Graphics: 7
Sound: 6
Gameplay: 10
AI: 8
Lemon Curry: 8
Learning Curve: Approximately 4 hours
Overall: 7.6
This is, simply put a brilliant game. It has a somewhat narrow focus, but if you are a fan of turn based strategy games in general, and particularly hex based wargames or even 4X games then this IS for you. The demo lets you play the first 30 turns using a demo deck from the Human Empire. The army is intriguing, like Berger King said, it’s a weird yet cool combination of 40k’s Imperium of Man meets Mad Max. The full version allows access to the other 3 factions, and allows you to custom build your deck.
Graphics: Accounting for the fact that an independent studio produced AE and it is a traditional hex based game graphics are not its strong suit. This is to be expected however, with very few exceptions turn based games focus on substance over style and devote their energy to creating a balanced and challenging experience. The artwork on the unit cards is nicely done, and usually gives a good impression of what the unit or facility looks like. My only real complaint about the graphics is probably somewhat unique to me. I’m colour blind so some of the coloured resource icons are difficult to tell apart, particularly Manpower and Supplies.
This issue is actually resolved. There is a colour blind mod on the website that changes the icons to nice easy to tell apart primary colours.
Sound: The sound is probably the games weakest point. There is only a single music track playing a psudo-epic refrain that gets stuck in your head. I’ll probably end up disabling the music and running my MP3’s in the background instead. The nice thing about the games low system requirements is that my 5 year old machine can manage to run it even with several other programs in the background. If the full version has more music files I’d be happy. The actual gameplay sounds are confined to a whooping alert alarm when your units catch the enemy doing something unpleasant and the sound of dice rolling. Like graphics however, sound is not the strong point of games like this and I’m willing to forgive it that.
Gameplay: This is where turn based strategy games need to shine, and AE definitely does. There are several different strategies you need to pursue almost constantly, managing armies, resources, research and heroes all play a critical role but you can do so without the game becoming bogged down in an exercise in micro management. The core of the game is a constant scramble for resources so that you can play cards from your hand. These cards represent absolutely everything in the game, from units, to fortresses and supply depots to heroes and even special weapons and technologies. The most basic and fundamental resource is Action Points. Anything you do requires AP’s and they refresh from zero at the beginning of each turn. Some buildings can give you access to more AP’s but the primary way to gain them is by winning initiative rolls. Not only does winning initiative allow you to move first but it gives you extra AP’s on a sliding scale, 12 for first, 8 for second, 6 for third. In a very nice touch you can spend other resource points before the die roll to add extra dice to the initiative roll. This is a recurring theme throught the game. 90% of the dice rolls can be affected either before or after the roll by spending something, in the case of initiative it’s resource points, in the case of battles you can reroll failed dice by spending Fate points if the army has a general leading it. This brings us to the dice rolling itself. In another cool touch you actually roll the dice on the screen and see the results for each die immediately afterwards. This adds an element of tension since although every game has randomization elements to it it’s rare to see them, nevermind be able to affect them. The remaining 4 resources (manpower, supplies, energy and technology) are collected at the beginning of each turn. Your main base gives you one of each resource and various points on the map will let heroes and some units such as the Imperial Pioneers build facilities to extract resources which get added to your overall total each turn. Each card in your hand costs a certain number of RP’s and can be deployed by click-dragging it to an appropriate base.
AI: This is the other crucial ingredient in a strategy game and AE doesn’t disappoint on this front either. The computer controlled opponents keep you hopping and you’re in a constant battle to maintain your fighting effectiveness and meet his armies in the field while trying to prevent him from outflanking you, striking at vulnerable resource gathering points while all the while carrying on a shadow war between heroes. The individual “hero duels” as I’ve taken to calling them are a fascinating aspect of the game. Not every hero is a general; you have researchers, saboteurs, assassin and spies too. The saboteurs and spies can run behind enemy lines and destroy buildings, gather intelligence and other fun stuff while assassins and bounty hunters primarily exist to kill or capture enemy heroes. This is particularly important since capturing a hero nets to extra AP’s each turn and killing an enemy general can knock an armies feet out from underneath it. The larger the force the more vulnerable it is to this sort of attack. Back to the AI though I fully expect to uncover weaknesses in it the more I play. This is universal however, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing Halo 3 or Civilization 4 the computer will always find dumb things to do. AE seems to minimize it however. One major shortfall however is the lack of difficulty settings. They may exist in the full game, and I hope they do but a lack of difficulties might hurt the games replay value.
Lemon Curry: In closing this is a very dynamic game well suited to strategy nuts like myself. It would make a fantastic hotseat or LAN game since turns tend to be relatively brief. In a market glutted with expensive shiny titles with huge marketing budgets the 20 or 30 dollar games are oftentimes ignored, this one is worth paying some attention to though and well worth the 30 bucks.
At any rate my download is almost finished so I’m off to go play the full game
)
