Image and video hosting by TinyPic Kesempatan Tidak Datang Berkali-kali, Melainkan Hanya Sekali Saja ! ---------- Maaf Bila Kurang Lengkap Menunya. ---------- Soalnya Baru Coba . ---------- Bro.... !Image and video hosting by TinyPic

29 December 2011

Anno 2070 (PC)


The good:
+ Great gameplay
+ Solid graphics
+ Different factions

The bad:
- Pacing issues
- Somewhat tired formula

Final score: 8 / 10

Controller support: No

System requirements:

Minimum system requirements

Windows 7 or Vista or Windows XP
Intel Pentium DualCore 2 GHz or equivalent processor
2 GB of RAM
DirectX 9.0c compliant, shader 3.0 compliant video card with 512 MB or equivalent graphics card
DirectX 9.0c
DVD-ROM for installation
5 GB of free hard disk space

The Anno series started life deep in medieval times and players were tasked with guiding the destinies of some rather cute villagers, building up their stocks of resources and making sure that they had the most comfortable lives possible given the situation of the civilization at the time. The game had overall objectives for scenarios and some were difficult to achieve but getting a city that worked smooth was the main aim of the game.

From there the series jumped around history using 100 years intervals, tackling ever more complex historical eras, allowing the developers to add more mechanics to the game and to change the art style and even managed to make a move to the handheld space.

I haven’t been a fan of the series but I expected it to move to the XIX century, with the big European cities of Europe serving as testing beds for more massive cities before taking a leap to modernity and the management of a megalopolis like Tokyo or maybe New York.

Instead, publisher Ubisoft and developer Blue Byte, which also handled Anno 1404 and the Settlers series, made the move to the near future, making some major changes to the core gameplay of the series and injecting some political positions into the game.

Story

In the year 2070 the developers see a world where our current worst fears about global warming have become real, with the ice cap melting away and flooding most of the world. Most of the world is now underwater and with nations all but disappeared there are initially two and then three groups with widely divergent philosophies that compete for resources and for population.

Review image Review image
Humble beginning
Nice architecture


The Global Trust is a giant energy supplier and works as such, with citizens that tend to grow wealthy by exploiting the land without any remorse. They seem to be somewhat evil from a green standpoint and decline as their resources are exhausted. Despite their lack of ecological focus they can limit the damage to the environment by collecting carbon and developing more efficient tech.

The Eden Initiative is more concerned with nature but they tend to grow slowly and experience a lack of money but they can more safely extract resources from the game world in the end game, although they tend to develop less colonies.

The SAAT act as a sort of half faction, playable for a time in the campaign mode and supplying research for gamers in the sandbox mode. The challenge is to create a new type of colony for them, underwater, and supply them with the caffeine they require in order to deliver research (they seem to be slowly becoming resistant to energy drink effects).

The campaign mostly acts as a tutorial for Anno 2070, allowing players to control all the factions at the same time and slowly showing players the basics and the core of the game is in the single player scenarios and the sandbox mode.

Here gamers can establish their own path to success (or failure) and there are other factions to trade with, do missions for or even go to war, although this seems to be against the spirit of the series.

Gameplay

Anno 2070 plays like a cross between the old Caesar series and the more recent Anno titles. The player has to figure out resource chains, design efficient cities and meet a number of intermediate objectives in order to develop a range of islands that fulfill all the needs of the population at all times. The mechanics are all solid and interesting and discovering the clear links between all the buildings is half the fun of the game.

Review image Review image
Green growth
Beach development


One major improvement made over the classic Caesar mechanics is that the depots that Anno offers instantly share resources and items across all incarnations, which basically means that moving materials around is much less of a hassle and creating production processes is easier than ever.

The two sides play a little differently, with the Global Trust much better in the early game but driven to always discover new islands and new land they can exploit so they can escape their late game resource trap. Meanwhile the Eco minded faction needs to develop some houses and citizens as quickly as possible in order to get a solid revenue stream for future development. The biggest challenge after that was to set up the transport of resources between islands, which is crucial for success.

There’s variety here but in no way does Anno 2070 force the player to explore two different learning curves. It took me a few lost custom maps before I perfected the early game and created a development routine that worked but after that there were no actual hard challenges, part from the occasional self-inflicted wound (always get the most advanced tech you can get your hands on, even if the price seems too high).



The big problem with the experience delivered by Anno 2070 is that It can be a slow, slow game. This is a boon for the first few matches, when you’re drawn towards watching the citizens and the resource chains and how the built island works. But after a while playing Anno 2070, even with the increase speed button held down, because a matter of setting things up, which is genuinely exciting, and then waiting for something interesting to happen.

Graphics and audio

Anno 2070 is one of the best-looking video games I have seen this year and can safely rival Total War: Shogun 2 in terms of scope. Where the Creative Assembly game developed its rather impressive engine to portray battles Anno 2070 is a pacifists dream and allows players the time they need to zoom in, take in the gracious movements of citizens and machinery and admire how good looking and smooth running their industry machine, their ecological paradise or their underwater metropolis is going.

The beauty of the graphics makes those long intervals in the late game when nothing much is happening very enjoyable because the player can just take the time to look around and enjoy something that he has built from the ground up, like a sort of benevolent god that basks in the light of the society that he nurtures and steers.

Things don’t go as well when it comes to the sound design, mainly because the slightly surreal style is not as well suited here. The various voice actors seem to be having a bit too much fun by making all the capitalist seem like a few dollars short of full evil while the ecologically minded characters tend to come across as totally naïve. The only relief comes from the various ambient sounds and the actual musical tracks, which are well suited to long sessions of city development.

Conclusion

I quite like the time I spend with Anno 2070, mainly because of the futuristic theme and because of the very well though production chains but this is not a game that will have a spot in my collection in the long term.

If I am looking for a city builder then my love will always remain attached to the third Caesar game and to Pharaoh, where the task of building a harmonious city was supplanted by the monumental projects, giving the game a sense of place and purpose that is missing in Anno 2070.

If I am looking for an ecological minded game that poses real questions about the future of our green Earth then the 2011 indie release Fate of the World is a much better choice, a solid card and event based game where global warming can be avoided as long as the player is willing to make some tough choices.

Anno 2070 will mostly appeal to veterans of the series and to those city builder fans who simply cannot return to old flames and need a constant stream of new blood to keep their passion going. They will find a well-tuned experience that might be a little slow sometimes but still manages to deliver both a challenge and beauty.

Review image Review image Review image Review image Review image Review image
Review image Review image Review image Review image Review image Review image

0 komentar:

Post a Comment

 
Powered by Blogger