Time of Defiance Review

WiredMan

Time of Defiance Review

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Time of Defiance is a massively multiplayer real time strategy game. This means what you play with (and against) many other people on a huge map over anything from 7 to 28 days.

The basis of the game is colonising floating islands on which you can build everything from mines to ship constructors and defenses (from a lowly turret to missle defenses and towers which produce fighters and eject them at the enemy).

General ships and buildings come in plain and simple varieties (Scout, Coloniser, Transport, Mining Transport, Boarding Party, Salvager, Repairer, Large warship, Destroyer etc.) but they are effective and some can be used in a number of different ways (many have secondary abilities). Other more interesting ships include the Inter-Island Ballistic Misile Platform, Mothership (which produces it's own fighters) and Battle Platform (which can be upgraded with different modules including IIBM and Anti-IIBM). Quantum Foam Gates (which you can buy and deplay at any of your islands) allow you to jump from one location to another in an instant.

Then there are the Shadoo (alien) ships and buildings, which I'll let you discover for yourself. They use different fuel, have shields and many of them have really nifty features.

The graphics are nice and functional (much better than any other MMORTS I've seen), think along the lines of Command & Conquer Generals and you won't go too far wrong.

The interface is all icon based and a little cryptic at first, but with a bit of patience (and reading the tooltip baloons) you'll find it fairly intuitive. The Empire map (of the entire continent) is excellent, showing your ships (and if moving the direction they are travelling), islands, Q-Net, visable ally/enemy structures/units and even a unit finder which shows all Ships/Vehicles (and their names) of a selected type on the map.

Starting off things *seem* complicated, especially when you're used to more traditional RTS games where all your resources magic themselves to another dimension where they are available to all of your units and buildings.

For a new player (in ToD) the resources can be a real pain, but soon you realise that there are simple solutions. Q-Nets allow you to beam your resources over large distances (but it's a slow trickle) while with Trade Routes you can use your Transport Ships to go around loading up on resources and dropping them off where you choose. Soon you start to appreciate the strategic value of such a system, criple your enemies resource network and you can stall his (or her) entire empire (and he/she can do the same to you).

The strategic possiblities in Time of Defiance are endless and you can really develop your own style within the game.

There are problems, like the construction queues don't count down and it's easy to give a move order to your selected unit by mistake, but I haven't found anything that really detracts from the game.

A word of warning, try the Demo by all means but the people playing it are all new to the game (you can only access a Beginner's game) and they don't know much about it. When you Subscribe (around €7.50 for a month) you get real players.

As for the score, this is one of the most refreshing strategy games I've played in quiet a while - so 9/10.

Pugsley

Used to play this about a year or more ago, pretty good fun, something to do on the side more than a full time game, when your starting up you would tend to play it for about 5-10 minutes issue a million orders then go play something else and come back in a hour or 4. It is pretty damn good fun though, definately worth playing the demo of at least.

BadCharlie

Never heard of this game. Prob hard to get in on it.

WiredMan

It takes a little time to adjust to the resource management, but other than that it's very easy.

It is a game you can just dip in and out of, because it's persistant the game continues while you are logged off.

The defenses that you can build on your islands (automated turrets, rail guns, missles, fighter bays etc) are very effective so as long as you build them you shouldn't have too much trouble.

You can also have the game alert you be email when certain things happen (like your home island being attacked), couple this with something like Vodafone Mail and you'll get text alerts.