[small]Skeleon's Budget Reviews:[/small]
DARWINIA
Darwinia is a very unusual game. The best definition for it would be an RTS, although it incorporates a lot of arcade elements. The first thing one notices when starting the game is, of course, the style of graphics. Set in a "virtual theme-park", Darwinia is rather minimalistic in that respect. That's not to say that it's ugly, no, far from it! But its style is reminiscent of the classic movie Tron in several aspects.
Obviously inspired by Tron, these are your Engineer units, basic workers.
The basic story is that Darwinia, said virtual theme-park, has been invaded by a very aggressive computer virus. Dr. Sepulveda, its creator, is desperately trying to hold this world together and protect the Darwinians, a species of supposedly sentient virtual people, from the corruption (although, in reality, they just drift around aimlessly... whatever).
A group of Darwinian survivors. Note the Officer bearing the blue flag to the right.
The controls are, as is much of this game, rather unusual. Still, it doesn't take that long to get used to them.
There are basically two planes of controlling units in the fight against the virus: Direct control allows you to steer programs such as Squads (basic combat units) or Engineers (ressource gatherers and basic workers) whereas Officers allow you to control the Darwinians themselves. You see, you can only directly control certain programs while the Darwinians have a mind of their own. Promoting one of them to the rank of Officer, however, allows you to send large groups of Darwinians around the battlefield.
They'll still act independently, i.e. shoot lasers, launch grenades, flee, scream or die, but you can at least guide them in the right direction. This is particularily important since your basic combat unit (the Squad) is outmatched by the virus later on. You rely on large armies of Darwinians to win bigger fights, so using Officers to their full potential is critical. Through research they learn how to employ new Orders for the Darwinians, but this form of control is still a bit unsafe as the Darwinians will sometimes run away instead of fighting or blow themselves up with a well-placed grenade.
A large group of Darwinians uses a teleporter dish to cross the water on their Officers' orders.
An army of Darwinians advances over the polygon hills with a flag-bearing Officer in the background, surrounded by more Darwinians.
Dr. Sepulveda keeps on researching whatever you tell him to during the course of the game. There are a number of upgrades besides the Officer Orders, so planning ahead what task to give to him next is important as well.
Now onto the resource system: It reminded me of Sacrifice; similar to that game (still one of my absolute favorites, by the way), new Darwinians are produced by collecting "souls". These souls can be gathered from dead virus, bugs or other Darwinians. They are then brought to the Incubator to respawn as Darwinians. Early on in the game, this mechanic doesn't matter too much.
But later on, when there is actual competition over said souls with the enemy creatures (pesky ants, let me tell you), it becomes vital to get your Engineers to gather up as many of those souls as possible.
Programs such as Squads can be created without any soul-deduction, but there is a limit to how many of them you can have active at the same time (the "task manager" only has a small number of program slots available; it can be increased through research, though). This is one of the reasons why Squads and other programs alone won't do it in the later levels.
There is a funny but quite useless way to create new programs, which is drawing certain symbols on the screen (think of casting spells in Arx Fatalis to get the idea). This is a nice gimmick. But in hectic battles, it just takes too long to get the symbol right and can cost you a lot of souls or even victory itself.
Luckily, the programmers included a simpler way to create new programs with a simple click of a button. It?s not as fancy but far more practical.
One of the mission objectives is to get this Fabricator back online in order to produce armoured transports. In the foreground, there are two empty Incubators in the valley, the buildings that reform souls into new Darwinians.
Engineers carrying off souls after a heated battle. Most of my army still linger in the valley, while quite a few souls drift away skywards. Note the armoured transports to the left; they can be deployed as stationary turrets and are unlocked a bit into the game.
The minimalistic graphics grant further advantages. Zooming out is possible to the point where nothing but blips are visible (reminding me of Supreme Commander), so the lack of a minimap isn't that dramatic at first glance. Furthermore, even large numbers of units engaged in combat don't seem to hinder performance at all.
There is, however, a big issue with the minimalistic approach taken: Information. There's a lack of it. Many times you'll hear the unmistakable sounds of Darwinians crying out or a virus attacking. But actually finding the source of the sound is far more difficult when busy somewhere else on the map. Oftentimes I'd get to the place where my help was needed only to see a bunch of souls lazily drifting around long after my units are dead.
Having no minimap with simplistic red/green/whatever symbols indicating skirmishes or advancing enemies can be a rather big problem when you hear the alarm but can't find the problem until it's too late!
There are a few clipping-issues as well with Squads or Darwinians getting stuck on corners or steep surfaces that can really break the flow of the game. And while the performance is very fluent, the controls themselves feel rather sluggish at times.
Especially move-orders come with a strange and unnecessary delay that can get on your nerves quickly if you're nitpicky like I am right now.
This added to the unusual way of how to control units and Darwinians might alienate people who are unwilling to try and see beyond minor flaws. But in my opinion, you really should give it a shot.
It's unusual, innovative and made with love to detail. Where else can you battle actual arcade Centipedes these days?
A power relay station with blips of energy flowing towards and from it. A selected Squad (cross-hair) in the middle of the picture is about to engage a Centipede to their right.
And this creature is just one of many jabs at popular computer- and geek-culture.
Furthermore, how often do you find little gimmicks in the game's box (unless it's an overpriced collector's edition)?
I found this key chain along with a poster in my Darwinia box. I can't guarantee this applies to all sold versions, though.
In conclusion, Darwinia is a very nice and unusual game with a few minor flaws, specifically in terms of controls and HUD. If you can look beyond these flaws, you'll have a very enjoyable time in Darwinia, the virtual theme-park!
