Monday, August 25, 2008

1701 A.D. Gold Edition Download

1701 A.D. Gold Edition is a compilation of the original 1701 A.D. and the new expansion game, Sunken Dragon. Sunken Dragon adds 11 new missions and a new world editor, which by themselves are an exciting game expansion. Throw in the original game alongside for a total price of $30, and you have a winner.

The original game garnered great reviews and rightly so. A solid economic simulation, the original game had some great things going for it. The game’s economics, diplomacy and trade features meshed almost perfectly. And, it was just a charming game. While not the most complex strategy title around, it was a lot of fun.

Sunken Dragon adds 11 new missions, which are presented in a different method of story-telling than usual. Instead of having a campaign mode that basically plunks players immediately into the mission with a brief statement that does the bare minimum of providing a story backdrop, Sunken Dragon begins with the story immediately, then sends players off to find their destiny. The story is still somewhat short, but relayed in an intriguing manner. It seems that a friend is in need of some serious help in managing his colony, which was founded to provide support for his real goal of searching for and finding the treasure of the Sunken Dragon. This first mission involves straightening out the economic mess of his colony, allowing him to devote more time for treasure hunting.

The story is presented with a short introduction, and then play begins. Our friend, Finn, is hanging around in a little window at the upper right of the screen, and will utter remarks now and then on what he is thinking. This acts as a prod of sort for players to get moving.

The first few missions involve finding treasure, taking care of fire disasters and fixing the economy, just as in the original game. The main gameplay elements involve economy and discovery.

Economics make the 1701 world go around, and it's important to get these concepts down in the beginning, because things will move pretty fast after a short time. There are four tutorials included, and I would strongly advise anyone new to the 1701 series to play these, as they include information on trade. This is important, because for some reason, 1701 keeps the trade and diplomacy menus separate. It's not very clear how to set up trade relationships if players are just depending on intuition and the manual for direction.

At first, players will need to build farms, resource huts and mines to gather resources, and factory buildings to refine the resources. A warehouse and also markets are important to distribute the goods to the populace. Most of these buildings will need to be connected to each other by roads in order to "communicate" with each other. Often, resources and factories will be on separate islands, and trade routes will have to be set to bring the resources to the factories.

Trade is vitally important, and it should really be explained a bit better. Trade goods are available in a menu, with the cost and value displayed. However, trade is often taking place with the computer opponents, and they are present in the diplomacy menu. It would have been helpful if these menus were combined.

The buildings and town inhabitants all look great and the game's overall graphic appeal still holds up after 2 years. It's an attractive game, with a lot of animated action at the various buildings and locales. The zoom feature is nice, too, and presents players with a smooth transition back and forth between close-up shots and long-range views.

The new missions are just what the original game needed. 1701 A.D. was a lot of fun, but it was a little too open-ended. The lack of a campaign mode left some of us feeling slightly aimless. These missions are varied, mostly difficult and all fun. I really loved the personal feel granted by the mission characters who are interactively involved. The side quests are also interesting and engaging.

Players will be required to fix the economy, take care of natural and man-made disasters, and explore and settle other islands. These missions have different restrictions on them, which help to give a different "feel" to each one. As this is a real-time game, sometimes it's easy to get behind and then become completely bogged down, but restarting is easy and often offers the best solution. Think of it as training. Really tough training, actually, these missions are hard! However, they are not unfair, and there are three difficulty levels to choose. Depending on the lowest level chosen for any one mission, a bronze, silver or gold medal will be awarded for successful completion of all the missions.

The gameplay mechanics mostly work seamlessly together and present a great gaming experience, but now and then the communication between game elements breaks down. It's rather annoying when production stops or farming never commences, and it's not clear as to why. Sometimes it's necessary to just bulldoze buildings and begin again. This reminds me of Caesar III.

While there is a lot of new stuff, including new ornaments and a cool world editor, the main interface structure is unchanged. The good, and the bad. The good are the simplified menus that are easy to understand, the bad is the lack of information presented by these simplified menus. And, the placement of buildings really needed changing. It's ridiculous that houses can't be placed in groups by holding down the mouse and dragging. The bulldoze feature works the same way.

The military aspect is unchanged from before. It's not a big feature, which can be a positive or negative depending on the perspective. I don't like fighting, so I'm fine with the absence of any real military strategy. Others may feel the lack.

All told, this is a worthy expansion that adds to the original without making any major changes. The missions add the one missing element, a campaign mode for those of us who need concrete goals. The world editor is also a great addition for the creators amongst us. The price makes it a great buy whether players already have the original game or not.

Review Scoring Details for 1701 A.D. Gold Edition

Gameplay: 8.0
This game is fun! And, that’s what it’s all about. While 1701 A.D. Gold may not be the most overly complex or huge strategic title ever, it is an engrossing and thought-provoking game. The economics are just right and will literally take up hours of time, in a good way. There could be more information organized in the menus, but this is just a small drawback.

Graphics: 8.0
The game is attractive and still looks pretty good compared to other similar titles. The animations of the inhabitants and buildings are good. The view in the closeup viewpoint is clear, too.

Sound: 7.0
The music is not very memorable, but isn’t bad, either.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
Even the easy level is fairly challenging. The missions can be difficult to accomplish and will require some thought on non-obvious ways to achieve the goals.

Concept: 7.0
This game doesn’t really break any new ground, but the execution is excellent.

Multiplayer: 8.0
The multiplayer mode has several options to set the game scenarios. Also, there is a cooperative mode in multi-player which is a nice option, especially for families.

Overall: 8.0
This game is great fun! A really nice way to end the summer, and one that won’t break the bank, either.

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