Vasteel is one of the coolest strategy games ever made, hands down. IMO, it makes all these wanabe RTS games look like chump change...I've never seen a game quite like it. There's even a bit of "local" humour in the US version, stabbing at previous WD titles (like an ATAC called a "Galam", with the description that starts with "Just ask Van and he'll tell you that Galam is one tough fighter"). The game's tough at first because you have to learn both the strategy element and the arcade element (how many other strategy games have you duke it out like in this game? To my knowledge...zero) but once you play for awhile and learn how each ATAC performs (like using Leeches in deep sea or using Snowbears in the icy cold areas...also, missle firing rates, gun damage, gun range and angle, front/rear damage percentages, and my favourite...learning how to use city defenses to wipe out the enemy without shooting a single missle or bullet or using the "pause-fire" flaw to destroy invaders of unprotected cities), making your way through the game becomes a simple matter of paying attention. Battleship-to-battleship combat is something I still can't quite figure out though...so I keep my battleships off of the front line and let my strongest ATACs attack battleships instead (imagine taking down a 6 battery battleship with a Scout...yep, I've done it before ).
Right on.
Vasteel owes a LOT to the ARCHON formula (strategy + arcade action after moving). There should be more games that use this formula, because it really is a nice balance. Unfortunately, designers / gamers often think that strategy and arcade skills are mutually exclusive categories!
To the person who asked about Vasteel 1 and 2: Vasteel 1 is great for all the reasons nodtveidt pointed out, PLUS it has icing on the cake: AWESOME soundtrack (space jazz muzak). Not everyone's cup of tea, I'm sure, but I really dug it (it was a nice change of pace). The arcade battles are pretty easy, though, so you may want to handicap yourself by setting battles to "auto" and allowing the the AI to (poorly) fight on your behalf.
Vasteel 2 -- I've never really gotten into it -- it lacks the charm of its predecessor and uses a different gameplay formula (i.e. no arcade action).
P.S. I love all the funny references you folks found in these games.