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Buy or Rent the FULL GAME - Dont bother with the Demo !

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: October 20, 2000
Author: Amazon User

First of all, make sure you patch up the game before you play it. A friend of mine beta tested it and complained like crazy about numerous problems - many of which are FIXED with the latest patch. YA YA we all hate games that are rushed to the store before all the bugs are worked out. But give the FULL version a try. The demo doest do the game justice.

Just about every negative review of this game on amazon.com is from someone who obviously DIDNT bother learing the controls, or actually playing the full version.

Nicholas Van Tassell said: "I wish Pandemic would have allowed the freedom to rotate the camera a full 360 degrees (maybae by holding the Shift, Alt, or Ctrl keys while moving the mouse." -Hold down the middle mouse button while you move the mouse and you can turn the camera 360 degrees! Did this guy read the manual?

Matt Dunphy (see more about me) from Portland, OR said: "Gameplay is a real snoozez, Tons of dicking around and not much combat. Everything is just deliberately slow--aircraft move as slowly as infantry on foot, et cetera. If you are looking for fast, furious, exciting gameplay, this is not the place to find it." - Not much combat? Try a multiplayer game (you vs computer bots or against real people) against an oponent and the ONLY way you can win the map is to destroy their command center. And you cant do that without mashing some turrets, infantry, tanks, etc etc etc. The battles are all over the place...some for the base, some for "talen" (like spice in dune) etc. And the planes move at least 50% faster then infantry and the slow moving tanks are VERY slow. Different units move at different speeds.

Alex Kutsenok (see more about me) from IN said: "This game reinvents real time strategy with such revolutionary concepts as resource gathering and the mother of all tactics: The Tank Rush!" - Again, this guy didnt play against anyone good. There are DOZENS of different ways to avoid a huge tank rush. Ive seen 3 or 4 "regular" gun turrets chew up armies of 10-12 scorpion tanks. It just depends on where you position them. And why not use mojo against the tanks to blind them? Why not try placing some mines out there? Why not use an army of fast infantry to attack the slower tanks? It seems like all the negative reviews come from little cry babies who got their butts kicked at multiplayer and didnt understant why.

James Axsom (see more about me) from San Antonio, TX United States said: "buildings take up too much map real estate, and resource run dry to quickly." - Oh brother. What map did this little boy play on? There are over a dozen maps that come with the game and YOU can set the resourse to WHATEVER amount you want! If the resources run out to fast for you, then YOU need to stop being lazy. Besides, there are hundreds of maps available for download from the internet, and if thats not enough, MAKE your own with the editor. Dont be lazy!

Now I dont work for the game company, nor do I think this game is 5stars like I gave it (its 4) but I wanted to try to cancel out all the idiot reviews that its been getting.

Dark Reign 2 = Near perfection!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game rocks. Other strat games can't touch DR2. The editor is also top notch. I made a map the day after I started the editor for the first time. DR2 is a total joy to play because of the awsome balance Pandemic put into it. The best part is that there isn't a offense that can't be defended well if you think it out. Difficulty is just right if you ask me. You put the AI on easy and you will win fast. Put the AI on hard and you are in for the fight of your life! DR2 is a winner!

This game is better than all other RTs's

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: November 06, 2002
Author: Amazon User

