HighFleet

HighFleet is visually a very interesting game. I was immediately drawn in by the very detailed UI, which tries to look like a real-life cockpit or control station, depending on what you're doing at the moment. In fact, the whole art style is great, fitting together well and giving the game a distinct look. It's overwhelming with tens of different knobs and buttons, but almost none are cosmetic - each serves a purpose.
But what is the game about? Well, there's a lot here, as HighFleet is actually kind of composed of multiple games. It tries to offer a pretty comprehensive simulation of all your activities as the commander of a fleet in a war. Navigating on a map, tracking enemy fleets, avoiding being tracked by enemy fleets, a bit of diplomacy, ship building, fleet management, and finally a sort of helicopteresque dogfighting simulator.

Now, what I said may already ring some warning bells, and if it does, you'd be right. The game tries to do a lot, and that doesn't work well. While everything looks good visually, each separate element of the game hasn't gotten enough attention to really make it deep enough to be enjoyable. For better or worse, the systems are complex enough, which fits well with the game's style, but this additional complexity doesn't translate well to extra depth. It doesn't help that the different types of gameplay are not from adjacent genres, but often quite distinct ones.

I sadly failed to enjoy any aspect of the game. None of it was terrible, but there was clearly a focus on presentation, not gameplay. I think I would have loved to see this level of detail focused into a single one of the multiple games offered. There are definitely good and unique ideas here, but ultimately the game tries to be too vast and ends up too shallow, and for that I can't recommend it.