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Armageddon Empires

	Author: Bill Trotter Article Type: PC Game Review Publication Date: 1/18/2008 Developer: Cryptic Comet Publisher: Cryptic Comet Related Categories: Science Fiction, Turn-based, Post Apocalyptic

A DOUBLE-TAKE ON THE SPECS

Before we get started on the review proper, please click forward to the last page of it and take a gander at the “System Requirements”. Direct your attention particularly to the datum regarding the CPU needed to play this game.

Yeah, I thought that would raise some eyebrows!

That’s not a typo, either. Armageddon Empires is a handsome, very deep, visually stylish, turn-based strategy game that incorporates one of the meanest, most unpredictable AIs you’ve ever encountered…and it runs like a Rolex on less processing horsepower than you’ll find in some high-tech washing machines.

That fact alone suggests a line of speculation fit for a separate essay, but I’ll pass on writing one at this time. (A great collective sigh of relief is heard in the background…) I merely wanted to grab your attention by pointing out one salient aspect of this extraordinary, mesmerizing strategy game.

Armageddon Empires is special for a number of reasons—not all of which I have time or space to delve into as they deserve—but perhaps the most remarkable thing about it, is that it’s the first “Lone Wolf” design to come along in many years. It hearkens back to the Golden Age of electronic gaming, when one vision-seized programmer, assisted perhaps by a few pals who generated the graphics, pecked-out the documentation, and tried to answer the phones, could hold up in somebody’s garage or attic for a year or two and eventually emerge with a finished, playable, highly individual, and sometimes even successful game.

Deploy your Home Base as far into the map as you can, to facilitate recon, but don’t leave it unprotected—lose it and it’s “game over”.

I had thought the days of such Lone Wolves were long over; that even reclusive virtuosi like Grigsby and Sid Meier were, these days, forced to rely on some kind of corporate/ bureaucratic structure to implement, polish, and eventually distribute their very personal titles—the manifold tasks of creating a viable product have simply grown too complex, too costly, and too demanding, for a small band of like-minded geeks to pull it off (although Internet marketing, thank God, has developed into a fairly robust alternative to the old paradigm of getting-it-into-the-stores. The last Lone Wolf who regularly produced good games more or less by himself, was my friend Jeff Lapkoff, who gave us such tasty titles as Custer’s Last Stand, Remember the Alamo, and Zulu Wars (and I haven’t heard from Jeff in a coon’s age, so if you’re still out there, ol’ buddy, send “The Colonel” an email and let me know what’s going these days!)

Armageddon Empires is the creation of Mr. Vic Davis, who spent about a year-and-a-half programming it and laying out the interface, after which he brought a handful of extremely talented colleagues in to polish the code, flesh-out the graphics, and play-test the emerging design until it was as bug-free as any product can be before it ships to the consumers (who will, of course, uncover problems even the most dedicated beta-tester didn’t find!). Although you CAN order the game on a CD, its modest technical specs make downloading it a snap, even for the least experienced new PC owner.

Here’s a typical map screen, including the selected unit’s stats

It is as solid as a concrete block, too. In the approximately 35 hours I’ve been playing (so far; as soon as I fire this review off to Zabek, I’m plunging right back into the game!), I’ve encountered exactly ONE lock-up, and that may have been due to my trying to do something completely incompatible with the mechanics of game-play, as I gradually came to understand them.

Armageddon Empires has only been officially on sale for a month or so, and its creators lacked the financing to mount a serious “marketing campaign” (believing, rightly, that word-of-mouth and Web reviews would eventually build momentum), but already there’s a remarkable buzz about this title, and it’s been growing daily.

Consider this review a big loud new “Huzzah!” to add to that buzz, practically a Red Alert to gamers who thrive on classic strategy challenges and who’ve been, if not starved, at least on mighty thin rations for a long time.