Nuclear Dawn Review
This FPS/RTS hybrid has a good foundation, but feels more like a beta than a full release
On the flip side, the RTS or ‘Commander’ experience is much weaker, with visibility and navigation difficulties, as well as troublesome controls. There are communication issues that feel like they need to be hammered out: for example, soldiers on the battlefield have the option to call out for supplies or buildings, but there’s no system in place for marking where these calls come from. If, as a soldier, you desperately need a supply station to help you out, you’ll need to spend some time chatting with the commander to guide him to the spot on the map where you’re standing. It doesn’t help that map locations aren’t codified at all: in nearly every game, you’ll need to ask “My right, or your right?” or perhaps “Which base is ‘north’?”. Since there’s essentially no micro involved in the RTS experience, these downsides don’t necessarily ruin the game, but they do mark it as, shall we say, unfinished.
There are a host of logistic issues involved with hybridizing the shooter and commander genres, and most of these have been addressed to one degree or another in Nuclear Dawn. For example, teammates have an opportunity to vote their commander out of office if they feel like he’s not doing a good job. The commander has the option to organize his team into squads, but I’ve never seen this feature used (remember: troops are not units!). The point system rewards players for following orders from the commander, and likewise lets the commander earn points whenever he assists his team.
One problem with the gameplay that I found is in the way matches tend to play out. Most maps are fairly symmetric, with matching resource points on each side, and one extra-productive resource point in the center. So much of the game hinges on this primary resource point, that all too often the game can be decided in the first few minutes of a round. If one team survives the first firefight at the primary point, they stand a good chance of holding that point for the rest of the game, guaranteeing a win. Even with this repetition, however, the fights tend to be enjoyable, especially since there is an experience incentive for the losing team to hold out if they think they can last to the end of the round, or to surrender if they want to cut their losses.
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