Episode 368: Dark Reign: The Future of War

[Rob Zacny]

Three Moves Ahead 368:

Dark Reign: The Future of War

This month's patron-selected game is 1997's Dark Reign: The Future of War. It wasn't the prettiest game, or even the best game. But it was an RTS that existed in the glorious sepia-tinted days when the genre could do no wrong and even the more hamfisted attempts were at least competent given the sliding scale of the time. Rob, David Heron, and Troy "These RTS games make my rheumatism flare up" Goodfellow talk about Dark Reign, the 90's, and KMFDM somehow.

Dark Reign: The Future of War, and every other damn RTS that ever existed

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[Roderick]

Jesus, Dark Reign. That's a blast from the past. I grew up in the 90s (as did a lot of us here, I'd gather) and this was just one title in the veritable deluge of RTS me-too's. War Wind, anyone? KKnD? Dark Colony? Conquest Earth?

[ilitarist]

Oh, what a trip to the past. I remember how Dark Reign looked and some map layouts but I don't remember anything about gameplay. But Rob is spot on about those old games being about chosing all the troops and sending them to their death. About the time Red Alert 3 came out I remember snobs talking about it being too simple compared too all those RTS like Company of Heroes, Age of Empires 3 and others. You know, games with complex tactics and economy. But there were sane people who said RA3 is one of those games that can keep the RTS genre alive. Because your average Joe can come back from work, start the game, drink some beer, create tank army, destroy enemy base, see funny cutscene. It's a common agreement kitchensink design and listening to hardcore players killed RTS, isn't it?

 

Funny thing about KKnD. It was translated to Russian by pirates - common occurrence in the 90's. And they translated plot as Ukrainian nationalists fighting Russian drunk bandits. Yeeeeaaaah.

[osmosisch]

This was one of the top games at our LAN parties in days of yore. Very cool to see this come up.

[sclpls]

So I want to hear from the Patreon backers that picked this game. When I saw that it won my immediate assumption was that the 3MA audience has a lot more trolls than I had considered. So what was the real motivation here?

[LelandDavis]

This was an interesting episode, as usual, that provoked many thoughts -- some of which I unfortunately have forgotten already as I usually listen to this podcast while cooking and drinking.  That said ...

 

The tech crash was in 1998.  Soon after, Microsoft started planning for the XBOX, and with it, began planning for the death of PC gaming.  As mentioned on the podcast, it was around then that JRPG's started to hit it big, contributing to this decision by Microsoft.  Having lived through this era as a PC gamer, exclusively, it always seemed to me that the PC as a platform was deliberately abandoned by the people with money, at a time when smaller developers had no way to really sell or distribute their products -- this being the era before Steam.  I have always believed that this was one factor behind the death of the RTS, the decline of strategy gaming more generally, and of the PC-style shooter as well.  Of course, Halo revived the shooter more generally, but post-Halo console oriented shooters have always been different from pre-Halo PC oriented shooters.  Not necessarily better, but different.  Strategy games, on the other hand, have never, or only recently, recovered from the deliberate killing of the PC as a platform.

 

On a somewhat related point, I have always been sad that Bungie was bought my Microsoft and turned into "the Halo studio," so that no further Myth games were made.  I loved Myth 2.

 

As for the infiltrator, that idea was pretty clearly killed off by the greater focus on faction differentiation with both Age of Empires and Starcraft.  While it is a great idea from a gameplay perspective, it would make absolutely no sense for Terran units to start cranking out Protoss carriers in Starcraft, or for the Aztecs to start producing Byzantine units in Age of Kings.  It just does not work from a lore standpoint.

 

Finally, Rob, you still have not managed to bring together a group for a Endless Legend retrospective.  Should you be intersted, I would totally be stoked to join such a podcast.  Not that I am an Endless Legend fanatic of anything -- much to the contrary.  I played it some at launch, and would be interested in jumping back in, and would feel to it be a lifetime highlight to be on the podcast.

[chanman]

So a couple things I take issue with:

 

1) It's fine and all that time constraints and the meandering thread of discussion prevents in-depth research before the show, but the groping around for game release years was painful in light of the Internet being available

2) In the context of the time, Dark Reign was a far from mediocre release, often being rated higher than Total Annihilation. Total Annihiliation's claim to fame was probably the 3D engine and (seemingly) 3D terrain (I remember a 3MA interview with Chris Taylor where he reveals how much of a hack that was) - games that we remember fondly are not necessarily the critical darlings of their time. Remember that SimCity 2000 and Roller Coaster Tycoon both got solid but unremarkable ratings when they released

3) I've dug up an old PC Gamer magazine of mine (February 1997) at peak-RTS that had a massive preview section of games that might actually fill out your mediocrity list. A quick "What ever happened to..."

