Grey Goo

Grey Goo
77
Metacritic
69
Steam
79.346
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$7.49
Release date
23 January 2015
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
69 (2 489 votes)

Fight for control of a frontier world. Gather resources, build your base, and command your forces in battle. Survive long enough to unleash your ultimate weapon - THE EPIC.

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Grey Goo system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: 32-bit Windows 7
  • Processor: 3.5 GHz Intel Core i3 Dual Core or equivalent
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Graphics: 1024 MB DirectX 11 capable video card (GeForce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5870)
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Network: Broadband Internet connection
  • Storage: 15 GB available space
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Fishy
Fishy

Eh.... It would be a fantastic and refreshing RTS title, if it had been completed instead of just dropped and abandoned.

As it stands, it's really just a waste of money.

Anonymous
Anonymous

If you've ever played any of the Command and Conquer games.. This more advanced game might be right around your corner.. Love this game play but I sadly haven't played it all the way through yet.. I don't have the proper equipment most of the time to run the game sadly..

BhyLoth
BhyLoth

I enjoy slimy machines and the goo is a beautiful representation of being a machine hive mind that devours and assimilate.

Resistance is futile, the Grey Goo will absorb

staron
staron

It's a nice RTS game with a unique faction, namely the goo, and a decent storyline. Each mission is encased in beautifully animated cutscenes before and after, a rare sight in RTS these days. I really enjoyed playing the Goo and the...differentness they bring to the table. The other factions feel a bit like they've been recycled from Earth 2160, especially if it comes to the base building. Speaking of factions it does try to be stracraft a little bit too much in my opinion. But that's really high-level critique and not taking away from the fact that this game was quite enjoyable by itself. Give it a go(o) if you fancy RTS!

n.shatokhin
n.shatokhin

Wow! Game is amazing! The fractions are unique and interesting especially The Goo. I recommend it to everyone who loves RTS.

noxhun
noxhun

If it's Starcraft you want, but can't even get
Or Warcraft meets Warhammer in a slimy jungle fret
If you can't get T-Annihiliation or Supreme Com is dead
If EA still has C&C then go get your Grey Goo on instead

--GASM Rating--
6/10 Graphics
6/10 Audio (Are the humanoid aliens German?)
4/10 Story
6/10 Mojo

--Actual Comments--
If you love RTS then you should at very least try this. There is a lot wrong with it, but it is great to see they tried to be different. Good luck with the bugs, as death by frame-rate drop is somewhat inevitable.

Inferno
Inferno

Overall: The Game is too simple, skirmish maps are far too small. This is a hard pass, there's better RTS games out there.

1. The game features 4 different races you can play as, playing as the nanites or Grey Goo, leaves much to be desired, the units themselves are simplistic, infantry, tanks, artillery, some flying units, really, there's a lot more to be had here, but the devs couldn't be bothered to add more.

2. the RTS elements are not fully developed, really in a match with the computer or even other players it comes down to who can better resource manage in a tiny multi-player map, and when I say tiny, it's super tiny, your enemy is sometimes literally right over that next hill, stupid. The size of the maps is limited to 4 players, yeah...4. 15 years ago or so when Supreme Commander Forged Alliance came out, I think their player count was up to 10 or 12, with massively huge maps, that would take an epic unit literally 10 minutes to walk to the other side of the map, my point is, there's no excuse for such small maps and only a max of 4 players.

3. Sound effects and music are a 5 out of 10, not terrible, not great, one of the races the Shroud, literally shriek in the most annoying way possible at you when you click on them, it's like stop making my ears bleed guys, oh let me turn down the sound...geeezzz...just a stupid design idea, it's like who play tested that and thought it was fine?

4. The epic units are completely idiotic, so the Grey Goo epic unit takes like maybe 20 minutes to make, after it's done, what is it? It's some mass with three arms waving about, ok, not so bad so far. After dumping a bunch of time into making the unit and having your blob sit on a resource node growing and being called an epic unit, you'd think, ok, this will go and crush my enemies and drive them before me, right? Yeah....no. The unit is a glorified artillery unit, that is completely unable to defend itself with a unit sitting right next to it shooting it, because apparently it's waving tendrils can't wave in front of it for half a freaking second and kill the unit sitting literally right next to it, making the epic unit nothing but target practice for the cheapest most inexpensive infantry unit in the game, seriously. Two infantry units approach it from two different directions, one get killed by the unit's main and only attack, the other makes it to standing right next to it and begins shooting it, with no support units whatsoever, the epic unit that took 20 minutes to make, dies. I know sounds stupid, but this pretty much sums up the entire game, yep, that right there.

5. Overall again, this game is a hard pass, I never played the campaign, because I didn't care to, the skirmish mode, multi-player mode, unit design, and sounds were so horrible, I didn't want to bother with another minute of the game, I mean seriously, is there going to be some ultra cool awesome story that impacts my life in some deep and meaningful way or is it going to be more half-hearted underdeveloped nonsense that plays on the grey goo scenario, you can think which I thought it was going to be.

