Remember when a new Real-Time Strategy game used to be something to look forward to? Remember waiting for Starcraft to come out because it was finally going to be everything that Dune 2 could’ve been? Well, maybe you don’t, but hopefully you can remember the time when the “harvest, build, conquer” formula of RTS games was still fresh and new instead of tired and old. Fortunately for gamers, Introversion Software seems to remember just such a time.
You might recognize the Introversion Software name as it is the UK based company that produced the cult-classic Uplink, a game in which they attempted to create an interface that was actually the game. Using a similar approach, Introversion has tried to create an RTS game that isn’t like any other RTS game out there, yet one that also draws heavily on the roots that produced the modern games.
Darwinia is the result of their efforts and although it is still clearly within the realm of RTS games, as one glance at its fantastic retro design shows, it is very much in a class of its own, for better or worse. Fortunately Darwinia is much more than great visuals and familiar electronic sounds because everything that really works in it does so because of the premise.
The premise is that a virtual theme park, inhabited by sentient life forms called Darwinians, has somehow been corrupted by a virus and that virus must be purged. Nothing too original so far, right? Right.
However, as one would expect there is a computer that has somehow managed to get access to this virally corrupt Darwinia, but—and here’s the trick—instead of creating some interface to simulate a computer, Introversion simply took the easiest approach possible and let the player imagine that the computer accessing Darwinia is actually their own computer. In other words, Darwinia pretends that it actually exists.
This means that everything you see on your computer is supposedly the real Darwinia. So if Darwinia is real and the player’s computer is real, then the logic of the game says that the player is actually real in this imagined game world of Darwinia. Through this clever premise, not only has Introversion managed to create a unique sense of authenticity, but it has also managed to one-up the entire high-tech first person shooting genre by giving the ultra-retro Darwinia a true first person perspective. Fortunately, Darwinia doesn’t just set up this premise and forget about it.
The only NPC in the game is the supposed creator of Darwinia—the theme park, not the game. He continually gives advice to the player ranging from simple game controls to tricky mission objectives, always directly addressing the player. Sure the “video feed” that this is done through is decidedly primitive, but everything about the game feels very primitive. While this works for the video feeds and the absolutely hypnotic graphics (what I wouldn’t give to see Darwinia on a high-tech vector monitor!) there are a few other features Darwinia uses that don’t get by on their charms, namely the game controls.
Although Darwinia’s control scheme primarily sticks with the standard RTS point-and-click movement/attack controls, Introversion really wanted to mix things up. The first thing that becomes apparent is that Darwinia seems to have returned to some arcade roots as it is much more an action game than other RTS titles.
Sure strategy is involved, but once the fighting starts, the click frenzy begins as you attempt to pummel your enemies into pixelated dust. While I found this to be a really fun change of pace from the normal sit-and-watch RTS battles, I can definitely see how some gamers would be turned off by it. But that isn’t the only area Introversion has played with the RTS formula.
Basically, instead of building units, you run programs. Programs are the actual units of the game, not the Darwinians. The Darwinians are actually more of a resource than a unit, which pretty much means you can’t ever really control them directly. The programs, however, you can control and you will need to.
Your available programs range from the single combat unit of the game, the squad, to engineer programs that harvest energies to programs that give your squads different weapons. You can only run a few programs at a time and that makes for some interesting, although slightly simplistic, strategic planning.
In order to start a program, though, there isn’t a hotkey to press and a structure to build it in. Instead, taking a page from Black & White, you must make some motion with the mouse. The motion could be as simple as a rainbow shape or as complicated as a star, with the simpler motions fortunately working for the most common programs. The computer then recognizes the pattern you’ve drawn on the screen and starts whatever program corresponds to the pattern. Then you simply place the program in Darwinia—in an allowable location, that is. This would be fantastic if it always worked as it should.
I was in a number of tight spots in which I was unable to get reinforcements to my front line, or reequip my squads with the right weapons because the game kept misinterpreting my mouse movements. While it certainly never made me lose the game—Darwinia is very forgiving as far as difficulty goes—it did make a number of missions that should have been fairly quick drag out unnecessarily. Unfortunately, that is the general impression I got from Darwinia: it was dragged out unnecessarily.
Darwinia does have a great premise and even innovative, if flawed, gameplay, but what it doesn’t have is true depth. I kept playing until the end because I wanted to see how the story turned out and it was worth it, but the levels were all quite simple and there were far too few, about ten (depending on your decision regarding an optional mission). The one good thing is that this lack of breadth did help cover up the fact that the upgrade paths for programs and weapons are very shallow as well, but that is hardly a good thing.
Even so, in an age of RTS games that feature robust multiplayer options in addition to sprawling campaigns, Darwinia, which lacks any multiplayer functions, wants to get by on its freshness and while it has plenty of (mostly good) freshness, it is not something that all gamers will respond well to.
Personally, I found Darwinia to be a great game and, despite its brevity, very fulfilling, which is a rare thing in games these days. Regardless, it isn’t difficult to realize that Darwinia is not a game that will appeal to everybody. However, if you are jaded from too many of the same old RTS games or even if you just want to play an innovative game for a change, then Darwinia is definitely one you should look into and with a demo readily available, there really isn’t a good reason to not give it a try.