[small]Feel free to leave comments and constructive criticism.[/small]
DARWINIA
Greetings! As some of you might know, I prefer to buy budget-titles or old and used games to buying the soulless drivel that the gaming industry is spouting lately. Cough. Sorry, had a little bile built up. Anyway, this is my review of Darwinia, a game I recently bought. I hope you'll enjoy it.
Darwinia is a very unusual game. The best definition for it would be an RTS, although it incorporates a lot of arcade elements. The first thing one notices when starting the game is, of course, the style of graphics. Set in a "virtual theme-park", Darwinia is rather minimalistic in that respect. That's not to say that it's ugly, no, far from it! But its style is reminiscent of the classic movie Tron in several aspects.
Obviously inspired by Tron, these are your Engineer units, basic workers.
The basic story is that Darwinia, said virtual theme-park, has been invaded by a very aggressive computer virus. Dr. Sepulveda, its creator, is desperately trying to hold this world together and protect the Darwinians, a species of supposedly sentient virtual people, from the corruption (although, in reality, they just drift around aimlessly... whatever).
A group of Darwinian survivors. Note the Officer bearing the blue flag to the right.
The controls are, as is much of this game, rather unusual. Still, it doesn't take that long to get used to them.
There are basically two planes of controlling units in the fight against the virus: Direct control allows you to steer programs such as Squads (basic combat units) or Engineers (ressource gatherers and basic workers) whereas Officers allow you to control the Darwinians themselves. You see, you can only directly control certain programs while the Darwinians have a mind of their own. Promoting one of them to the rank of Officer, however, allows you to send large groups of Darwinians around the battlefield.
They'll still act independently, i.e. shoot lasers, launch grenades, flee, scream or die, but you can at least guide them in the right direction. This is particularily important since your basic combat unit (the Squad) is outmatched by the virus later on. You rely on large armies of Darwinians to win bigger fights, so using Officers to their full potential is critical. Through research they learn how to employ new Orders for the Darwinians, but this form of control is still a bit unsafe as the Darwinians will sometimes run away instead of fighting or blow themselves up with a well-placed grenade.
A large group of Darwinians uses a teleporter dish to cross the water on their Officers' orders.
An army of Darwinians advances over the polygon hills with a flag-bearing Officer in the background, surrounded by more Darwinians.
Dr. Sepulveda keeps on researching whatever you tell him to during the course of the game. There are a number of upgrades besides the Officer Orders, so planning ahead what task to give to him next is important as well.
Now onto the resource system: It reminded me of Sacrifice; similar to that game (still one of my absolute favorites, by the way), new Darwinians are produced by collecting "souls". These souls can be gathered from dead virus, bugs or other Darwinians. They are then brought to the Incubator to respawn as Darwinians. Early on in the game, this mechanic doesn't matter too much.
But later on, when there is actual competition over said souls with the enemy creatures (pesky ants, let me tell you), it becomes vital to get your Engineers to gather up as many of those souls as possible.
Programs such as Squads can be created without any soul-deduction, but there is a limit to how many of them you can have active at the same time (the "task manager" only has a small number of program slots available; it can be increased through research, though). This is one of the reasons why Squads and other programs alone won't do it in the later levels.
There is a funny but quite useless way to create new programs, which is drawing certain symbols on the screen (think of casting spells in Arx Fatalis to get the idea). This is a nice gimmick. But in hectic battles, it just takes too long to get the symbol right and can cost you a lot of souls or even victory itself.
Luckily, the programmers included a simpler way to create new programs with a simple click of a button. It?s not as fancy but far more practical.
One of the mission objectives is to get this Fabricator back online in order to produce armoured transports. In the foreground, there are two empty Incubators in the valley, the buildings that reform souls into new Darwinians.
Engineers carrying off souls after a heated battle. Most of my army still linger in the valley, while quite a few souls drift away skywards. Note the armoured transports to the left; they can be deployed as stationary turrets and are unlocked a bit into the game.
The minimalistic graphics grant further advantages. Zooming out is possible to the point where nothing but blips are visible (reminding me of Supreme Commander), so the lack of a minimap isn't that dramatic at first glance. Furthermore, even large numbers of units engaged in combat don't seem to hinder performance at all.
There is, however, a big issue with the minimalistic approach taken: Information. There's a lack of it. Many times you'll hear the unmistakable sounds of Darwinians crying out or a virus attacking. But actually finding the source of the sound is far more difficult when busy somewhere else on the map. Oftentimes I'd get to the place where my help was needed only to see a bunch of souls lazily drifting around long after my units are dead.
Having no minimap with simplistic red/green/whatever symbols indicating skirmishes or advancing enemies can be a rather big problem when you hear the alarm but can't find the problem until it's too late!
There are a few clipping-issues as well with Squads or Darwinians getting stuck on corners or steep surfaces that can really break the flow of the game. And while the performance is very fluent, the controls themselves feel rather sluggish at times.
Especially move-orders come with a strange and unnecessary delay that can get on your nerves quickly if you're nitpicky like I am right now.
This added to the unusual way of how to control units and Darwinians might alienate people who are unwilling to try and see beyond minor flaws. But in my opinion, you really should give it a shot.
It's unusual, innovative and made with love to detail. Where else can you battle actual arcade Centipedes these days?
A power relay station with blips of energy flowing towards and from it. A selected Squad (cross-hair) in the middle of the picture is about to engage a Centipede to their right.
And this creature is just one of many jabs at popular computer- and geek-culture.
Furthermore, how often do you find little gimmicks in the game's box (unless it's an overpriced collector's edition)?
I found this key chain along with a poster in my Darwinia box. I can't guarantee this applies to all sold versions, though.
In conclusion, Darwinia is a very nice and unusual game with a few minor flaws, specifically in terms of controls and HUD. If you can look beyond these flaws, you'll have a very enjoyable time in Darwinia, the virtual theme-park!
[small]Feel free to leave comments and constructive criticism.[/small]