Letande
Letande

“You and I interpret this 'fun' very differently.”
~Zeratul

Ah, the Westwood Studios... Back in the days? The guys were, like, kings of the world. There was nothing they were unable to do. Everything they've touched used to turn into gold. From Point-and-Click adventures (The Legend of Kyrandia and Blade Runner) to dungeon crawlers (Eye of Beholder and Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos), open world RPGs (Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny and Lands of Lore III), platformers (Lion King) and even Diablo variants (NOX). Most importantly, though, the guys ended up forming what we know as the Real-Time Strategy genre nowadays. Sure, Real-Time Strategies existed even before them, but it was their Dune II that gave the genre its iconic shape. And when Command & Conquer arrived with all of it fast pace, FMV and multiplayer glory? Boy, oh, boy...

Unfortunately to us all, Electronic Arts happened and... yeah, yeah, we all know that EA is, like, source of all evil. Like The Blob from Irvin Yeaworth's movie, it consumes everything that is good and turns it into some ugly mess which is always hungry for more. It's kinda awesome just how many great things they've killed. Who would have thought that there'll be a company evil enough to destroy Ultima, Populous and Command & Conquer at the same time? Today, though, I won't be talking about that evil mass of pure ugliness and greed. Today I will be talking about those who tried to escape. About those daring ex-Westwood individuals who tried to save what was still sacred and form a new company. A company called Petroglyph Games.

Joseph Bostic (Dune II designer and coder), Michael Legg (designer and coder of The Legend of Kyrandia) and Steve Tall (the lead programmer of Command & Conquer) decided that there's still enough power in them to start from scratch. Some others followed their lead. One of which was legendary composer Frank Klepacki who created all of those iconic songs from Westwood's titles. And you know what? Petroglyph's first game, Star Wars: Empire at War, was actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, soon after it, they started to go down the drain and pretty soon ended up making crappy mobile games and f2p nonsense. And that's where Grey Goo came in.

In a way, it was Petroglyph's last hope. Last hope to return to the big game. You can clearly see that it was all or nothing for them here. They've ordered some expensive cutscenes from Axis Animation (the guys who worked on cutscenes for games like HALO 5 and TV shows like Doctor Who), they've put as much money in it as they were able to afford and so on. It was a project with a single goal – to make people see Petroglyph as the guys who made Empire at War (and before that - Command & Conquer), not the guys who created Guardians of Graxia and Coin a Phrase. So... did they succeed? Were they able to redeem themselves? Well, let's just say that soon after Grey Goo release, they've returned to f2p and copy-pasted stuff. And you can easily see why.

The problems with Grey Goo begin right in the design documents. Because, even though back in nineties, it was BLIZZARD who used to copy their stuff (while also shamelessly stealing from Games Workshop), this time? It was Petroglyph who copied StarCraft. And yes, I'm well aware of how one thing can influence another, but honestly, what we have here? It's a StarCraft rip-off. Think 'bout it. There are three factions here. Humans, some sort of strong alien humanoids and so-called Goo that spawns the new units from what's called Mother Goo. Everybody fight each other, Zerg wins. I mean, Goo. Yea-a-ah... it's a f*cking StarCraft. No matter how you look at it, the source material is painfully obvious and looking at some godlike design we used to have in Westwood times? The only thing I want to ask here – where all the talent went to? Are those even the same people? Well, to be honest, no. Not entirely. Joseph Bostic is still here, but the lead designer here is Andrew Zoboki, whose biggest work was Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, in which he dealt with Games Workshop's design, while the story was done by Andrew S. Walsh, who's best known for his work on X³: Reunion. So... yeah. Not the best choices.

Unfortunately, I must say the same thing about the gameplay. First of all – this game is short. Like... really short. Seriously, it comes with only 15 missions. Like... what the heck? Command & Conquer had something like that for every side of the conflict. And it was back in 1995. Now Grey Goo? It offers us only five missions for each side and calls it a day. Like... seriously, guys? Seriously? And guess just how many missions in that shiny new DLC you can buy? Three. Three painfully dumb missions. Good grief...

It's not like you'll want more, though. Because this game? It's laughably unbalanced. Like seriously, what were they even thinking? There's a single OP faction here (yes, it's Goo), while the others just suck dirt. Even when controlled by people who know their stuff. And it's really, really sad because clearly, the main thing this time is multiplayer. Heck, they even added VAC to it. Except... with no balance at all, there's literally no reason for that. And the single player? Not only it's short, it's also painfully slow and limited. I'm not kidding, even though C&C had speed settings since the very first game, in Grey Goo? You're supposed to take things slowly. Every bloody unit here is as slow as Mammoth Tank on slowest settings. And as a person who usually plays C&C on highest speed? I found this unbearable. Sure, there's always a speedhack to save the day, but still, it's hardly an excuse. Also, don't forget to disable it before trying the multiplayer. Otherwise you'll get one of them VAC bans. And we don't want that, aren't we?

Node-based base building (for everybody except Goo, because f*ck 'em!) may look promising at the beginning, but in reality it is not. The actual missions aren't nearly as interesting as you may hope (not a single interesting goal or condition here). The AI is dumb. And so on. Even Frank Klepacki's score for this game feels uninspired. As the result, even though the final cutscene in this game suggests that originally, Petroglyph had plans for the same exact thing BLIZZARD did with StarCraft II, let's just say that it's easy to see why it never happened. I mean, Grey Goo? I can't even call it “StarCraft for poor people”. In a period since early nineties and until the late 2000s? Something like that would have go completely unnoticed. Just because there were so many RTS games on market and most of them were way, way better than this. Up to this day you can just open MobyGames and start making a list of what you've missed back then. With much better results. Battle Realms, The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring, Armies of Exigo, Rising Kingdoms, Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard, Lords of the EverQuest, The Golden Horde... Even though all of those above were flawed in one way or another, I still had more fun with them than I had with Grey Goo. So, here's the question – what's the point of seeing something like that in 2015? With so many third-party StarCraft II campaigns around? I guess, some questions in this world just can't be answered.

