing choices steal away whatever sense of immersion that the rest of the game generates. The same set of phrases are used by all six races during conversations, with no variation of the text to make the races unique; it seems unlikely that “Have a nice day!” is a phrase that these races would use with one another, but they do, and frequently.

Players who’ve had experience with other 4X games will feel right at home with Immortals, but newcomers might be initially overwhelmed by the micromanagement involved in creating a successful empire. There’s a tutorial, but it offers little more than a cursory overview of the game’s various interface screens and their use. Reading the PDF manual is a help, but in the end the player has to learn by doing.

It took me several tries to finally hit upon a workable strategy, after which Immortals started to take off. Soon I was cranking out ships and researching tech to upgrade them (changes made to a ship design are automatically applied to previously constructed vessels, which is an excellent wrinkle).

Immortals would be fun to play against another human being, but as of this writing, the game’s built-in server browser was not functioning, a problem that certainly should have been solved before Immortals was released. Hopefully a timely patch will fix this.

Sound Effects: Background music supplies almost all of the audio effects in Immortals. The only exception is during battle playback, when the sound of ships firing weapons and enemy vessels exploding can be heard. However, the game makes good use of multichannel audio, so gamers with good speaker setups will be pleased with the results.

Music: The music score in Immortals amounts to a long loop of material that repeats constantly throughout the game. This wouldn’t be so bad if it had some textural variety, but it’s just non-stop electronica with a few whooshing sound effects between phrases. Musical cues triggered by certain pop-up news items (such as when a battle begins or when war is declared) would have helped to break the monotony.

Intelligence: Immortals has an odd randomness that calls the intelligence of the AI into question; effect rarely follows cause in any logical way. On more than one occasion, I entered into peaceful relations with an alien race, only to see them destroy one of my unarmed scout ships or declare war on me on the very next turn. Another race wanted a large cache of minerals to enter into a military treaty with me, but accepted zero minerals from me at my next offer. On several occasions I was offered a friendship gift from a race that was listed as hostile towards me. These anomalies in behavior make it difficult to take the AI opponents seriously.

Difficulty: Success in Immortals requires one of two items: experience or patience. Those who have played this type of game in the past will settle in quickly, while newbies will have to be willing to learn from their failures for a few games before picking up the little things needed to move the game along. For me, Normal difficulty level and a careful choice of galaxy configurations gave me the chance to get used to the mechanics before having to deal with stressful combat situations. Gamers looking for a challenge with a minimum of intimidation will find what they seek.

Overall: Immortals has all of the earmarks of a game that could have used some more time and a bigger budget. Graphics, sound and music are unremarkable and could benefit from an infusion of creativity. Dialogue needs to be expanded so that all six races aren’t using the exact same phrases, and releasing the game with a broken online multiplayer mode is inexcusable. Despite all of this, there is some fun to be had here. It has that “one more turn” addictiveness that almost allows the player to overlook its faults, and the sense of achievement when victory is won makes the difficult journey worth the trip.