Mini Video Game Review – Aven Colony

Recently I have been re-playing Aven Colony; and it’s alright. Developed by Team17, Aven Colony is a space based city building strategy game where the player is instructed to build new cities on an alien world and strive to keep the citizens happy. The game is very easy to control and get around. The city building side is very fun, but at the same time you need to keep an eye on your population’s needs; which includes housing, crime, air, food and water. The game’s main campaign provides instructions which are there to help direct you where to go, but if you are someone who just likes building things, then the game is rather hard to get around. The population’s needs are hard ones to implement as you are limited as to how much you can actually build based on available resources, and crises can happen at the drop of a hat! Solving them appears to be luck based too as you can try one thing, and then not meet with any success at all! Then the game bombards you with constant messages which you can’t turn off, and constantly override the speed settings. Building the cities is fun, but the game is more like Tropico than say RollerCoaster Tycoon, as you go from being an architect to being a Politician, which isn’t all that fun! The graphics and design are pretty good though with a wonderful colour scheme.