Wolfe
Wolfe

Boy howdy is this a game of odd priorities.

Beautiful cutscenes. Reminds me of some of the blizzard cinematics.

Gameplay....
1. There is a lot of hurry up and wait. You start every match needing to build a refinery which takes like 20 seconds to build. so you que up the refinery and then stare at it while it gets built. The way the tech tree works you have to build that in order to unlock anything. Next up you can either A) build a factory with which takes 15 seconds to build or B) build another refinery this one will take longer to build however because you don't have the income to keep up with it. from here you have to build a tech factory to unlock something else and if you didn't build that second refinery then you don't have the income to support the tech factory and unit production so if you are building both they will take much longer. In the first five min of the game you make about 3 clicks.

2. The games campaign AI is so weird/bad. I have played a few scenarios where I had to turn down the difficulty because the ai was attacking me before I even had a refinery finished. Another scenario where I had to protect civilians the AI didn't attack me or the civilians. I spent the entire game building up a force ready to send them where they needed to defend the civilians and they just sat in base cause the civilians where never attacked.

3. Unit match up is frustrating. You build a force to breech an enemies fortified wall. First wave of tanks and artillery get wiped out. Cool. I must need siege units. Build up a force of siege units they get wiped out. Okay, maybe I can bomb an opening (as aircraft require hangers it is takes several new buildings to get 4+ up and running) send those over. They fire two shots at the wall do about 2% damage total and then need to come back and land. The solution: A metric ton of the tier one cheap units to overwhelm the wall.

4. The epic units are all incredibly frustrating. Human unit as an example: giant robot that attacks by shooting a giant beam at its feet and then drawing a line to/through the enemy kind of neat. Except that is all it does 10-15 min of build time and that's its and, more importantly, the unit always attacks at its max range. The beam does more damage the more of a line it draws though an enemy, the unit defaults to max range attack. This means if you order your giant robot to attack a group of enemies or a building it will move up just enough to attack something with the very tip of its beam doing little to no damage to the target. You need to order the robot to walk up the correct distance then attack which is a frustrating micro guessing game.

5. Economy management is frustrating and punishing. You will start off with 1-2 wells near you that you can use for your economy. As with other games it plays around a maximum resource/resource income and the ability to go negative which slows down or pauses your work. Here is the frustrating thing. If you get to max supply your harvesters don't stop harvesting. They keep collecting resources that effectively evaporates. You are busy managing an attack and only to realize that your income is about to dry up and you only have enough to build an extra unit. Some of the factions can expand refineries easy. Others have a really hard time.

6. Finally what makes each faction different from the other is not unit or tech types but rather the unique aggravations that each one brings . The Goo just run away. Every match becomes a game of hide and seek to find the last random Goo somewhere on the map. The beta have a very frustrating build order that requires the building of random and sometimes useless structures just to get to build what you actually want. Humans require you to build power lines from your base to build structures which makes expanding to refineries a pain in the ass and can enable you to box your self in. Never got to the shroud maybe they are cool but I doubt it. Every faction has the same unit type and none feel better/weaker then the others. The only unique type is the hero units or the goo buildings.

If its on sale for 10 bucks give it a go.

Manticore
Manticore

As a fan of Petroglyph's previous work as Westwood Studios, I most certainly did enjoy the gameplay. However, two things stick out:
1. The campaign story is meh. Nothing interesting or groundbreaking. The plot twists are neat, but characters are flat and the environments are uninspired - mostly brown and grey.
2. The gameplay is actually quite slow. Very slow movement speed, very slow build times, rather large maps. This does encourage calculated macro play and possibly opens up the potential for micromanaging, but the game was designed around zero active abilities, meaning that you're more focused on what the enemy is building and how you might counter it.

If you want to play multiplayer, check out the official Discord server and download the Quickscript Maps via Workshop.

deadeyemarley91
deadeyemarley91

This game is different but still fun to play and doesn't deserve the mixed reviews.

Hellion
Hellion

I was skeptical at first, but after playing for a few hours: this game deserves better than a mixed review.

Gwyn Lord of Cinder
Gwyn Lord of Cinder

blown away by how negative the reviews are here. Its a bit dated now graphics wise but it was one of the better rts's that have come out in recent years... probably the best save for sc2.

All the new "RTS" fail to capture what people like me (growing up on c&C, age of empires, starcraft) grew up to love. They either fail to capture base building, or fail to capture pushing with a giant army, or fail to capture creating and defending expansions... etc. This captures them well.

If i have any issue, its that aircraft requires too much apm, and resources to be very valuable.

Noobgamer
Noobgamer

This game is fantastic! If you are a fan of casual story driven rts games I highly recommend. The story is interesting and has some twists. I enjoyed the art style and universe a lot as well. Its does lack some depth in terms of the mechanics but it's not trying to be the next Starcraft 2. Over all a pretty solid game.

HuniBadGer
HuniBadGer

Still a better sc2 clone than Dow3

GhOsT
GhOsT

Excellent RTS and story. Reminds of the 90s when RTS was truly in it's prime. Each class/race is unique and fairly balanced.