...I got this game at a local store. I was expecting something that would only be fun for a couple hours. I was way wrong. This is the most SPECTACULAR strategy game I have ever played. The lighting effects are great. The terrain looks great. The graphics are real 3D (like FPS's.) Some ppeople say the recources run dry to quickly. This is sort of true. In the single player campains there is more than 2 tmes the recources to finish each mission. In the skirmish games you can choose how much money you start out with (one to 1 million!) However I wish that the recources regenerated. The unit blances are some of the best I ever seen. resource gathering is at a good speed not to fast or tooo slow. I have never been a fan of upgrading. However in this game the upgrading(you only upgrade the buildings) did not get boring or seem repetative. Each side has 23 or so units (which is a good number.) Each side has unique units and tactics. The sprawlers can lay andd one of the 4 different kinds of mines anywhere on the battle field. I sugest running this game on a computer with a 1.3 processor just like I am. The graphics are spectacular and so are the huge battles. The main difference between this game and most other games is that you wage FULL SCALE warefare. The are tons of unique strategies that you can use in this game. You can also change views from first personn to thiird person and rotate the camera 90 degrees or 360 degrees. There are lots of things in this game that are not in your average RTs for example Tire tracks(left by units with tank treads) and wheather. There are a good amount of defensive structures and buildings for each side. This game is way better...than any of those other overrated games. The controls are simple put powerful. Each unit has tons of ways that you can use it and can accomplish lots of tasks. The highly varying terrain adds to the tactics that you can use. The naval battles look good. I could say lots more bu t I doubt you would be willing to read on so lemme wrap this up. If you don't have this game then you are missing something very big. Get it. I can promise you will stop doing anything else inorder to play this game. This game is so addictive. After playing this game any other game seems to lack everything. You will stop playing any other game.

Gorgeous & stately, not fast paced

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 13, 2000
Author: Amazon User

There's probably a strategy game for every type of gamer, and as gaming guide for BellaOnline, I've seen quite a few. Dark Reign 2 is gorgeous, and is for the thinking strategist.

The game sets the forces of the JDA against the Sprawlers. Each side has similar units - 'guardians' and 'rumblers' as ground units, trikes, tanks, medics, you name it. The uniqueness for this game isn't in its basic makeup or the thought behind it - strategy games by their nature share a basic manner of working. What really makes the game stand out is its design, and its graphics.

Instead of the old pixel-based systems, where graphics were drawn dot by dot (and therefore looked very fuzzy on high quality monitors), newer games are done with actual objects being drawn. Dungeon Keeper 2 is an example of this. With an object having sides and textures and angles, it will look crisp no matter how high you resolve the screen. Also, objects of this type can easily be modified to react to game events.

Meaning ... you can blow craters in the ground! You can climb up gorgeously rendered mountains, with slight crevices for you to fit through. Your units range themselves along hilltops to fire down at fortifications. The snow falls as your troops sneak along a treeline, concealing themselves within its branches.

What a treat to watch and play!

The general layout for the interface is well done - you probably can't go too wrong with this after all of these years of strategy games. People have pretty much figured out what works and what doesn't work. However, how many strategy games let you zoom in and out and around as much as you wish with the observer camera? Your map shows the general location of troops and bases, and within that map you have complete control of your camera - zoom in close to the action, from floor level. Look high overhead a full assault. Follow along behind your troops as if you were really there!

What general could ask for more - a way to coordinate large groups of troops easily, plus the ability to see the action from a soldier's point of view. It's great!

The sound and day-night cycles are equally as good. The personality of the troops is well done - the Go Go trikes call out, "Yeah, Baby!" when you give them orders, and you're alerted when "The Sun emerges from its sleeping place." The cut scenes help build the atmosphere and get you involved in the various plots going on. This isn't just about killing off the enemy. It's about preserving your way of life, and discovering what has been hidden.

I agree that for the Command & Conquer-style action lover, the excitement simply isn't there. Units chug along. Units get stuck on each other. The pace is much slower, more like chess than a battle scene from "Ran".

I definitely enjoy this game not only as a great game in its own right, but also a good indicator of what strategy games to come will look like, as machine speeds catch up to the ingenuity and creativity of modern day game designers. With the bar raised on display, perhaps all styles of strategy game will shortly look this gorgeous.

Don't you hate reviews from people who haven't PLAYED it?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 16
Date: July 04, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Given the pre-release hype from game sites, I was really anticipating this game as the contender for the best RTS this year. I'm pretty disappointed.

