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The Adventures of Darwin
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Graphics & Sound:
The drive to evolve. Or, maybe it is the drive to grind. Grinding is the repetitious act of continuously repeating the same action over and over again. You are going to become familiar with this term and all that it implies in The Adventures of Darwin. Now, before you run with that, let's jump ahead to say that this is also a very deep and interesting game, that just happens to involve a little bit of grinding. It is only on a few items, but as an adventure game, you will have to go out into the world and bring back materials for the tribe.
There are two different looks to the game. There is the village, which is a static heads-up display with a menu to the left that shows different huts as they become available. Then, there is the 3D world that is the large map you have to explore. The landscape is pretty static. The look is very reminiscent of Pikmin. Everything from the way that the map looks, to some of the formations brings me back to Pikmin. Some of the animals are a little hard to make out at first, but it isn't that bad.
The sound effects that accompany the completion of every command may make you want to smash your television, but please try to refrain. The loop music may also put you over that edge, so it is probably best to just turn down the volume in the settings. |
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Gameplay:
The Adventures of Darwin is a simple, real-time strategy, where your main goal is to survive a coming apocalypse. You play Darwin, an ape of somewhat exceptional intelligence. You wake from a dream of the coming apocalypse and find that you must evolve in order to find the tools that will let your village and people survive. In order to evolve, you must analyze everything around you and explore your environment. Gather all of the fruits, vegetation, creatures and artifacts you can.
Besides the collection of fruits, plants and meat, you will have to harvest wood, stone and metal in order to create new items. This is where the grind comes in. You will spend many days in the game, doing nothing more than running around gathering these items.
You will not be alone in your hunt. You will have warriors of your village there to support you and help with the carrying of items. You start out with only a few warriors, but as you find stars in the map, they increase your maximum number of available warriors so that you can take on bigger bosses and obstacles. This is also where I began to get that Pikmin feeling, because as you evolve and learn more things, you also learn formations for your following warriors to get into. These formations look just like the little guys following you around.
You progress through the stages of evolution and every time you do, it provides you with another tool to use in order to progress through the map.
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Difficulty:
Evolution is a slow process in The Adventures of Darwin, like any other real-time strategy where you can easily apply the 4X's (eXplore, eXploit, eXpand, eXterminate). Explore all of the land around. This may sound easy, but there are plenty of obstacles to watch out for. Most of those obstacles are hungry and you are on the menu. Exploit the fruits, fungus and meat around you to gain different effects and benefits. If used improperly, they can have ill effects, as well. Expand by finding the gold stars in a level. The more help you have, the easier it is to take care of the last part. Exterminate. As good little sub-humans, it is a kill or be killed world. Don't be afraid to take a few animals out; they will drop items other than meat.
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Game Mechanics:
The Adventures of Darwin doesn't play exactly like a typical RTS. It has elements that are, undoubtedly, like an RPG, in the fact that you grow your character, and while doing so, you grow the storyline. It is also like an RTS, in that you will spend the majority of your play time grinding out and controlling resources - everything from the aforementioned ores, stones, and woods to the fruits and meats you return with. One mechanic that was a huge part of the game, but had no real bearing on how the game was played, was a giant sun that turned, showing day and night. Occasionally, this would cause some creatures to sleep, but most of the time it just made it dark. You could go out, night or day, and it made no difference, like that you were tired, or big bad monsters came out at night. Lastly, about that, how does it get dark in a cave?
I really liked the game, despite my moaning about grinding. It was a good, simple blend of the three genres of Action, Real-Time Strategy and Role Playing. It is kind of nice to play a game, like this, that isn't so massively involved. You can just chill and explore, grind or grow. Whatever you do, I think you will enjoy this simple title. It is one of those good games to ease someone into the RTS genre, with a hint of RPG and adventure.
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-WUMPUSJAGGER, GameVortex Communications AKA Bryon Lloyd |
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