AceofPace
AceofPace

Pretty fleshed out RTS. Plays a bit like a combination of Starcraft 2 and Halo Wars. Maps are interesting and different in terms of layout. Campaign missions have a nice variety to them. Cinematic CGI is really good for an Indie studio. Story is interesting enough.
If you enjoy RTS games this is a solid buy.

Meme Masterlord
Meme Masterlord

It's a fun base-building RTS game. Build your refineries, then your production, create an army, and destroy the enemy. Not sure why the game has mixed reviews, its pretty good. Worth picking up on sale.

kiki_jiki
kiki_jiki

A great classic style RTS with a good story.

kyle123
kyle123

Really good fun game that's quite underrated and does not deserve mixed reviews i would highly recommend playing it and plus the campaign is really good.

Ride The Spiral
Ride The Spiral

I played this game ages ago and I just noticed that it has earned a rather middling user score. I don't really think that's fair, I played the whole campaign and it may not be Warcraft or Command & Conquer II, the title might be cheesy but it's a well made, modern entry in what is an all but dead genre. Considering you can pick this up rather cheap on steam sale it's well worth it.

Higgs
Higgs

Great campaign, not as re-playable in terms of skirmish battles as AoE or RoN, but still a generally fun and at first even addictive RTS with unique mechanics for each faction in the game. ( Try playing as the Goo :P )

guttenflax
guttenflax

I gave it countless chances. It's boring. That's it: boring.
Apart from the amazing breathtaking cinematic cutscenes worth of Hollywood-grade CGI productions, the rest is a dull, unbalanced, toy sounding, plastic looking, over complicated piece of garbage.
When I bought the game, there were just the three original factions: Beta, Humans and Goo. Now they've added the Shroud one and they completed their masterpiece of failure.
This new playable faction is composed by... polygons? How can I describe those totally abstract geometric shapes? some sort of spiky shaped entities that could be turrets, thanks, buildings, who knows?
But the main curse of the game is the gameplay itself: you build a couple of refineries in the first couple of minutes of the match, then you set your factories to automatic vomit a loop of uninteresting plain basic units until you're able to multiselect a hundred of them and launch them mindlessly to your enemy's base. That's it. Finished.. You won.
If you set the AI on difficult the enemy will immediately do exactly the same thing against you. In that case, you can't win. That's it, the sorts of a match are decided in the first seconds and cannot be overturned.
There's not such a thing like game changing tactics or surprise moves; right decisions or wrong ones. You just build a mass of basic units and send them in waves while waiting to finish such a boring torture.

Air units that need to fly back to base to reload the 2 or 3 ineffective bombs they can carry? Stealth scouting units that can still be seen when hiding? Anti-air units? Nah, don't even need to waste your time with that. It's all redundant and useless, just like the modules you MUST attach by your factories in order to build all those advanced (but, once again, unnecessary) units.

And those reviews that were celebrating Grey Goo as "the return of RTS genre". LOL.

Just avoid it.

Chronicler
Chronicler

I thought I'd give this one another chance, but It's just boring and irritating. Spam as many units as fast as you can. That's it.

Levitate
Levitate

Grey Goo is a solid RTS, Each Faction is truly unique and not just reskins like Starcraft, Age of empires, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander ect. Humans and Beta are the only factions with walls, Humans get energy based walls that they may walk through at anytime while Beta needs gates and is a slower process. Humans and shroud are the only ones with turrets as beta uses their units to mount onto their walls to become a defense position. Humans may only place their turrets connected to linked points from their HQ while Shroud may place theirs anywhere in sight, has 3 upgrade options like healing and turrets but has a higher cost requirement.

Human buildings have to be connected to each other at all times to be powered. If a chain link is destroyed well...you just lost power to a chunk of your buildings lol. While Beta places down Mini HQ hubs anywhere they desire, even tucked in a corner behind their HQ or hidden across the map. Then have their buildings attached to those, leaving them truly weak and exposed but have higher flanking and tactical advantages. Both of these factions refineries will produce and send out more workers to account for how far away they are from resource points. Perfectly balancing the income rates that shroud and goo have being placed right over them and collecting without the need of workers. Shroud may place their building anywhere in sight, meaning you can take resource points from enemies early on and quicker than most late in the match. They require full cost up front! meaning you cannot place them and have their cost drained down slowly from your bank like Humans and Beta can, balancing their unique advantage but they are now placed in the open instead of Human and Beta factions having their workers be sent out from their base from safety and no cost loss if destroyed. Then re-balancing that fact because you can kill the sent out workers and deny income from your enemy that is behind their walls!

Humans and Beta can automate their unit productions as long as you have the upkeep to maintain it. turning the battle into micro instead of macro, allowing you to fully watch and enjoy each fight instead of clicking and flicking back to your base like other RTS games... Shroud requires their build cost upfront for their buildings and units, no auto build que button. If you've read to this point and still wondering why this game is called "Grey Goo" Well that's where things get interesting and fun. The Goo Faction is a nanobotic alien life-form race. They have no bases, no structures to place. Their HQ is a living, moving, being that is moved over resource spots and feeds off the planet. It grows in size and can spawns from itself a group of small infantry or 1 big tanky unit. Going back to a small, fragile state and having to feed and grow once more to spawn another unit. Or instead choose to spawn another of itself to go collect resources and spawn units from its clone. So on so on like a hive mind and infestation across the planet. These Mother Goo can climb over terrain! they can walk into enemy units and eat them alive, bit by bit, melting them down and absorbing them. Hunting these down is a hard and a tedious task, waisting your time while the other Mother Goo have already spawned an army lol. Truly the best looking and coolest faction in an RTS game.

