Domination
Short overview sentence that summarizes the review goes here.
Introduction
Domination is the third game in the turn-based strategy Massive Assault series produced by Wargaming.net and it expands on previous titles in many areas. Domination is very comparable to chess, in that chess is all about tactics and strategy. If you’re looking for something a little slower paced than the typical real-time strategy, look no further than Domination.
Domination also features a more solid single player campaign that than the previous games, which also features new units, a handful of which are specific to the faction you are playing as. As well as enhancements to the single player, the online multi-player has also been advanced. It’s now a lot easier to jump online and engage in a battle, and for those of you who are constantly on the go, it offers a new feature where the game is essentially played via e-mail. You make your moves for the turn, which is then sent to your opponent to take his turn and this repeats until someone emerges victorious. This innovative form of gameplay really makes Domination shine.
Graphics
As with most games in the strategy genre, they are usually played from a top-down bird’s eye view of the area, and Domination is no exception. All the units in game are rendered in full 3D and look great. As its set in the future all the units are mechanical, with no human people appearing in the actual game. These futuristic units that do appear look believable whilst still having that distinct sci-fi aspect to them.
The maps you play during the game are also brilliantly created in 3D, with a wide variety of locations from the more pacific themed of lush green grass with sandy beaches and boring palm trees, to the cold and barren landscapes of the arctic regions. Some of the larger ‘World War’ maps even encompass two or more of these themes.
The graphics of the game are not ground breaking by any means, but they definitely suit the theme and style of the game perfectly. Whilst most of the units are the military colours of browns, greens and blacks, the backdrops are a lot more colourful, which make for a nice contrast between the two, and looks realistic in motion.
Sound
The sound effects in the game are pretty standard. You’ll hear generic missile launchers, gun fire and explosions as well as some generic sci-fi sounds such as laser beams and the like. That’s not to say they are terrible, they are just what you would expect to hear and they do the job quite satisfactorily.
While the sound effects are acceptable, the voice-overs are downright atrocious. The lines are being read from the script in a mono-tone, start-stop voice which makes it all seem very boring. The good part is you’re able to skip through all the voice-overs, or turn them off completely.
The music isn’t as bad as the voice acting, but it isn’t great either. The music will just continue playing in the background as you progress through each battle, and you’ll hardly notice its there. There is nothing memorable about the music, which is very basic and has probably been present in the entire series. This is opposed to the thumping soundtracks to popular games like Command & Conquer. All in all, the sound is one of the weaker parts of Domination directly due to the horrible voice acting, with the simple sound effects and music being the only saving grace in the sound section.
Gameplay
The gameplay is the definite strong point of Domination. The single player game brings a lot to the table with eight tutorial missions to bring you right up to speed if you haven’t played any of the previous games, two lengthy campaign missions, twenty varying skirmish scenarios, a very extensive career mode, four assault maps and ten World War maps. All the single player modes have three difficulty settings, which allow gamers to pace themselves during combat. The career mode takes many hours to complete, whilst some of the scenarios and assault maps can be completed in less than thirty minutes. Luckily, each game type will give you a ball park figure of the time it will take to complete that map, which comes in handy.
The core of Domination’s gameplay is all about strategy and tactics. The map is divided up into a grid of hexagons, much like the squares on a chess board. Each turn, each unit has the opportunity to move and then fire, how far the unit can move is indicated by the highlight hex’s surrounding the unit. The unit’s health is displayed above it, whilst the fire power is displayed in the HUD (Heads Up Display), this enables you to attack the enemy with brutal precision.
As well as the movement and attacking phases of each turn, there’s also the recruitment phase. The recruitment phase is where you purchase new units with credits earned from the territories under your control. Each territory has a set number of credits it will produce at the beginning of each turn, which can either be saved for later or spent on new units. The goal of each level is to be in control of all the territories on the map, which is done by invading the capitol which is a large sky-scraper looking building.
The game does not only feature land units, it also features air, sea and amphibious units. With each unit-type having advantages and disadvantages over the others. Coordinating your attacks with the different types can lead to some devastating assaults on territories.
As well as the robust single player portion comes a large focus on multi-player gaming. Domination offers a Hot-seat game type, so you can go up against a friend offline, as well as LAN and online games. The online games can be found and joined immediately, or you can opt for the slower paced play via e-mail feature, which is new to the series and this genre.
Lastability
The single player campaign is very long, even for die-hard fans of the series or genre. Chances are you will become tired of the game before you complete all it has to offer in the single player portion. There’s also lots of time to be spent playing multi player, be that over the net, on a LAN or when you’ve got a friend around for some hot-seat action.
Being able to adjust the difficulty can definitely extend the life of any game, and Domination is no exclusion. If you thought the mission was too easy on the normal or easy setting, then try the hard setting where the enemy AI becomes a ruthless dictator with flawless tactics.
Overall
Turn-based strategy games are becoming less and less common now days as more and more first-person shooters and real-time strategy games dominate the marketplace. For a turn based game to do well, it must have a lot going for it. Regrettably, Domination is not that game.
Whilst Domination does improve upon the previous titles in many areas, it still falls short of being a superb game. The single player and multi-player features offered up are certainly great and a lot of time can be spent playing them, however its going to take something a lot more to revive this genre.
FINAL SCORE
62 %
