Dark Reign 2 (PC)

Reviewed by Andrew Park
Review date: 07/11/00
Release date: 06/30/00

Pandemic Studios' Dark Reign 2 is a fully 3D real-time strategy game that looks excellent and plays quite well. The game takes place on a futuristic Earth torn by a war between two powerful factions, the JDA and the Sprawlers. Each is equipped with infantry, naval, aerial, and tank units that attack each other with shimmering laser beams and explosive shells. All in all, Dark Reign 2 is a solid, balanced, and very polished game - which is why it's all the more unfortunate that its gameplay closely follows an otherwise unoriginal and limited formula for real-time strategy games: Gather resources, amass troops, and attack your enemy.

It's true that Dark Reign 2 looks great. Each of the game's units, from the poised Guardian and Castigar infantry units of the JDA to the Sprawlers' double-barreled Scorpion tanks, is extremely detailed. Each military unit fires weapons, like glowing lasers that strike their targets and explode in a burst of colored light, volleys of projectile ammunition that leave arcing trails of white smoke in their wake, bolts of searing lightning, or other equally impressive armaments. If you've seen any static screenshots of Dark Reign 2, you've probably already seen many of the game's slick-looking units and spectacular explosions. You may not know that some of the firing animations, particularly on infantry units, are stiff and awkward-looking, and that the debris that flies up in the air from a destroyed building is usually nothing more than poorly animated black polygonal chunks. But these are relatively minor problems in a game with otherwise excellent graphics - problems that for the most part don't make Dark Reign 2's futuristic buildings and various military units any less attractive.

You'll find these units in equally impressive environments: lush, grassy hills bounded by lakes and waterfalls; ruined cities strewn with futuristic wreckage; bleak, sandy deserts; and others. And in all cases, you'll be able to use Dark Reign 2's extremely flexible camera to pan, zoom, rotate, and scroll around the screen in more or less exactly the way you want. And thanks to Dark Reign 2's powerful graphics and terrain engine, you can zoom in for a close-up view of the treads on your Bulldog tanks or the curved healing staff of your Voodun priests - a view that has absolutely no tactical value whatever but looks great. And you can zoom back out to get a better view of the action - which you'll do often, to be able to take better control of your units - with little to no loss in frame rate or speed. In addition, Dark Reign 2 uses its graphics engine for both its in-game levels and for many of its real-time cinematic cutscenes. Though a few of these cutscenes feature close-ups on blocky, poorly animated characters, most of them look quite good, and the transitions between cutscenes and missions are seamless.

Regrettably, Dark Reign 2 doesn't sound quite as good as it looks. Most of the game's sound effects, like firing weapons and explosions, sound adequate but otherwise plain. And though certain units, like the spunky Sprawler Go-Gos, sound distinctive enough to be memorable, most of the game's units sound fairly generic. The rest of Dark Reign 2's voice acting is fairly good, including the spoken dialogue in the game's cutscenes. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the game's musical score. Though many of the game's music tracks begin with or contain a stirring and ominous sequence that suggests a sort of epic grandeur, these serious sequences typically give way to disappointing industrial techno riffs that detract considerably from any sense of epic scale.

Despite whatever else might be said about its sound or graphics, Dark Reign 2 plays quite well. The mid to late games are often extremely strategic, and they require you to carefully select the right units for the right job. That's because Dark Reign 2 - like other strategy games before it - has a number of features to discourage early-game "rush" tactics with low-level units. For instance, most low-level units are fairly slow on their feet, and the game lets you defend your base with powerful and inexpensive stationary turrets from the get-go - turrets that will make short work of a simple squad of base-level troops. What's more, both of the game's factions may build powerful turrets that are specifically designed to wreak havoc on either airborne or grounded troops - though these specialized turrets themselves are usually vulnerable to attacks from enemies they aren't specifically designed to attack. In fact, most of Dark Reign 2's units are designed this way. Each has particular strengths - which can often be used to great effect against a specific type of enemy unit - and particular weaknesses that render them nearly useless in other situations. As such, you must build a balanced and varied army to succeed in Dark Reign 2.