 

a) Rebellion - Covered in an earlier podcast this year - a critical and sales flop, but a bit of a cult favourite and oddly engaging COIN game

Army Men - Released early 98 and spawned several sequels. I seem to remember it being more of an action game though.

c) Uprising - hybrid RTS/action game. Released late '97 I think this was overshadowed by Battlezone which released just 4-5 months later with far more publicity

d) Starcraft - The juggernaut that seems to have frozen a segment of the genre in an 18-year time warp and annexed it for Blizzard for perpetuity

e) Star Command (Revolution): By new studio Metropolis Digital, published by GT Interactive. Released in 97, I've literally never heard anything from this game afterwards

f) 7th Legion - Developed by Epic Megagames and Vision Software. The preview notes that it was supposed to replace resource management with kill bounties. Attractive screenshots, but a common criticism was a lack of animation. Unlike Star Command, this is on GoG and Steam where the reviews are equally mediocre

g) Battlemage - published by Acclaim. The wikipedia entry notes a poor reception due to cheating AI, poor interface, and imbalanced gameplay

h) Dark Reign - the subject of the podcast and introduced many of the same AI options as Total Annihilation

 

Some games mentioned only in brief in the same issue or that I ran across in other issues between June '96 and January '98:

i) Myth - Only a description of the graphical differences and weather effects were given, but it was mentioned in the podcast

j) X-com Apocalypse - I remember at the time that this got a middling reception and my own attempts to play it were badly affected by bugs. I never played it in real-time mode

k) KKND - Released in '97 and warranted a sequel. Has favourable reviews on GoG actually. Metacritic and Gamespot have more mediocre reviews

l) Baldies - A console port that was previously released on of all places, the Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, and PS1. I could find literally nothing about the PC game

m) War Diary - Published by The Game Factory as a discount title according to the magazine brief. Wikipedia has an entry that makes it sound like a Korean market game. At that price point, it may also have just been fad-based shovelware. It's hard to tell

n) Dominion - mentioned only because I saw the ad in the magazine. Developed by 7th Level and published/finished by Ion Storm, released in 1998. I guess the ads just ran early. Another clone product it seems like

o) Z - I actually loved this game - it presage many of the mechanics that Relic would crib for Dawn of War and Company of Heroes such as units being squads of soldiers instead of single units and accumulating resources by capturing and holding territory. The recent ports have been unmitigated disasters, but the core gameplay has a real CoH without cover mechanics or special abilities vibe to it. Evenly matched sides and arena theming made it a break from the usual story-based missions

p) Mechcommander - Fasa Interactive/Microprose game using the Battletech IP (as do the various Mechwarrior games). Attractive graphics, but more puzzle-based mission design. I personally liked it a lot, but it was another one of those middleweight performers. IP acquired by Microsoft along with all the other Fasa IP, so we can only hope that one day they see fit allow commercial re-release. I think Mechcommander and Mechcommander 2 were both released as open-source by MS some years ago, but it's hard to find references to this now

q) Did anyone remember that Lords of the Realm II had a RTS battle resolution mode? Or that Fallout Tactics, SWAT 2 and MAX 2 had both turn-based and real-time combat options, like X-Com Apocalypse?

r) War Wind and War Wind II actually received some fairly solid reviews, but weren't enough for SSI to break into the RTS market

s) More wargame than RTS, but Close Combat released in 1996, (the much nicer looking and playing) Close Combat II, and Sid Meier's Civil War games released in 1997/1998. SSI also had two RTS games of similar scale based on the Warhammer license

t) Dark Colony - a sci-fi try published by SSI and developed by now-Take-Two Interactive (previously Rockstar Canada previously Alternative Reality Technologies). Graphically detailed, but another that would suit the mediocre title better than Dark Reign

u) Earth 2140 - Polish developer, released '97, got two sequels in the mid 2000's - it seems pretty average to me, but it looks like it may have caught a wave in some European markets

v) Syndicate Wars - One of the last of the DOS games - I get the impression that the game is more like a cyberpunk Cannon Fodder than a Command & Conquer

x) Conquest Earth - Published by Eidos and generally just plain bad

[panzeh]

This was an interesting episode, as usual, that provoked many thoughts -- some of which I unfortunately have forgotten already as I usually listen to this podcast while cooking and drinking.  That said ...

 

The tech crash was in 1998.  Soon after, Microsoft started planning for the XBOX, and with it, began planning for the death of PC gaming.  As mentioned on the podcast, it was around then that JRPG's started to hit it big, contributing to this decision by Microsoft.  Having lived through this era as a PC gamer, exclusively, it always seemed to me that the PC as a platform was deliberately abandoned by the people with money, at a time when smaller developers had no way to really sell or distribute their products -- this being the era before Steam.  I have always believed that this was one factor behind the death of the RTS, the decline of strategy gaming more generally, and of the PC-style shooter as well.  Of course, Halo revived the shooter more generally, but post-Halo console oriented shooters have always been different from pre-Halo PC oriented shooters.  Not necessarily better, but different.  Strategy games, on the other hand, have never, or only recently, recovered from the deliberate killing of the PC as a platform.

 

It strikes me as a bizarre conclusion that Microsoft was all about killing PC gaming.  Games were changing, and the "PC-style shooter" was going away on PCs because lo and behold games like Medal of Honor Allied Assault were showing up and doing really well while being simpler to play than Quake.  Even Quake II was a significant departure.  People were looking for more realism and they were getting it- from Rainbow Six to Counter-Strike.