Cons: Skirmish hard AI is not hard to beat at all, instead of getting better AI they just get more HP and faster build times... Performance on even a high end PC is not optimized but the stiff and clunky animations honestly makes it look and feel fine to play. The Campaign has time limit and rushed missions, You are always fighting 2-3 Fully built bases and an uphill fought battle.

Therapist
Therapist

Boring, grey game, nothing specail

Weeksdw
Weeksdw

Very similar to StarCraft 2 but definitely unique and fun! The campaign is short but fun and the races are pretty different in playstyle! Some basic concepts sometimes are hard to grasp during the campaign but you figure it out. If you've played StarCraft 2 you can think of the races this way. Beta are Terran buildings with protoss bodies, The humans are Protoss buildings with human bodies, and the goo is really unique and defaults to zerg playstyle. My only complaint is that the humans are not meant to expand outside of 1 base, they can access more resources but its a long walk with no defense. The Beta can expand anywhere at any time with no limitations which is fun! The goo are annoying at first but they grow on you!

EL YESO
EL YESO

The game is one of the best RTS I ever played in my life.

Zambo
Zambo

What can i say, sometimes good enough is great, you rarely find real RTS, this is one of them. maybe if they would skip the DLCs would be more classy but it's their business :D

NorseManFan
NorseManFan

worst game of this genre I ever played!

ZS-Ügynök
ZS-Ügynök

A beautiful game, with really interesting and diverse Starcraft-esque base-building mechanics - only let down by it's nonexsistent playerbase.

Hugh Mann
Hugh Mann

I thought i had reviewed this when it first cam out - Highly recommended - the story is fantastic and the voice acting is supreme! Love those South African accents for the Beta. Gameplay wise each faction is unique and enjoyable and i thoroughly enjoyed this game - Plus the music is made by the GREAT FRANK KLEPACKI! - 10/10

Egoriy_1979
Egoriy_1979

Не большой знаток стратегий, но, по-моему, отличная получилась игра. Одна из немногих, которую с удовольствием купил и перепрошёл (первый раз была опробована пиратка). Разработчикам спасибо за отличный проект!

Tiberius
Tiberius

Grey Goo for me is a game that brings you both age old aspects of RTS that you know and love, as well as introduces some new mechanics as well, particularly in the Base building aspect. The Graphics both in actual game and story cut scenes are great, the story grows on you as you progress through the game but only really gets interesting as you reach the games conclusion. The ending sets up what could be a great 2nd game, so I do hope Grey Goo gets another look at from its makers in the future. The mini DLC is good though I feel it would have been better if that story arc was included in the main campaign from the begining, it does answer some questions you would have been asking without the DLC.

All in all 7 / 10 for me!
Tiberius

SHAKA
SHAKA

Pretty cool intriguing game, but i have one major issue that stops me from really enjoying this return to form for classic RTS.

Without playing the whole campaign, you'll have no idea how to really play the game. This is the major difference from GreyGoo, compared to classic RTS games. And it's not like you can't figure it out, but skirmish mode is totally broken for me.

The way many people tried RTS games in the past, when the genre was really popular, was to just mess around in Skirmish. Most people weren't playing the Campaign. And you technically can do that, but even on easy, the mode i wanted to experiment and try things out, the enemies rush you like crazy, and you barely have time to check the tech tree out. It leads to a very frustrating experience where the game doesn't allow you to play around with it. I can't even imagine how normal or hard modes are.

Anyway, i played a few hours of the campaign to understand the game, but it's along commitment and the way it's designed, i didn't even get to see all the factions yet. Just wish there was a way for the game to let me play at my own pace and the way i love to experiment. I get what they are going for, but they could do some small changes that improves the FTUE. It's sad, but i can't recommend it for now. It's so close to good, it's painful to watch.

vicrao
vicrao

Great RTS. All three sides have unique units and play style. The campaign is lots of fun and the story and voice acting is amazing. I highly recommend it.

Akifestor
Akifestor

fun game, not a fans of multiplayer so I only review based on its single player campaign. The story is fine, the game is fun, the variety of the forces are fun too, recommended

Draekoth
Draekoth

Having so many issues trying to get the game to load and when it finally does load and am able to actually launch a mission, there is no sound. The game freezes when trying to launch. The cutscenes don't play at all. Bought this game a long time ago and downloaded yesterday (DSL, so long time to download) because I saw some video's and really wanted to play it, but few hours later, I'm uninstalling because the game simply is bugs galore.

Ice4s
Ice4s

It's an awesome RTS, try it out.

A.C.Guernica
A.C.Guernica

I played this game years ago. I thought it was decent for what it was. I still think it's a decent enough game. I remember for the graphics of the time it was very appealing aesthetically. The only problem I had with this game is not enough information on the controls.

StellarPunkar
StellarPunkar

Pretty old school RTS, Goo faction design very unique. Shroud faction has some cool ideas too.

COVID-18 was better
COVID-18 was better

This game is incredibly fun, and the story is beautiful.

