Product description
-------------------
THIS IS ARMADA VIDEOGAME VERSION FOR SEGA DREAMCAST. Armada is
pretty impressive technically. The ship's designs are
interesting; the effects are plentiful, and the frame rate is
seamless. Even with tons of ships onscreen, Armada never slows
down. While Armada does have a natural visual disadvantage of
taking place in the void of space, locations such as planets are
well modeled and well detailed. Armada's music is light
orchestral-sounding background music that does a good job of
making the game sound epic and spacey. While the sound effects
are pretty repetitive and possibly mixed too high, they do their
job well. Additionally, conversations in the game are handled
well through digitized speech. They don't drag on like some
games' conversations do; they get the point across, and the
acting isn't terribly grating, either.
.com
----
Top-down space shooters, so popular in the late '80s, have gone
the way of leg warmers and Mr. T. With the influx of richly
textured 3-D worlds and interactive environments, old-school
shooters aren't exactly in massive demand. But Armada for the
Dreamcast boldly bucks that trend by giving gamers more than just
a rehashed shooter. Armada takes the addictive formula of
breakneck shooting action and melds it ingeniously with
role-playing game (RPG) elements such as involved character
interaction and a growth system based on experience points.
As a member of Allied Command, you must annihilate the
destructive Armada whose reign threatens all humankind. But
behind this simplistic premise lies a deep gameplay system, where
you travel within an enormous galaxy filled with space stations,
supernovas, planets, and a battery of Armada ships. Although you
are assigned primary missions, there are plenty of secondary
objectives, spaceship tweaking, and status building during the
nonlinear gameplay. In this way Armada cleverly interjects rapid
shooting action with involved strategy elements to create a
unique experience. Throw in four-player simultaneous play--with
up to four people onscreen at once--and Armada has plenty of
multiplayer fun as well. --Sajed Ahmed
Pros:
* Loaded with elements of sci-fi, fast shooters, and
play
* 6 distinct races to choose from
* RPG-like credit system, where you earn credits to spend on
tweaking your ship
* Create and name your own character
Cons:* The environments are muted
* Gameplay can become monotonous
P.when('A').execute(function(A) {
A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse',
function(data) {
window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100);
});
});
Review
------
Part Diablo, part Gauntlet, and part Starcraft, Metro3D's Armada
is a space-faring action-RPG that pits the six races of
Sapiens eleven millennia in the future against a mysterious
biomechanical threat known as the Armada The game's universe is
near infinite in size, and its genres are wide in . As
captain of a formidable craft (upgradable to deadly and beyond
with experience) you war against an alien horde, perform quests,
gain experience, create trade routes, and piece together the plot
of this space opera of epic proportions.
Here's the deal: Humanity fled Earth in the early fourth
millenium. For the following ten millennia, deadly biomechanical
aliens known as the Armada waged genocidal war against the humans
throughout the diaspora of space. The six "tribes" of humans
found each other in the galactic safe house of the Nexus Cluster
and joined together to fight as one.
In a lot of ways, Armada is an RPG. Your character has stats:
weapon, science, engineering, , and navigation. You can
choose from any of the six races, each having its own personal or
technological strengths and weaknesses. Terran ships are the
sturdiest, ab craft are stealthy, Drakken craft are
versatile, and so on. Like most RPGs, it's all about power. As
you gain experience, your stats increase. You can also upgrade to
more-powerful ships with more power-up "slots." You can purchase
new devices and hardware from any of the races to integrate into
your craft. And when you defeat Armada foes, you can salvage
pieces of their bizarre technology. This is where things get
really interesting, and what may separate Armada from the
linearity that plagues so many of today's RPGs.
Designer Mark Jordan told us how you can influence the
advancement of the Allied races in more ways than by just zapping
aliens. "You can... accelerate each race's research rate and path
they traverse through their tech tree by donations or sale of
Armada technology to a particular race's star base." So you're
not just a single active character in a static environment. Your
actions affect the progress of individual races and as a result,
the entire political and technological milieu of the game. For
all its complexity, Armada looks to be first and foremost an
action game. The controls are designed for combat. You have
rotation, thrust, and fire, as well as shields and a stealth mode
that tax your limited energy. Each race has its designated
special weapon as well. One has a tractor beam; another can heal
multiple Allied ships. Others weapons include a save cannon, an
engine blaster, and the ominous -sounding burn fields and link
lasers, whose functions are still a mystery. All ships also have
a phase bomb (remember the smart bombs from Defender?) that
affects all onscreen enemies.
The screens we've seen so far certainly look like an action
game. In fact, what we've seen looks more like a superpowered
Asteroids than an action version of Starcraft. Think a heavily
upgraded version of EA's Genesis and PC classic, StarFlight, and
you're on the right track. No linear-scripted adventure game,
Armada promises to be open-ended and versatile. Though there is a
definite endgame goal, the universe itself is near infinite and
the game doesn't end when you solve the final quest. The
designers say they didn't want to stop people from having fun and
going new places after all their hard work. Hidden races,
powerful ancient artifacts, and the capacity for four-person
multiplayer action add longevity to what already promises to be a
diverse game of stellar proportions.
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc. -- GameSpot Review
See more ( javascript:void(0) )
