RATING:
Pros: Quality graphics and voiced NPCs, plenty of in-game features, competitive PvP.
Cons: Mechanics were sometimes unclear, gameplay is quite tedious and repetitive.
Graphics: 6
Gameplay: 5
Performance: 8
Overall: 6
We checked out Total Domination for a bit of an extended play through, a free to play sci-fi-base defending/Empire strategy from Plarium set in a future Earth where the land is now a wasteland overrun by sinister Artificial Intelligence and rival military forces seeking to acquire and defend their own territory and resources. Checking out the game for a few hours to get to grips with the mechanics and see just what was on offer past the initial first impressions; we’ll say that the general presentation was pretty good with decent graphics, relatively clear user interface and a compelling soundtrack and fully voiced NPC guides that added to the general atmosphere, albeit we did mute them after a little while as they could get a little bit annoying.
The core of the game is essentially a base defending meets Empire building free to play browser MMO, like many we have seen previously we were hoping that we’d get some unique or interesting features that might set it apart from other games within the genre. Unfortunately the game followed a similar rote to many predecessors, gather resources, go up a fairly basic research tree, upgrade defences, construct buildings and attack or defend your territory against players and enemy AI.
From the onset we were guided by General Winters, a grizzled NPC that would continuously task us with different objectives and missions that essentially told us which buildings to construct, which technologies to research and which units to train up and in return would grant us XP and a variety of resources and rewards. Whilst we fully appreciate the need to guide players through the features it did feel like the progression was extremely linear, whilst we had the choice to construct whatever we wanted and in whichever order we pleased it didn’t really make sense to go against the tasked missions given the resources and rewards available, to the point where actively choosing not to build things in the order requested would leave us with a resource deficit and be detrimental to building up the base.
The same could be said for the research tree; whilst it did branch off in places there were extremely long chains with no deviation where players would simply have to research the next technology in the chain. Combined by the fact that even some of the earlier technologies couldn’t be researched due to lack of specific resources (ones that we hadn’t been given yet) again it forced usdown a very set route that we are sure both ourselves and every other player was going down meaning that in the early stages every player is essential exactly the same doing the same quests, getting exactly the same rewards and being generally the same power level. It wasn’t that big a deal to start with because players do have new player protection for three days or until they reach level 30.
The core gameplay is relatively simple, you gain resources primarily through your production facilities or from raiding enemy territories, and you then choose how you wish to spend these resources to progress your base as a whole. There were however blank spots in the information, at least we felt there were, where some things were made so obvious and then others you had to go looking for them because the layout or submenus were less intuitive. A minor gripe was having the construction menu button to the right edge of the screen in an easy access position; from here we could construct our various buildings and place them which was really handy. However, when we wished to produce anything from the buildings we had constructed (eg. troops from a barracks) we had to click the individual building and build it from its own personal menu, not a big deal but sometimes the artwork made it hard to differentiate which building was which and so we’d have to scour across our entire base of clustered buildings to find the one we were looking for.
After a while of playing we had built up a decent sized fighting force, either from training up our own units or earning them through various rewards, in particular the main quest chains that will guide players into attacking various alien settlements/outposts that grow progressively more difficult (ranging from level 1 to level 5 threat); each time we destroyed a base we earned new troops that we had rescued from the facility and added them to our own force.
The problem we had was that after our few hours of gameplay we were actually getting pretty bored with the linear progression, the same repeated quests over and over telling us to build the next building, train the next troop, unlock the next technology, early gameplay is very repetitive and very tedious. So as we’d amassed our army we feel it only right to put into action, something we imagine most players start to feel because without the PVP conflict the game really doesn’t have that much to offer aside from looking good. Looking around the map we saw a nearby player who was a good six or seven levels above us who had seemingly lost their new player protection (perhaps due to having an account longer than three days as neither of us were over at level 30) or had simply got as bored as we had and decided to just try and attack somebody.
Selecting his facility we pretty much threw every troop we had at him, expecting a much greater defensive force given the level difference, we even sent in our own defensive troops which probably did very little. However we did claim victory! Or so we think, it was actually quite confusing as to what we’d actually accomplished as we didn’t appear to necessarily own his facility, we seemingly couldn’t construct any buildings there, yet we could still transfer him resources and technology. It was pretty unclear what our victory had given us and what happens next and perhaps this is due to the fact that we haven’t reached the quest where we attack other players, but it only further emphasises the very guided linear progression the game tries to force you down.
Our biggest issue with the game was the requirement for Crystals premium currency, which whilst earned through gameplay and completing quests we were equally forced to spend them to complete quests at every turn and so as quickly as they come in they go back out. Some basic constructions such as Walls actually required Crystals, and you had to build your walls segment by segment and so it was pretty expensive to cover the entire perimeter of your base; it feels like whilst you are free to play the game without paying anything the moment someone attacks you then you’re going to get obliterated for not purchasing Crystals.
The game wasn’t bad, the endgame content looks like it could be fun as players start working together, but it is a long and tedious road to reach that point and so for our extensive play test all we managed was to grind missions, earn resources and construct buildings for the most part and that just wasn’t particularly fun.
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