Rex
Rex

it's really an awesome game, if you love Star Craft you will love this game.

Scope_Dogg
Scope_Dogg

I remember wanting to play this game back when it released, but didn't have a good enough computer at the time. Came back recently having remembered it and bought it on sale, despite the "Mixed" review score, which I was slightly nonplussed by, given the pedigree of the developers (Petroglyph is a studio made up largely of the original developers of Command and Conquer) and apparent high production values. Now, having played the campaign to completion, my feelings are pretty mixed as well.

The game's main strength is its most distinctive selling point, its three distinct races. The story's based around a three-way clash first-contact type scenario on an alien planet. All three races use the same resource, catalyst, that accumulates in pools around the map, but otherwise play very differently.

The first and most basic are the Beta, a race of four-armed aliens with South African accents who have settled on the story's planet and are refugees from some nameless cosmic horror. Gameplay-wise, they're probably the most simple faction. Their mechanics are pretty straightforward, with the gimmicks being limited to having to attach their primary structures to hubs, and using units garrisoned into the main pillars of their defensive walls for base defence. Their units are a roster of soldiers, mechs and aircraft that function pretty straightforwardly, with their most exotic option being their super unit, the Hand of Ruk, which is a kind of hovering fortress that can manufacture units by itself, features six garrison slots for your defensive units, and has a massive artillery cannon with huge damage, blast radius and maximum range, but a fairly long minimum range as well. They're the first faction you play in the campaign and probably the most beginner-friendly too.

Eventually it turns out that the enemies the Beta are fighting aren't the cosmic horror they've been running from, but instead an different strange alien race called "humans." Grey Goo's vision of humanity's future is one in which humanity has united and built a utopian and technologically advenced society, though it seems like this has come at the cost of everyone speaking with a British accent now. Unlike the Beta, who can build anywhere they have vision, all human structures have to be connected by a series of power conduits to the main headquarters building to function. This essentially means that the humans have one large base, though the inability to expand is made up for by harvesters gathering a consistent amount of resources irrespective of the distance of catalyst deposits from refineries, a structure that lets you teleport ground units anywhere you have vision, and strong base defences, with teleporting turrets and walls that let your units move and shoot through them freely while blocking the enemy. All their units are drones, save for their epic unit, the Alpha, a mech with a human pilot which fires off a shockwave that damages enemy units once it has taken a certain amount of damage and fires a highly damaging laser in a straight line along the ground.

The final faction is the Goo that gives the game its odd name, being a swarm of self-replicating nanobots that seek only to consume, grow and expand. Though their unit voices are just a series of beeps and bloops, meaning they're the one faction that don't speak with a funny accent, they make up for this by being the most fun and interesting faction by far. The goo don't build bases, nor do they gather resources the same way. Unlike humans and Beta which gather resources into a global total in a manner similar to most other RTS games, you instead park huge globs of goo called Mothers on top of catalyst vents, which gradually causes them to grow in size and health. You can then spend the Mother Goo's health to spawn off either a new mother goo, or a small or large Protean, which is a mass of formless goo that can be morphed into a group of specialised units. It's a very different and very fun way to play, with you gradually devouring resources, growing in size and numbers and overrunning the map. The goo's traditional units are again quite basic, but the use of Mother Goos and Proteans adds a whole new dimension to the game - formless goo can be used as an offensive force in its own right, if it comes into contact with enemy units or structures it'll do damage, and if it does enough it'll melt the enemy units down and absorb them. Formless goo can travel unrestricted up and down cliffs and over mountains, allowing you to bypass enemy defenses and morph into a powerful force behind enemy lines. Their most powerful unit is a kind of formless goo as well, called the Purger, which you create by transforming a max size mother goo and then feeding more Mothers and Proteans to it. All of this mobility and ability to act in unexpected ways makes up for the Goo's lack of air units or static defense.

With these three distinct factions, the game should have had everything it needed to be a compelling RTS, especially when you take into account that the game looks pretty damn good and has an incredible soundtrack. However, it also has a lot holding it back. The game has interesting lore and really well-made CG cutscenes, but its story kind of falls flat in the end. It doesn't help that the campaign is pretty short with only a few missions for each faction, with a narrative that doesn't really connect well. They subsequently released a short DLC campaign that plugs up some of the narrative holes but even with everything in the final product the story doesn't have a satisfying resolution, and probably never will because this game didn't sell well. The game actually added a 4th faction, the Shroud, who were probably meant to be game's final big bad challenge that would have tied everything together, but bafflingly they're totally restricted to Skirmish and multiplayer and don't feature in the game's singleplayer campaign content at all.

It also doesn't help that the campaign ends up not being very satisfying on a gameplay level either. The short length of each faction's campaign works against it, given the distinctive nature of each faction. Each one gets a softball first mission to ease the player into the fundamental basics of each faction, which is perfectly fine, but the difficulty often ratchets up straight after, while I was still grappling with the faction mechanics and their unit roster. It also doesn't help that there's an overabundance of annoying mission gimmicks, typically time limits or needing to keep some specific unit or structure safe. Often the difficulty feels annoyingly random, with the AI feeling inconsistent in its level of aggression. I had to restart missions many times because the AI jumped me or a mission-crucial objective before I had the chance to build up, only for them to be passive on the next retry.

