Game Review - by Brian Lastrom
Stratosphere is a new a wonderfully unique game. In this game you are a captain of a stratosphere fortress, which is made up of what is called "floatstone". Your job will be to command a stratosphere fortress and defend the kingdom against the forces of evil. And if you work hard enough at it, you will be in charge of an entire fleet and be praised by the kingdom for years to come.

Features:
Stratosphere features three modes of play. There is career, where you will start out as a cadet and as your career moves on you will gain more technology and higher ranks to one day have the ultimate stratosphere fortress. Stratosphere also features multi-player games in three different modes. There is deathmatch, escort, and bombing modes. And then there are the single missions where you can use the ships you design in the fortress builder to conquer the skies.

Fortress builder allows you a limited amount of resources to where you can build and design your own stratosphere with any options that you wish to have. In career mode you can build your own ship as well, but are limited to what can be done. And if you don't know what certain items do, Stratosphere provides a Unit Library where you can see a detailed description of each individual item.

Graphics:
The graphics in this game are fairly well done. The fog effects are simply terrific, though the graphics done on the stratosphere fortresses leave some room for improvement. With the great layout of the landscape, you feel like you are way up in the skies with nothing between you and the ground but a giant piece of floatstone.

Sound FX:
The sound effects do the job. Though some more work is needed on the explosions and such. The background music is great. It goes along greatly with the theme of the game. The music gives you the feeling of soaring through the skies and conquering the vast kingdom that lies ahead.

Gameplay:
The controls in Stratosphere are done well. The tutorial in the game gives you an overview of every action that you can accomplish. That way you can focus on sharpening your skills rather than worrying about how to do certain commands. You can easily figure out where you have been damaged in a fight and quickly call in the repair team to get the ship back to normal.

And in the fortress builder you can pretty much just dive on in and build the ultimate flying machine. Each weapon is clearly defined in the unit library and the green square off the ship will give you the range that each weapon is given.

Overall:
This is a wonderful game and a great change from what is out there on the et. The great gameplay clearly out rates the average graphics. Once you start playing you won't want to stop. The interesting and challenging missions will keep you busy for many hours. This game is no walk in the park. It will take great skill to become the hero of the kingdom. What makes this game even more fun is the multiplayer action. I like how you can actually design your own fort and challenge all your friends. With that feature, each game will be different and it will be a mystery as to what your challengers will come out with next.