GBAtemp game of the week - #81

FAST6191

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[h2]GBAtemp book game club #81[/h2]

Anno series (NDS and Wii)
We have mentioned this title a few times in passing but now it gets a chance to be the focus of an edition. Something of an unintended theme to many of the selections in this feature has been "no gameplay style ever dies, they just migrate a bit" and one of those once supremely popular styles are so called real time strategy games. As with anything you can go very deep down the rabbit hole and find people with scary specific levels of knowledge and although the Anno series never quite made it to the popularity of the likes of Age of Empires or Command & Conquer it was far from an obscure series known only to those that took the time to study the concept. To that end when a first time developer (granted one pulled from the ashes of NEON Software) released a DS entry in the series with Disney (a once great developer/publisher that at the time specialised in cheap tie in games) on publishing duties not an awful lot was expected. It turned out they had something of a sleeper hit on their hands and had also created one of the better examples of the gameplay style on the DS; it had been tried before in various forms but they were different styles of game (RTS is a rather broad term after all) or they fell a bit short of greatness.
Later a Wii version of the second DS game was made and the series started out and continues on the PC to this day (and aside from a few visual upgrades is actually pretty similar to the DS version where other games like Civilization will drop mechanics left and right).
We should also note it went by the name dawn of discovery when in North America.

[prebreak]Rest of the article[/prebreak]

A trailer for the first DS game, many more videos are available​

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For many Anno is the definitive "civilisation" scale RTS on the DS? Agree, got a better example or feel like elaborating upon your feelings about the series? If so then do join in the discussion in the thread below.


We are working on getting a new searching mechanism working with the new forum software now our tag system has been changed. In the meantime all the editions are in this section and hopefully GBAGOTW should get you the other entries in the series. gbagotw.

News is great and relaying news is a valuable service but original content is where it is really at, to that end GBAtemp has several features that aim to dig deeper into things and share knowledge. GBAtemp book game club/GBAtemp game of the week is one such feature which aims to share interesting games.
There are many aspects to what we do for this feature but the really short summary would be this aims to be "a user driven review/discussion of a selected title", we make the selection and provide some background on it but the review/discussion of the title is aimed solely at the readers.
Should the DS be able to emulate something we might pick it though we will usually draw from the commercial releases, homebrew code, ROM hacks and things like leaked beta releases of games for the GBA, DS and Wii. Should versions of some form be available on another platform then we will try to note that too.
The main thing in the "many aspects" part mentioned earlier is we have no aspirations towards making this a "best ? games for these consoles" feature and games that try something interesting or otherwise release a game of note can find themselves the subject a selection just as easily as a game of astounding quality.
 

Satangel

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This game was epic on the Wii. Loved it. It's a shame it was so under-rated and under-marketed, because it really deserves a successor.
Congratulations to the developers for porting this in-depth PC experience to a slightly dumbed down platform, with a very nice artstyle.
EXCELLENT Wii game, really.
 

Bladexdsl

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these versions are cool but no where as awesome as the pc versions until ubi went berserk with dlc with 2070... plus in the wii version the ai is a mega cheating sob!
 

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Awesome game. I love how it starts out as an "economy simulation" of sorts, in the vein of Townsmen on mobiles (this was the closest comparison I can make in terms of gameplay) and near the end you actually start to branch out into actual combat. It gears you up into building a strong economy that can support a strong army, which is pretty awesome. War is pretty much just manufacturing grunts and sending them off to waypoints (or outposts) and they pretty much duke it out automatically, going by numbers and quality of gear (so strong economy with good resources is crucial).

Skirmish was brutal though. AI sends me troops waaaaaaaay before I even get close to upgrading for my own troops. And they expand so fast, I swear they're cheating or something. But campaign was very well-paced for me, hard but nothing you can't beat with enough build-up.
 

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Skirmish was brutal though. AI sends me troops waaaaaaaay before I even get close to upgrading for my own troops. And they expand so fast, I swear they're cheating or something. But campaign was very well-paced for me, hard but nothing you can't beat with enough build-up.

I am reminded of the time office jobs were the order of the day and age of empires* was ruling the roost- back at home no map or AI could really trouble things for but then the lunchtime AOE matches happened and "we know age of empires" was said..... more or less the exact same scenario.

*I really do need to find a new co-op RTS.
 

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I am reminded of the time office jobs were the order of the day and age of empires* was ruling the roost- back at home no map or AI could really trouble things for but then the lunchtime AOE matches happened and "we know age of empires" was said..... more or less the exact same scenario.

*I really do need to find a new co-op RTS.
I've never had AoE playmates, but for us it was Starcraft and Battle Realms (and maybe C&C Red Alert -- it's always nice to do a little "Kirov reporting" on your friends).
 

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