Gameplay

Whoah Mother

Every game is eventually going to be judged by its gameplay, in terms of immediate satisfaction and, especially, lasting value. Allegiance shoots and scores! Not since Tribes have I played a team-game so addictive and fun to play. It's almost impossible to figure out where to start raving about the gameplay in Allegiance. That's how good it is.

KABOOOM!

Puurrrty

If looked at from a RTS aspect, Allegiance starts off with an unusually large number of units. This however, will not usually increase as the game goes on unless people join in during the middle of a match. This leaves the commander with a lot of tools at the beginning and seemingly never enough at the end. It also encourages the development of a strong line of ships from a single tech tree rather than a variety of weaker ships (a theme that repeats itself.) The veteran players will find themselves immediately scouting out for He3 (Helium3, the 'money' of the game) asteroids. A few might go to find the enemy and maybe make a pre-emptive strike on the enemy's initial mining ship to hurt his early expansions.

The stars blur out so cool

Haha! New toys to play with!

From there, you have to research new and better craft as well as weapons. There are several tech trees to climb, each with advantages and disadvantages. For most of the game they are mutually exclusive because it's too expensive to try and research two different styles of craft and their weapons. The other issue is that the difference in power between tech-levels is so great, that one well-developed branch of the tech tree can win you a game where two or three lesser designs won't. That's not to say you won't research two tech trees. You need fighter-style craft of some sort to do your basic jobs and keep the base alive, while bombers or capital ships are necessary to do some base-busting.

Hail to the king baby

Solitaire sector? Typical Microsoft

The Play's The Thing

The combat is very fun. At first you'll have to get used to the physics, since momentum is a major factor in the play. If you're going very fast and then turn, it will take your ship a while to catch up and start moving you in the direction you're facing.

The different styles of ships make for very different gaming experiences. The differences between scouts, fighters and interceptors are as wide as between the light, medium and heavy classes of Tribes, or the classes in Team Fortress. Then throw in the bombers, capital ships and stealth technology for an even wider range of choices.