Eventually enough little annoyances built up that the game's fundamental flaws really stand out. When you're getting jumped on early, or having to defend multiple points on the map, it becomes very easy to notice how much the game's sluggish pace works against it, whether it's the slow movement speed of most units, how long they take to build, how annoying and fiddly building human and Beta bases can be, how restrictively designed most maps are or how long it takes for you to get a decent economy going without resource stalling. Part of the reason why the Goo feels the most fun is because they struggle with these issues the least. Having battled with all that in the campaign it made me not even want to try skirmish.

Ultimately I understand the game's rating better now. The uniqueness of its factions, especially goo, can't really overcome the fundamental flaws in the game's design. I still think it might be worth picking it up heavily discounted like I did for the novelty of playing Goo if nothing else, but definitely not at full price.

7thsojurn
7thsojurn

A Great story with nice automated videos and you would think with all of this the game play would be top notch well i only played through a few missions and the action and game play and sound effect are just not that good and moving about seems slow and boring. Yes i like some of the cool looking ideas but a lot just are more like what you would see in an old game style design and the weapons and units to what they call heavy tanks are just robot all out dated looking like off an older game design The map design was the number one thing that i just did not like. Nothing looks that cool in this game and sorry but a friend liked the game but it just got so boring and lame that i quit and never was excited enough to continue not sure why all together but some of it was the above point i guess.

REVIEWED BY; STEPPING STONE GAMING SITE: 12/10/21

Keldor
Keldor

Absolutely fantastic RTS game! The campaign was plenty of fun. I would love to play online. Shame the multiplayer scene is completely dead and gone. Hard to comment on balance, and other factors since there is really nobody to play with. Even so, I think this game is worth giving a try.

PorcelainUnicorns
PorcelainUnicorns

Years after I first bought Grey Goo, I remain ... undecided about it.

It has a fun, almost schlocky feeling to it, and it is not afraid of experimenting with its faction design. The faction design is, frankly, one of the best things about the game. The Beta are fairly standard RTS fare - but the Goo and Humans are fascinating and a joy to play as.

The Goo are essentially nomadic, and manage to capture a fascinating play style - where running away and regrouping is perfectly acceptable and even rewarded.

Meanwhile, humans have a focus on teleporting - and it makes base building very interesting. They almost feel a bit like a tower defence minigame. You are rearranging your base regularly, and it is quite satisfying to shift your defences around to respond to emerging threats.

Each faction has a fun epic unit - and there is very little more satisfying than completing your epic unit and just blasting the crap out of the map.

Unfortunately, the game falls flat. The campaign (as many others have pointed out) feels slightly unfinished. The concepts behind it are fascinating. The all consuming goo are scared of something. The humans are robot pacifists who retreated back to Earth and became utopian hermits. And the Beta are ... your standard 'survivors of unspecificed galactic disaster' and probably the least interesting among them all. Unfortunately, even their cookie cutter concept doesn't feel filled out.

Who is the goo scared of and what is their plan to survive? That isn't really explained.

Why do the utopian pacifist humans happily blast the crap out of the Beta for breaking some robots? Um, because.... reasons. There is some consideration to a subplot about AI rights and how the humans exploit their intelligent androids, but it goes nowhere. The Beta start to feel ... problematic after a while. They all have south african accents, for some reason and they're vaguely racially stereotyped.

The Shroud, the fourth race, added later feel... exactly like a later addition. Your classic interdimensional aliens who want to either drain our dimension of energy or terraform everything to match their dimension (it is never clear which) - and everything about them is fairly unoriginal, from their designs to their role in the story to their name itself.

They're Species 8472 from Star Trek, the Draj from Titan A.E, the Riftborn from Endless Space, the Unbidden from Stellaris. Their blatant use of a stock sci-fi stereotype isn't inherently a problem, but they don't do anything interesting with it. They don't feel like they were initially conceived at the same time as the other factions. They're the villains who the Goo are fleeing, apparently, but this never feels convincing because they're not particularly intimidating.

Gameplay is fine, but doesn't feel extremely well balanced. The campaign is short, extremely short, and for single player, the game lacks some of the features of other RTS (in-depth scenario customisation, etc) that might've given it more replayability. Multiplayer might as well not exist because this game never sold well even on release and years later its dead (there are usually less than 20 players worldwide). Back when it was new, I did manage to get a few games and while interesting to play it generally felt like matches were over quickly and got repetitive. The grey goo by their nature also have a tendency to create a frustrating wild goose chase to kill that final mother.

If you have RL friends who are also willing to spend $40 on this game, maybe you'll have fun with it for a bit.

Unfortunately, when Grey Goo didn't sell well, the devs generally dropped support (the last patch was March 2016, about a year after its release). Very little was done with this game after release - it landed with a resounding splat. The marketing was not where it needed to be, and except for a lackluster DLC that feels like it was birthed early when they realised they wouldn't make their money back by spending any more time on it, Grey Goo slipped away into RTS obscurity.