 

Army Men - Released early 98 and spawned several sequels. I seem to remember it being more of an action game though.

 

Army Men was 3do's attempt to make a zany, fun, and easy to play RTS but it had a poor sense of direction and never really played tightly enough for how finicky it was.  They spun it off into action games because I think they realized their RTS formula wasn't working.

[riadsala]

So a couple things I take issue with:

 

1) It's fine and all that time constraints and the meandering thread of discussion prevents in-depth research before the show, but the groping around for game release years was painful in light of the Internet being available

 

I'd be all for the podcast coming out less often, but with higher quality content. The reason I started listening was that 3MA's coverage was way stronger than anywhere else. Now, I'm not so sure. This episode felt really pointless. Like a band putting out a lacklustre third album due to "contractual obligations." I don't play multi-player RTSs myself, but if you're going to revisit an old RTS, then don't you kind of need to play some pvp to get a better idea of how the system and design hold up?

 

I hope that when the Endless Legend show finally happens, you spend enough time playing to offer some good critical analysis. How broken is the late-middle game? How hard a difficulty level can you win by blindly following a more-or-less preset build order? Is the multi-player actually fun? To what extent to the differentiated faction differences rail-road the player into following a narrow race-specific strategy? 

[cornchip]

If I wanted a super deep analysis of Dark Reign gameplay I'd be disappointed by this podcast, but the game was obviously just was a springboard into some very specific nostalgia, which I really enjoyed. There are a lot of moving parts in the transition in gaming between the mid 90s and ~2010 and I thought it was well analyzed. All the stuff I was planning to write about Gray Goo in this comment was said by the end of the episode.

 

One thing that was only touched on a bit was how the RTS genre was scratching the itch of a fantasy: to control your own army. That's why we got into it initially, and all the depth of gameplay, immersion strategies, design, etc. has emerged over time and defined the genre, which has become different than the fantasy.

 

Edit: the comment about how Gray Goo failed, and now Petroglyph is doing some sort of pixelated retro C&C game, did remind me to ask when the nostalgia train will get to where we are making new "retro" RTSes in that turn-of-the-century style a la Empire Earth, MechCommander, Emperor: Battle for Dune, etc. We probably just need mobile devices to be a little more powerful, develop a couple innovations in touch controls, and have the right resource pack for Unity become popular.

[ilitarist]

I'd be all for the podcast coming out less often, but with higher quality content. The reason I started listening was that 3MA's coverage was way stronger than anywhere else. Now, I'm not so sure. This episode felt really pointless. Like a band putting out a lacklustre third album due to "contractual obligations." I don't play multi-player RTSs myself, but if you're going to revisit an old RTS, then don't you kind of need to play some pvp to get a better idea of how the system and design hold up?

 

As far as I understand with many regulars you can just let them talk about the games they really like and you get yourself a 2 hour show.

 

It'd be great to have episodes like this instead of kinda forced discussions waiting to get off the rails into a more interesting theme as it happened there.

 

Troy constantly talks about how good Age of Mythology is but I don't recall 3MA ever having a proper show about it. Maybe they should not try to appease to mythical trendy strategy player but get more of shows about things they themselves love.

[riadsala]

It'd be great to have episodes like this instead of kinda forced discussions waiting to get off the rails into a more interesting theme as it happened there.

 

Troy constantly talks about how good Age of Mythology is but I don't recall 3MA ever having a proper show about it. Maybe they should not try to appease to mythical trendy strategy player but get more of shows about things they themselves love.

 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/classic-game-analysis-age-of-mythology

 

And, good points, I agree. This is perhaps why I really like the episodes Bruce is on (even though i'm not a wargammer). He's nearly always extremely knowledgeable, articulate and passionate. Similarly, Michael is always interesting. And whenever the regular panel do a EU/paradox themed show, although it's always a shame that we don't get Troy's opinion in these conversations.

[ilitarist]

https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/classic-game-analysis-age-of-mythology

 

Ah, it was before I've discovered this podcast. Anyway there was HD version since then and new expansion. Even if they don't care about expansion they can talk about it again comparing to new games.

 

And I could easily listen to new thoughts about Alpha Centauri (they didn't have a show about it since Beyond Earth), Company of Heroes, Civilization (they certainly can talk about it forever) and so on.

[Henke]

Out of all these late-90's RTSes, KKND definitely had the coolest intro tho.

 

 

We can all agree on that, right?

[Michael]

Ah, it was before I've discovered this podcast. Anyway there was HD version since then and new expansion. Even if they don't care about expansion they can talk about it again comparing to new games.

 

And I could easily listen to new thoughts about Alpha Centauri (they didn't have a show about it since Beyond Earth), Company of Heroes, Civilization (they certainly can talk about it forever) and so on.

 

We just did "Civilization at 25" this year: https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/civilization-at-25

[DukeofChutney]

The last 30 minutes of this podcast have broken my idyllic view of Rob. I expected ceaseless study of the strategy genre, constant immersion in the computer wargame and now i find that he is a mere mortal even taking several year breaks from video games. This is a great episode, +1 for more autobiographical discussions from the panel on their time in this hobby. Fortunately Troy appears to have maintained his status.