Dark Reign 2 Review

What impressed me the most, however, were the units. They are detailed and varied, especially the infantry - Each type of infantry looks different, moves and shoots in a specific way. The enforcers leave a trail of smoke behind them, Juhav, run in a funny way, Fiends turn to purple smoke when they stop, Murigans really look funny with their big-dick weapons... It's a pleasure to look at them. The rest of the vehicles are not that interesting, but they are nice to see with the trails and smoke they leave behind. The thing that spoils the enjoinment is the pathetic AI. They look good, but they're dumb. That can be best seen with path finding. It seems that they did give the problem some attention, because the units move out of each other's way when they have to pass, it simply doesn't work. Even after you order them to move the units will remain motionless for about a second, as if they were thinking what path to choose, and then they choose the worst one. At some points in the game this gets very annoying. This can also obstruct offenses because the back rows will simply stand and play dumb whilst the enemy slaughters the first attackers. This problem can be solved with some practice and patience.

The AI is not much better with combat either. At some points a squad of my soldiers that saw the approaching enemy mostly ignored them and only the closest two started shooting. Assigning different behaviors could partially make up for this: scout (just move, don't shoot or shoot back), Kurigani (smart target selection), skirmisher (move and shoot, but when the enemy fires back, they retreat), Warrior (smart target selection, don't chase the target out of sight range) and Terminator (seek and destroy), but the effect is far from perfect. It is still comforting that besides simple Move, Attack, Move & Attack, Guard you can also issue complex pathways.

As for the gameplay, it has its upsides and its downsides... If we disregard the ease of organizing your main facilities (Command center, squad production structures...) the way you move through the 3D world is not too intuitive. The game uses a rather strange system for handling cameras: There are several predefined camera angles both in vertical and horizontal position, which certainly do not become a 3D environment with a possibility of full motion. The camera can be set right above the action after which you can play the game as if it were a classical 2D RTS. The biggest problem is that pushing the screen with the cursor strafes the camera rather than rotating it, which could have been a more reasonable choice. Pressing the cursor keys or moving the mouse with the right button pressed will produce the same effect. Now, if you want to rotate the camera freely, you have to hold both mouse buttons down (or turn the free-look mode on by pressing F key) and move the mouse. This may seem simple but it is very clumsy in reality, and I wonder why they chose this control system instead of anything more standard. This way, the mini-map was my only means of orientation.

As for the sound, the situation is as common as it gets. The voices are typical for an RTS, with some ambient music in the background. There are both deathmatch and cooperative multiplayer mopdes present. The CD also contains a level editor and the game has a load of filters for exporting stats (even in HTML form), which is certainly nice, especially for gaming communities.

All in all, Dark Reign 2 is CURRENTLY the top 3D real-time strategy... not because its absolutely brilliant, just because we don't have enough of good 3DRTSs. It is a shame to see a concept as good as this being tainted with some poor details.