Dark Colony

Lance · January 03, 2002 - 13:06 EST #3

Most of the critiques of Dark Colony that I have seen to date generally miss the point. DC is an excellent game in almost every respect.

First, it is a very good real-time tactics platform--you must act decisively, use time wisely, get a feel for geography and situations, all in real time. Fumble for time, flail around, or play passively and you're toast. I especially enjoy the fact that the AI will gladly launch multiple simultaneous attacks on different positions--if you can't think fast, prioritize, and keep a cool head, you're toast. It's very like command in real combat, and you won't get that rush in turn-based strategy games or other RTSs.

The game requires that you learn each of the essentials--reconaissance, siting of defenses, combined arms, choosing ground, mixing offense and defense, and the importance of economics and logistics. Really, it's an ideal training platform at the tactical level. Look at the game as an abstract tactical trainer, and see a new game, especially for learning the military use of terrain. Every salient factor appears in a simple, easy to understand form--lighting conditions, choke points, money, production facilities, concealment positions--it's all there.

An essential part of the game, and a feature that both lends to the versimilitude and the effectiveness of play, is the ability to make multiple units do different things simultaneously. You want to keep your people aggressively doing things all the time, and the better you get at managing them, the better you are as a player. The balance between your control and the autonomy of units is ideal - if you send a grunt to recon a pile of brush and he runs into a firefight, that's exactly what happens, and you have to deal with it.


Second, the timing in the game is perfect. You must learn patience and always, always think ahead. Seconds can literally mean the difference between holding a critical position and losing it. At the same time, the game does not require interminable boring waits for equipment builds or construction of buildings--the delays are there to remind you of their roles, but they don't dominate the game, as they do in 'Earth 2150,' for example, which is stupefyingly soporific.

Third, the mix of weapons available to either side is an ideal training mix--artillery that is vulnerable to armor and air attack, armor vulnerable to air attack, aircraft vulnerable to small arms, and so on. One would be hard pressed to find a better instruction platform for learning how to effectively combine arms. If there is a design mistake anywhere in the game, it is the sheer power of the defensive turrets, which were apprently designed to be essentially defensive weapons, but are game winners if properly used in mixed offensive/defensive roles.

Fourth, the importance of economics to military achievement and of balancing military and econonomic objectives to achieve a result can be learned in DC, which is almost a pefect 'mini-lab' for a WW2-type production-means-units type of encounter environment. Fall behind economically in DC, and the enemy will GM you to death.

Fifth, DC is an ideal platform for learning coordination with allies, since they can be AIs as well, allowing you to focus on the learning, and not on the vagaries of opponent (and ally) personalities.

Sixth, there are all sorts of ways to vary the scenario in significant ways to play radically different games--turn vents on and off, use alien artifacts, play multiple opponents, or experiment with arm mixes, like aircraft and cyborgs only, infantry and artillery only, etc. The same terrain and game can play very differently.

Seventh, the overall design of the game is sound. It just hangs together very well--timing is right, graphics is just right, capabilities are balanced, weapons mix and capabilities make sense, and there is a broad spectrum of playable options.

Eighth, I have the sense that some who criticize DC never got very far into exploring its capabilities or features. For example, it is certainly possible to hopelessly mix up groups of units by sending wads of them to the same place to create 'mobs.' It's also possible to screw up your car's engine by putting dirt in the gas tank. Why would you do that? You can create echeloned formations in good order by putting units exactly where you want them--if you bother to learn how to do that, and take the time to explore it. Setting way points is an ideal way to time unit arrivals, perform recon, patrol areas and control placements.

In summary, while I hold out little hope that the world will listen, DC is an excellent learning platform and a very good real time tactical game. There is nothing 'strategic' about it--the geography is too limited for that, and the strategy is already dictated--aggressively seize resources early and often, deny them to the enemy, out-produce the enemy in quantity and quality and destroy him without mercy with as few casualties to your side as possible. That is the essence of any military scenario anyway.

Sadly, a very good concept game has been over-shadowed, as usual, by games with over-done graphics and little else. I'll take the 'cartoons' of DC in a realistic tactical battle scenario over the excruciating boredom of over-blown do-nothing graphic monstrosities like Earth 2150 any day.

anonymous · April 12, 2002 - 06:03 EST #10

Like the second reader's message, when I launch DC, I obtain an error type 2. I have an iMac Bondi Blue, 233MHz, 160mb RAM, 4gb HD, and OS 9.1, French version.

Crepeaufromage

anonymous · January 06, 2006 - 17:13 EST #40

Not to speak of the "Day and night" system the game has, lightning effects, the way units can't see through dodads and such in the battlefield terrain, and satisfictional sound, this game feels like its supposed to be, projectile dynamics, the "Hero" system with reincarnation after a so-so long time of being hospitalized, the lightning effects are extreme for its time, and this is when im speaking of the Real time gaming.

But there's more to the game then that, Dark Colony has been made with movies, for every mission, and those movies are made using high-resolution models making it looks very real, if they had saved those charracters and put them into a game like F.E.A.R , the game would lagg on any computer, it was wild in 1997, and is wild today in 2006, i mean this game isnt about being good or anything, its about enjoying it, anyone with any experience with M\K systems will fit into the game like a fish in water after a few days.
There are things in this game, that just simply make it better then any other game, starcraft has been updated since 1997 and does not count, this is usually an original thing, unupdated since 1997\1999 either way, the content i am about to list are things people COPIED of DC ( im not going to say anything but "its cold in this blizzard" )

Day and night cyclus
(makes aliens look farther, humans look less (coincidentally)

Animals ( that can attack )

Artifacts
( with unique abillities meaning not another one of those "spacecraft shoots missiles, artifact shoots missiles" but a TOTALLY different GOOD programmed visually entertaining "effect".)

Different death animations for all ground units
( They die in more then 2-3 ways )

Defense: Heavy mines and defence turrets
(They make it very easy and fun to make base defences, many people that i know would have bought the game if they had known just HOW satisfactional the defence units of Dark Colony are.)