The good first: The game looks very nice. It has that same techno-organic look as Battlezone 2, not surprising since the same guys did it. It runs fairly nice, aside from the crashes. The framerate and overall running is probably the smoothest I've ever seen on a 3D RTS, even Homeworld. The interface is also quite well thought out, and a step forward over other 3D RTS's, particularly the ease of camera movement.

Other than that, the game is a dog. Sorry, fanboys, but I have to call it like I see it. Gameplay is a real snoozer: Tons of dicking around and not much combat. Everything is just deliberately slow--aircraft move as slowly as infantry on foot, et cetera. If you are looking for fast, furious, exciting gameplay, this is not the place to find it.

The unit pathfinding is set up in such a way that they all move one at a time so that they don't obstruct each other. Thus, you'll move one unit, and if any others are in its way they will all, agonizingly, move one at a time to new positions so the mover can get through. In any movement of groups this problem is ten times as bad. You'll watch in frustration as your units get ripped to shreds while they stupidly maneuver into position before they start returning fire.

No real story is going on here; there are no characters and nothing happens inside of a mission to alter the plot. There are some vague cutscenes between the missions, but they're so irrelevant that you could have just played the missions and made up your own story to string them together.

Overall, I regret having bought the game. I can't recommend it unless you're compelled to get an RTS fix.

SP look elsewhere -- MP read on

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: August 06, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Matt Dunphy and the amazon.com reviewer obviously don't play online multiplayer games (nor do they understand the RTS genre very well). For an RTS game, DR is very good at the one thing online gamers care about -- online multiplayer. The single player missions are terrible -- if you want single player, stick with Starcraft and you'll be pleased. If nothing less than fluid online games of 3 v 3 will keep you happy bring on DR2. The balance is good (too early to say great) and the net code is very solid. Games involving over 10 people are anything but rare on WON.net. Lots of customization for community made maps and "mods." Not the fastest paced RTS around, but definitely faster than Total Annihilation and Tiberium Sun -- on par with Starcraft.

Bottom line -- its a good buy for now and could be the last solid RTS game for a long time. Much better than Earth 2150. Ground control is a different game (real time tactical rather than strategy), but is a better choice if you enjoyed Myth more than Starcraft. My $.02

A disappointment

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: May 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I was surprised to hear about Dark Reign 2. The original, while one of my personal favorite games, did quite poorly in stores and was a flop compared to direct competition such as Starcraft and Total Annhinilation. Keeping these qualms in mind, I was pleased to notice that Activision was funding another game in the series, and that it would have a full 3D engine. I bought the game the day it came out, rushed it home, and installed it. I was very impressed for the first few hours. The 3D engine was most impressive, the gameplay good, and the missions fun. However, I noticed that the team had taken OUT some options from Fark Reign: where was the settings for your unit's tenacity, their agressiveness? This is where things started taking a turn for the worse.

I also realised that the missions started to become rather repetitive. Although some are the 'survive with a limited number of units' type, most are the 'kill everything' variety, perhaps with some objective put in for good measure...however, the only way to get to these objectives is to kill everybody in between you and them! The graphics are good, but not as amazing as Ground Control- also, I noticed some flagrant false advertising on the back of the box--look closely, and you will see each explosion pictured there is fully 3D and has particles flying out in every direction. In the game, the explosions are lo-res sprites. I do like the music, however, and it runs well at 800x600, full details, on my P3-450 with Geforce 2.

If you liked Dark Reign, try the demo. If you like that, consider buying the game. There was so much more they could've done with this.

Almost a classic...but still a good game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: July 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying that Dark Reign 2 isn't the only 3D-RTS game out there. There are at least two others - Ground Control and Earth 2150. Both games are getting good reviews, and it looks increasingly as though Dark Reign 2 is the going to be the only 3D-RTS to get some very bad reviews. Why? Part of that is due to bad timing, since Ground Control and Earth 2150 were released first. The other reason is because there are deficencies in gameplay that should've been corrected before they were released.

