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Dark Planet: Battle for Natrolis
by Jolex Del Pilar
Saturday, March 30 2002
A little bit of Starcraft, a pinch of Dark Reign, and with a little variation, Dark Planet is born.
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Title:
Dark Planet: Battle for Natrolis
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Platform:
PC; Minimum: PII 450, 64 MB RAM, 3D graphics accel., Win9x/ME/2K/XP,
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Publisher:
Ubisoft |
Developer:
Edgies |
#
of Players: 1 - 12 |
Genre:
Real Time Strategy
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Origin:
United States
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Expected
Release:
March 2002 |
Grapevine:
Dark Planet: Battle for Natrolis may not be the next coming of Starcraft(only Starcraft 2 could do that), but it isn't bad in it's own right. On the contrary, the game is quite good. |
When Blizzard Entertainment released Starcraft a few years ago, they didn't even begin to realize how popular the game would become. Thousands of people would log onto Blizzard's homegrown multiplayer service, Battle.net to challenge each other day and night. Battle.net would serve thousands upon thousands of gamers, and to this day it remains extremely busy.
Dark Planet: Battle for Natrolis may not be the next coming of Starcraft(only Starcraft 2 could do that), but it isn't bad in it's own right. On the contrary, the game is quite good. Addictive and fun, it takes the Starcraft formula and adds a little graphical spice.
The game's plot revolves around three races (sound familiar) that each have a special interest in a planet call Natrolis. Humans are on Natrolis to harvest resources. Sorin's are the planet's native lizard-like race, and come in both intelligent and "wild" form. The third race is a bug-like race called the "Dreil". Unlike the deep storylines of Warcraft 2 and Starcraft, this game doesn't give you too much to read or think about. Pick a race and make sure you defeat the other two.
Of the three races, the Dreil and Humans are pretty predictable. The humans will always be in the mix, and the bug-like aliens (Dreil) will always be a menace in any of these games (thank you Ridley Scott!). The Sorin are a bit original. They are tree-like people who use primitive weapons such as swords and bows to fight the other two races.
The races, although sharing a distinct graphical look, do not vary much between the units they can employ. Each race has a very similar technology tree. Four levels of advancement, similar to Age of Empires, and most units have a parallel in the other races. There are some exceptions though. For instance the Sorin can build a giant ogre called a "brute", and the humans can build a lot of specialized units such as underwater soldiers and jet-packed equipped soldiers. Special command units can be built that help surrounding units perform better.
One of the things that Dark Planet: BFN seems to one-up Starcraft in, is in the ability to place units anywhere on the map. No more Command and Conquer/Starcraft territory restrictions just find a nice clearing and build it. This will no doubt change the strategies of many Starcraft players who may convert to Dark Planet (building guard towers just outside the towns of other players?). Still here though are the population restrictions of most RTS games. If you want more units you have to build more living facilities, which is pretty realistic if you think about it.
The missions of all the races are very similar. This is perhaps one of the weaker points of Dark Planet: BFN. In Warcraft 2 and in Starcraft, the missions differed moderately from race to race to give a bit of variety to the races. However in Dark Planet: BFN, it seems as if most missions are of the "seek and kill" variety with a few exceptions thrown in along the way (covert ops type stuff).
One strong point about the game is its resource system. Each race requires three resources to maintain their war effort. However, each race shares at least two of any other races resources. For example, the Humans require geo-thermal energy, stone, and crystal. The Sorin require stone. This "sharing of resources" sometimes requires a player to battle and fight off the workers of another player constantly to keep the flow of resources free. One of the more interesting resources is that of the Dreil's energy source. They must put their defeated enemies into cocoons. This requires Dreil's to fight if they are to expand their base, making the Dreil a real fighter's player-race.
There is a lot to like about Dark Planet: BFN. It has a great graphics engine that's rendered in full 3D. The control scheme is familiar, especially for Starcraft fans. It also features a pretty robust multiplayer mode that includes Capture the Flag, Domination, Death Match, and Skirmish modes. These are all a blast to play online, and they can be played from Ubisoft.com or a LAN, obviously a LAN seems to provide the most lag-free results. 20 single player missions for each race make the game very prolific as a single player game too. Although the missions won't differ much between races, at least the units and mission briefings will, so it should give you the illusion of playing through three different campaigns at the very least. Edgies is not a company we've reviewed software for before, but if Dark Planet: BFN is any indication of the talent holed up in their development studios then we can expect many inspiring products to come out of the Edgies' Team.
--- Jolex Del Pilar, E3 or Bust!
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