If they had refined this game, I think they really could've polished it into gem. If you're a hardcore RTS fan, you'll appreciate what it was trying to do, but mostly just feel disappointed by missed opportunity and wasted potentially.

asutherland83
asutherland83

I might be biased because I was the voice for some of the characters, but this is a really unique RTS with a great storyline. Quick to learn and tons of in game time to keep you interested.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Good balance and fun base building

Oldgayracist
Oldgayracist

no linux build
overall, game is poorly optimised.

soddcutter
soddcutter

Great strategy game that I wish had gotten better traction. great play

aleksander
aleksander

Unique take on the RTS genre. Only played the campaign but it is built interestingly with great voice acting (they're australian too, fun to see aliens speak australian instead of american). The races are very divers and the grey goo itself is a totally new RTS mechanic that I've never seen before.

occamero
occamero

played dfor a while and like it

Black Eye games
Black Eye games

Broken Ai best look for a diffent game

Nannou
Nannou

Hi devs... Ummm, what the actual crap? I start this game, begin ~=~=THE FIRST MISSION=~=~... and there's literally NO explanation on how to play the game.
I'm not looking for fundamentals... how to move the camera, select and move units, that's pretty standard and assumed stuff. I'm talking: HOW DOES YOUR GAME WORK?!?! What am I looking at? What is this dumb building? Where do I build units from? Do you REALLY expect me to click around like a dumb ape, trying to figure out what goes where? I mean, I know tutorials are overplayed at this point... but damn, you could have done ANYthing other than this.

I guess we're just supposed to read through your extensive encyclopedia and then immediately "git gud scrub"?

You, and your game suck. No wonder this crap-shack failed, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Lerkur
Lerkur

I mean its kinda good. but like... how the heck is this game $30?? LOL no.

Blue
Blue

Pretty Fun game with a great storyline. Never encountered any bugs. Great game for RTS Lovers, Build anywhere you want! Not worth 30 USD sadly, Wait for a sale for sure! Luckily ive seen this game on sale a few times. Add it to your wishlist.

Moistnugget
Moistnugget

The campaign is a tad bit short, but it's definitely a fun game if you like rts

Agent_B8factor
Agent_B8factor

Like reading a good book, the story, single player campaign and units are very good. GG did not catch on like SC2, but if you love RTS games, this is a must try just to digest the story and single player! I played it in 2017, and just came back in 2022 and played again... tons of fun. I wish there were more Campaign maps.

RotorSpin
RotorSpin

AMAZING BRO

LIKE STARCRAFT 3

BUT LIKE STARCRAFT X HALO OR SOMETHIN

Cmdrnils
Cmdrnils

Im a fan of RTS games and this one is pretty decent with the 3 faction setting. Have not beaten it but from the few hours ive played i like it

Stev232
Stev232

It is a fun game and definitely enjoyable. It could have had a little bit more campaign though.

eagle19991
eagle19991

fun RTS in a genre pretty much pushed to the back burner, unless you are into warhammer.

KungPowTau
KungPowTau

Really fun. Captures the classic rts style with a modern twist.

Eickot
Eickot

Great game, with pretty small comunity investing time and creating tournaments, I enjoyed both playing the game and watching the tournaments...

Ruwa
Ruwa

For some reason I am unable to create ai skirmish or multiplayer skirmish games. The campaign is nice and works but it is a shame that they don't work

The Noodler
The Noodler

Fun game but frustrating as hell when your decimating the enemy only for the game to have a fatal error and crash. Thus loosing all your progress on the current match.

Psycho Spock
Psycho Spock

Really good games, its kind of like Starcraft. It has a decent story and 3 distinct factions. I hope more contents will be made

rbh00723
rbh00723

If your like me and you liked the old style of RTS like in Warcraft II this is for you.

Orbalorb
Orbalorb

Extremely unique RTS playstyle with the Grey Goo faction. Other factions have *somewhat* unique stuff but are otherwise what one would generally expect.

Limey Boy
Limey Boy

Like every game made by Petroglyph, it has some very interesting ideas but there's always something off about the gameplay. either the controls are just slightly too floaty or the pace is just slightly too slow. They could have done a bit more to make each faction play more differently as well.

Bound4Earth
Bound4Earth

One of the worst construction systems ever implemented in any RTS game. Not sure what they were thinking because fun was not a part of that decision.

Khorne Flakes
Khorne Flakes

Eh. The campaign missions can be unrealistic hard even on normal difficulty. So annoying for a veteran RTS player like me. Especially the DLC stealth mission; too strict upon being detected, thus fails instantly. Also spawned in with zero units on that map so I didn't know what to do. Uninstalllllllllllllll

Porco Rosso
Porco Rosso

Great story and gameplay. Managing base and army is not overly complicated.

Server999
Server999

I like the game. Skirmish modes has a lot of options for the A.I and that has given it replayability for me. Each class is very unique in game mechanics. I got it on a good sale and I feel I got my moneys worth plus more.

agrillz
agrillz

old school RTS, good fun and great music

MindLeech
MindLeech

Enjoyed story. Game was ok. Worth a play.

Jackal
Jackal

Amazing game. Currently abandoned by its devs, but ive 100% gotten my moneys worth. Entertaining campaign, bearable skirmish ai, and a still rather active playerbase in the discord, with tournaments for real money being held.

Nova
Nova

Game is fun until you get to Rescue Singleton mission in the human campaign. mission is unbeatable. The game does not give you enough time to get to other side of the map to rescue him. If you do manage to get there with what ever small army you build, the game throws 50+ units at you making it impossible. Horrible Game design.

smokefroge
smokefroge

Great Graphics and a Interesting Campaign. I didn't play Multiplayer or use the Editor. Also if they created more Campaigns I would purchase them.

Hheir
Hheir

Grey goo faction. nuff said :)

Mr. Castle
Mr. Castle

I never finished the campaign... It just wasn't interesting.