Darwinia... weird, obscure, bizarre, really fun?
User Rating: 9.8 | Darwinia PC
Darwinia is an amazing game. The gameplay is like none other. It's a real-time strategy third-person shooter. In the game you control programs. In the demo there are 3 programs you control. First there is a squad. The Squad is your strong arm. You tell them where to go and they'll go there and shoot anything that comes near them. Although they don't achieve their full potential until you take control of them. Then you can control their full-auto lasers and grenades. These guys alone make the game fun. Then comes the Engineers. These little guys go wherever you tell them and get all of your cool upgrades. You can tell them to go to infected "buildings" and reprogram to be on your side. An example of this is where you tell them to take control of a radar dish, where you then take control of the dish and line it up with an enemy one to transport your squads to the next area. Also, the engineer can get research from little cubes floating around to make your programs and the Darwinans more powerful. More on the Darwinians in a bit. Finally you can use the engineer to collect little squares from infected things you kill with your squads. The engineers in turn take them back to a special building which then converts these squares into good Darwinians. The Darwinians are the core of the game. They are what you are fighting for. They are highly advanced AI which live inside of a 3D world in a super-computer. They have their own free-will, culture, beliefs, and weapons. They can fight for you, but aren't particularly affective unless you need something to slow down your enemies. They can do such things as take over little Darwinian breeding buildings that spit out Darwinians without an input. And they can run solar powered panels to create electricity. But, they can't do much unless you lead them. But since they have a free-will you have to convert a few of then into leaders. Leaders are part program, part Darwinian. You can tell them where to go and tell them to tell the Darwinians where to go. This allows you to effectively control the Darwinians without taking away their freedom. Now one of the great things of this game is the interface. You use a combo of WASD and mouse for almost everything. You use the standard Left Shift to move extra fast across the screen. And if you need to run an extra program you just press TAB. Holding TAB brings up the control panel allowing you to create new programs (like Squads) and delete ones you aren't using. Also, you can view your objective and stats by pressing either W or S. The graphics of the game are mediocre with a special affect that makes things look pix elated and old school. If you like either FPS or RTS you should get this game. It is only $20 through Steam (from Valve) or you can play the demo for free. Everything in this game makes it a must play and the best game since Half-Life 2.
