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| This is a very innovative strategy game, so innovative that Dark Reign was hyped as the game that takes real-time strategy games to a new level. Using new technologies that employ more life-like and strategic interactions with the environment such as line of sight being obscured by altitude. Customisation and control of your troops is another innovative idea; you can chose how independent each of your unit is, you can set way-paths for your units to automatically follow or cycle, and you can set control 10 tactical groups. This game bears much resemblance to Command and Conquer (the game that made the action strategy genre popular), and basically made improvements to all of C&C's shortfalls. Now Dark Reign's innovative ideas has created new standards in the action strategy genre such that software games developers have followed suite (eg. StarCraft). Dark Reign still remains to be the most sophisticated strategy game, (a bit too sophisticated, with too many options that aren't all that pratical when you are in the mist of a battle and don't have time to toggle and deploy the advanced options). All-in-all, Dark Reign is a great action strategy game but it could have been better. Potentially it could have been a major winner but it is flawed by its lack of attention to detail; the gameplay is not balanced and there is a lack of strategic challenges. This is possibly due to Activisions money-making marketing techniques (to hype up a software title and have it released as soon as possible whether or not it is ready e.g. the game Sin which flopped badly), Similarly Dark Reign was a rushed job, never-the-less it is still a good game,it could have been better though. |