This game was made by Pandemic, the same people that created Battlezone 2 (BZ2). This was a game that was prone to crashes (especially on NVIDIA videocards) and was infested with all manner of game-crashing bugs. Basically, BZ2 was a game that could've been a classic if it hadn't been for those horrible bugs.

Fortunately, Pandemic have obviously learned from their mistakes. Dark Reign 2 isn't the crash-prone mess that BZ2 was. In fact, it's the only 3D-accelerated game that can be played straight out of the box - no patches required. So the extra months of quality testing were definitely worthwhile.

However, Dark Reign 2 does fall down in one important area - gameplay. The developers have obviously put a lot of effort into the appearance of the game, but failed to pay attention to gameplay. For instance, many of the missions require your units to navigate narrow valleys, and the pathfinding AI isn't up to the challenge. It's ridiculous seeing a squad of scorpion tanks jostle for position in a narrow valley. The poor pathfinding AI really shows in the last two missions, which take place in a large (and very beautiful looking city). I had to bring a scaver (which is a repair bot) to a particular location. Instead of making a beeline for that location, the unit careered over the entire map...and then got blown up by enemy units.

The other deficiency is in the very short single player campaign. The Sprawler campaign only has ten missions, whereas most strategy games give each side at least 15 missions. I suspect that either Pandemic is relying on players to create their own missions, or they're going to release an expansion pack. Nevertheless, that's no excuse for creating such a short single player game.

And finally, my least favourite aspect of Dark Reign 2 is, oddly enough...the graphics. This is purely a matter of personal taste. I've noticed that Pandemic give their objects a rounded soft-focus look that I'm not too comfortable with. I've never really liked the polygonal look of most objects in 3D-accelerated games...even Quake 3 has the same appearance (curved surfaces notwithstanding).

Let's not forget that DR2 is still a real-time strategy (RTS) game. And there are plenty of classic RTS's that it will be compared to. The original Dark Reign is an obvious choice. So is the now-classic Starcraft, which is the true benchmark that any Science-fiction RTS must aspire to. Starcraft had an excellent storyline, but the unit control was too primitive. Dark Reign 2 has the opposite problem - a poorly thought out single-player storyline but excellent unit controls.

In conclusion, Dark Reign 2 could've been a classic. It's the only game I've bought in the past two years that can be played straight-out-of-the-box, which even Diablo 2 can't lay claim to. And it has an excellent graphics engine. But it's the pathfinding AI and the too-brief single player game that really lets it down. Dark Reign 2 is, unfortunately, no Starcraft. But that shouldn't stop PC gamers from giving this one a fair go.

Absolutely Disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: October 08, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I played the first dark reign and its expansion and got hours and hours of enjoyment, espically the humorous, rebel traning missions, however dark reign 2 just doesn't cut for me.

I think the 3D environment is a bit distasteful and the game maps are generally cluttered with useless obstacles. Units move too slow, buildings take up too much map real estate, and resource run dry to quickly.

There however one redeeming quality about the game I enjoy very much and that is the music.

Don't spend your money on this one, stick with the first dark reign.

Yes! Another Tiberian Sun!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 11
Date: June 23, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game reinvents real time strategy with such revolutionary concepts as resource gathering and the mother of all tactics: The Tank Rush! These terms might be foreign to you now but when you get into the game, you will see the beauty of building up fast and bum rushing your opponents. This game takes its roots from such classics as Warcraft 2 and Command and Conquer. Isn't it strange that so few games have been made to model those? Well, the wait is over. Start up your resource collectors and get ready to click. The long awaited sequel is waiting at your neighborhood store.This game takes its roots from such classics as Warcraft 2 and Command and Conquer. Isn't it strange that so few games have been made to model those? Well, the wait is over. Start up your resource collectors and get ready to click. The long awaitted sequel is waiting at your neighborhood store.

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