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I
had the opportunity to attend a Microsoft Press-event the other
day where they were presenting the MSN Gaming Zone, Asherons Call
and Allegiance. While I won't talk about the first 2 I was
inspired to write a preview of Allegiance, a game that I felt has
the potential to become a huge hit in the online market.
When I first heard about Allegiance I assumed that it would be a
kind of "Asherons Call" in space meets Elite type of
game. I saw a game where you would start as a lonely space cowboy
and where you would slowly build up your character. Well, forget
that. That just proves that it helps to pay attention.
Allegiance is nothing like I thought it would be. Instead we are
talking about a squad-based space-combat game with some
interesting twists in it. The game won't even have a persistent
world but instead be played in games ranging from 20 minutes up to
5-6 hours depending on the players.
So, what IS Allegiance then really? In Allegiance you can play one
of 3 civilizations. Each civilization has an advantage over the
others (economical, defensive or offensive). The game really could
be described as Homeworld meets Wing Commander over the net.
The main features that I got excited about is this:
· Great graphics - You can argue if this is a feature or not but
still it has extremely good graphics. I especially like the way
all ships have those tiny blinking lamps on the edge of their
wings - just like a real airplane. A lot of the graphics look very
similar to Homeworld and the miner unit actually is a complete
rip-off from Homeworld. The explosions are breathtaking and
everything is smooth at 1024x768 with my GeForce.
· Interesting controls - The controls in the game now allows you
to fly in one direction while facing another direction. This means
they have included some kind of inertia in the way the space-craft
fly. This lets you fly great strafing runs, shoot at a follower
etc. with much more ease that the usual Wing Commander
flight-engine where it behaves like a normal aircraft. It will
take some time though to learn how to use it to your best
advantage but I'm sure that those who master this will be the most
successful players in Allegiance.
· Squadron play - Each fraction has 1 commander. This can be the
guy who starts the game or someone else. This guy alone has the
ability to play the game as a normal RTS game. He can, from a
zoomed out position, which others also can take up, select ships
and give them orders. These orders then pops up on the individual
players screen telling them that the commander wants them to do
this or that. This promotes the team-based gameplay as 1 person
now gets a better overview of the action. Of course no-one has to
follow their commanders orders and you can even start a mutiny and
select a new commander if you like. However - to win you really
need to work as a team. The commander also is the guy who decides
on what to research (there is a tech tree) as well as what to
build and where. I have played several games and I noticed that it
is important that the commander is a good one. A bad commander
quickly will lead his team to defeat.
· Turret control - YES. Finally a game where you can man the
turrets on a capital ship. In Allegiance you have the ability to
cooperate with others in flying and gunning larger ships. You will
frequently notice that the commander or someone else asks for
people manning the turrets on a capital ship when playing. I've
been riding "shoot-gun" on both a 2 turret Heavy Bomber
and larger frigates and missile frigates. And I can tell you it is
cool! 3 words come to mind. I LOVE IT.
· Death - Death is handled different in this game. When your
spaceship is destroyed you will find yourself stuck in a
rescue-pod that slowly drifts towards one of your bases. If the
base is in another sector you will have to drift through wormholes
to reach the station. If another player from your team flies over
you however you will be transported directly home. This means that
you won't be able to just jump into a new ship and get out in the
fray again if you get shot down. I think this should make people
more careful before starting suicide runs.
· Good communications. When you play the game you will quickly
notice that people are chatting a lot in this game. You can either
use a normal text based chat or use any of the numerous
pre-recorded voice-messages.
Other than this the game is a simple RTS/space-combat game. You
mine asteroids for resources and can jump between different
sectors via wormholes.
There are several ways to play the game. You can either play it in
the conquest mode where you fight with other factions (up to 6
teams with 3-15 players each) or play a death-match mode, capture
the flag etc.
I had the opportunity to play in a few games at the event and even
in a game with 40 people the game was smooth and lag-free. When I
got home I downloaded the open beta and started playing from home.
Via my ISDN connection I have yet had any problems at all with lag
even in games with almost 40 players. Some others have complained
of lag though and this is something MS has stated they will work
on
The open beta should end in March and the game will then be out in
about April in USA. You will be able to either play it for free at
the MSN Gaming Zone, start a dedicated server or use the Premium
area at MSN Zone where you will have to pay about 9.95$/month to
be able to play. For that you will get some extra content ( more
factions, tournaments etc.) as well as have all your stats saved
online. I'm sure MS will have more stuff there as an incentive for
any Allegiance players to join the Premium service.
In the end I am very excited about this game. Right now it's quite
crash-prone and even though I've been playing several games for
almost 1 hour almost everyone has in the end crashed for me and
forced me to reconnect. The games I've played so far have been
very fun. All have been conquest games and the battles have raged
forward through sectors and back again. It's been a while since
I've enjoyed and become so involved in a game. That must be a good
sign.
I can't wait for this game to be released and I definitely
recommend anyone to try it out as soon as possible.
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