Age of Darkness: Final Stand

Recientemente me enteré de que el estudio dejará de publicar parches y actualizaciones, lo cual explica la desaparición de noticias en sus canales oficiales. A pesar de este cese en el soporte, nos encontramos ante una entrega sólida y consistente en casi todos los apartados en los que decide enfocarse, especialmente en la infraestructura, los emplazamientos de defensa y el combate militar. Es, sin lugar a dudas, un logro técnico inmenso poder presentar semejante cantidad de unidades en pantalla simultáneamente; es algo realmente impresionante que define la identidad del juego. En el apartado estético, el título mantiene un diseño muy congruente basado en el contraste entre la luz y la oscuridad, lo cual no solo es visual, sino el punto de partida conceptual para su narrativa, sus facciones y la naturaleza de los enemigos. No obstante, a mi juicio, el juego podría estar mejor optimizado o, al menos, ofrecer configuraciones visuales que impacten más en el rendimiento que en la estética, como la inclusión de tecnologías de reescalado. El sonido cumple su función, aunque se echan de menos más opciones para dividir y nivelar efectos y música. Un detalle técnico que resulta particularmente molesto es la animación del cristal durante las escaramuzas para anunciar una invasión; en situaciones críticas, esta interrupción corta el razonamiento táctico, rompe la inmersión y te obliga a retomar el hilo de la batalla bruscamente. Respecto a las facciones, aunque son interesantes, existe un desbalance evidente: "los azules" resultan escandalosamente más fáciles de manejar que el resto. Aun así, es un triunfo muy importante que el estudio haya logrado introducir un modo multijugador funcional, algo que pocos títulos similares consiguen publicar con éxito, incluso permitiendo conexiones vía LAN. El juego es muy tajante en la definición de roles, separando claramente los emplazamientos defensivos de las unidades militares de exploración y ataque. Aunque se pueden mezclar, echo en falta algo más de flexibilidad para evitar que las partidas caigan siempre en la misma cronología y los mapas no sufren cambios radicales en sus biomas o patrones, alejándose de la variedad que ofrecen exponentes como They Are Billions. Por otro lado, la sensación de avance y expansión es satisfactoria y muy demandante. A medida que desbloqueas unidades otorgan un gran aporte al combate. En lo personal, considero que la artillería podría estar mejor implementada o tener roles de defensa incluso, si es necesario. Cada unidad cumple su función y se requiere de táctica para manejar la situación. Finalmente, hay que advertir que la dificultad es agresiva y castiga incluso en las limitaciones del sistema de guardado. Antes de iniciar una partida en dificultades altas, es necesario controlar el reloj y la agenda, ya que se requieren al menos dos horas de concentración absoluta. Las primeras partidas serán una sucesión de derrotas infinitas donde un pequeño error cuesta el juego, pero tras varias horas de optimización personal, el resultado es sumamente gratificante. Al final, cada victoria se siente como una recompensa casi orgánica debido al esfuerzo invertido. En definitiva, es un juego altamente recomendable. Como dato, sugiero instalarlo en SSD porque en HDD en el modo multijugador se queda congelado.

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The devs have abandoned this game. It could have been a lot better, but it just isn't. The balancing is terrible.

This is "They are Billions" but better

TLDR: This game is a perfect showcase of the limitations of the RTS genre but works well enough on its own merits. On to the details, the entire thing is horde mode, just the horde mode, the game. You can expect massive waves of enemies clashing against an absolutely ridiculous defender`s advantage, sally forth with a massive army of your own and meet the hordes head on, hold them off while things build or repair, or go explore in a classic warcraft creeping experience. It`s quite fun, but that`s about where the positives end and it`s a crying shame as most of the negatives do seem like they could be fixed relatively easily. So the game`s economy is balanced around having an absolutely massive empire, which creates some strict bottlenecks early and a little bit into the midgame that are just straight up unreasonable, your early game storage is absolutely tiny and crucial structures and upgrades will frequently deplete the entire thing so if you have some inefficiencies, say didn`t find any good wood or stone fast enough? missing one wood on your production to cap out? Is gold being wasted on account of it? Did you get wrecked because it delayed you a little too long? Tough tits, start over. This is doubly exacerbated when playing without pause which for all the hardest achievements you`re gonna have to do, good luck, it`s quite painful. This creates 2 major issues, one: the punishing cap on storage translates across the entire game and if you forget to continue building your defenses because you were doing something else, even your maximum storage of materials in the endgame is barely enough to hold off one direction, and the production isn`t going to save you in a day, which frequently leads to very frustrating losses that feel downright unfair. And two: It bogs down the campaign something fierce. So let`s talk about the campaign... in a word? Pointless, maybe i should say it didn`t quite work out. Most the missions are either no build or no build while you have a base behind it. And since the economy is balanced around an exponential curve and that curve takes quite a while to hit and the units are quite expensive for where you get your economy at... you`re gonna be stuck watching your heroes slowly clear out the non respawning enemies one section at a time... most of the time. There are a lot of creative ideas in the campaign (shifting terrain, a full on boss fight) that didn`t quite work out, and boil down to being more annoying than anything else. The whole thing feels a bit undercooked, there are only a handful of factions(3), each of them only has 2 heroes, and only 2-3 different faction specific units in each, some of which are useless or debatable or a reskin of the same thing... The difference in stats and cost between the early game units and the elite versions is also quite stark, downright punishing. The base archers have basically no range and the advanced ones are expensive AF, basic soldiers die instantly to your beloved suicider so if you looked away for more than 5s... say goodbye to your army. In a game this focused on defense, there`s no elevation, what a travesty! No i suspect they had issues with pathing so that`s probably why... but it`s still a travesty! To sum it up i like it, but it could have been a hell of a lot better. It feels more like a proof of concept than anything.

i really wanted to like this game but its just not fun. the missions being timed and limited options means you have to basically figure out the formula that they want you to play and theres almost no room for creativity due to very liimited troop and building selection etc. its just...moving your hero forward to points. its not even really a tower defense game that i was hoping for

Jest ok

Excelent game, the survival mode is so amazing, you play hours and hours triying to hold them back. Hope they do new versions of the game!