How many do I mean by “scores”? About ninety. Want to alter the win conditions? To change the age, shape or make-up of your galaxy? Don't fancy any of the game's eight very distinct races and want to build a custom faction of your own? Sure, why not – there are scores of different race traits on offer. Even before you begin you're presented with a plethora of possibilities, a dozen different ways to tweak the game you're about to play. Just like a black hole, Endless Space sucks you in by being so incredibly dense: by being absolutely packed with content, options and choices, all of which it offers up in fresh combinations with every new game. I've given up making hot drinks while I play, since they either grow cold beside me or I forget to even pour the kettle and I find I have to boil the blasted thing again.
I swear that my hair was noticeably shorter when I started reviewing this game. Amplitude Studios might as well have called their game Black Hole, because it has the most incredible ability to suck you in, to trap you and to somehow warp spacetime around you so that, on the rare occasions you're able to tear your eyes from the screen, entire hours have been lost. I know that I should be telling strategy fans that Endless Space is a great new take on a classic genre, but I'm worried that if people buy this game they'll all but disappear of the face of the earth, their friends reporting them as missing persons.
