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Dawn of Discovery
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Graphics & Sound:
Dawn of Discovery is a casual game at heart, but it presents as well or better than many of the games you've played on the system. The view you'll have a majority of the time is strictly bird's-eye, looking down on the landscape as in Sim City or the like. Simulation isn't exactly the thrust of Dawn of Discovery, though. We can all recognize that Will Wright's masterpiece was the starting point for an entire generation of RTS games and story-driven "building" or resource-management games. The best examples of this tend to either be expansive and richly detailed (as in the Blizzard catalog) or simplistic, light fare such as Diner Dash. The trade-off made for light entertainment is usually depth, but Dawn of Discovery dodges that bullet and provides a rich world to explore, full of colorful characters. Sure, you'll do a lot of zooming in and out to get the proper view at any given time, but that's just the nature of the beast.
The incidental music and sound effects help to set the stage at various times during each level, when you've done something notable. There are good voices used in Dawn of Discovery, and not just for the static "storybook" cut scenes. As you come across different characters, you'll hear little snippets of dialogue that move the story forward or provide you with direction on your next task. Some of the interaction is funny, some purely instructional, but all of it is well scripted. Since this is a resource-gathering, civilization-building game, it is only appropriate that you'll see plenty of hustle and bustle on the ground, but Dawn of Discovery doesn't give you much time to sit back and enjoy your creation in Story Mode. If you prefer a more languid pace, you can adjust settings in Continuous Play Mode to create a slower-paced experience. Visual reminders help to steer you in the proper direction when a task is waiting for completion or when someone in the world you've created is in need of anything.
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Gameplay:
The RTS game has many permutations, from pure time-wasters to military conquest to world domination. Dawn of Discovery incorporates elements from all the best, but comes out closer to a casual time-waster than anything else. The things you'll find here that aren't typical in a casual game include the juggling of resource gathering, fabrication, population management, and military action. These are elements of a pretty robust strategy game, but Dawn of Discovery manages to weave everything together without coming across too heavy-handed. After choosing a character at the beginning of the game, you'll embark on short missions in Story Mode that teach you the game's controls and the basic elements of play. On task to expand your influence and provide resources for your people, you'll settle on a small island and begin expanding your town. The game's ultimate goal is this type of expansion, across multiple tiers of civilization. Supporting the expansion are several important gameplay elements such as resource gathering and management. Once you've completed all objectives in Story Mode, you can roll your own conditions in Continuous Play Mode and build out new civilizations to your heart's content. We wanted to see some kind of more robust multiplayer or any online component, at least for replay value and extending the fun. The so-called multiplayer isn't much to write home about, just a chance to pretend you're playing while the other person really plays.
The first resources you'll gather as a settler tend to be the basics, like stone and wood. You won't get much done without these. Establishing houses and connecting everything with roads begins your journey toward having a real town. Other important elements on the island include food production, a warehouse, and a marketplace. The market is especially important once you start developing in multiple areas, to ensure you can share resources between settlements. Dawn of Discovery isn't a game about commerce and trading, where the complexities of "buy low, sell high" come into play. You do have to balance inventory of goods against revenue, but that's about as complicated as the financials get. More often you will be looking to satisfy the needs of your townsfolk, helping them find food and satisfy their basic needs by providing special buildings for entertainment, worship, etc. Managing resources means finding locations that are ideal for growing specific crops, while looking for treasure to fatten your wallet, and fending off pirates. Later stages of the game allow you to militarize, introducing all kinds of new complexities and a chance to finally get back at those darn pirates... |
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Difficulty:
If it sounds like a lot to manage, you'll be glad to hear that everything is introduced gradually and over a series of episodes in Story Mode. Veterans of RTS games may be able to just jump in and play Continuous, but they won't get as much out of the game that way, without knowing all the little details introduced during Story Mode. There is a trend we've seen in a few other instances, of games that take a non-casual format like the RTS and construct a slow-drip hint system. Instead of learning about all the working pieces of Dawn of Discovery through a tutorial, you get to jump right into the action. In exchange, you are spoon-fed things like controls, how to construct a viable town, and how to do about everything else in the game. There are lots of things to see later in the game that aren't visible within Story Mode from the beginning, a way of not giving you enough rope to hang yourself with. This design philosophy works reasonably well, so that you aren't phased later in the game when you have to juggle lots of little things to win. Seasoned Sim or Strategy fans won't be phased by Dawn of Discovery, but it makes for a robust title that fills the void between cute casual titles and core strategy titles like Fire Emblem and others.
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Game Mechanics:
Naysayers predicted years ago that PC gaming would break a leg trying to make the transition to consoles. The received wisdom was that PC gamers had their big simulation games like Civilization, their deep strategy games like Starcraft, and their beautiful 3D epics like Thief, while console gamers had platforming and RPGs. This started to shift with the PlayStation, and by now every genre previously thought of as exclusive to PC has appeared in some form on a console. Simulation and strategic gameplay always had an edge on PC because of mechanics. PC gamers could assign hotkeys to squads or special actions, could register a different key for every item or magic spell in their inventory, and browse through lots of menus on their big screens. Dawn of Discovery has some issues because of control limitations, but nothing that steals the fun entirely. Camera controls are mapped to either the +/- keys on your Wii-mote, or to the buttons on your Nunchuk. You'll spend a lot of time cycling through different camera views, looking for your next objective. The intelligent part is that zooming out far enough just brings up the map, where you can select a destination by pointing at the screen. Zoom back in at that point, and you're looking at your destination. One-click controls for navigating your sailing ship are also intelligent, along with click-and-drag controls for moving around inventory on an island.
Few things about Dawn of Discovery feel poorly implemented or half-done, which immediately puts it into the top 10% of Wii games, from where we're sitting... The translation of a sprawling strategy and simulation to the Wii with very little lost is impressive, and the Story Mode is a fun ride. How much time Dawn of Discovery will spend on your shelf depends on your enthusiasm for building bigger and bigger cities, rather than extended features like online leaderboards or real multiplayer. The thrust of the game is enjoying the story and the experience of watching towns you build grow and ultimately become massive cities. Beyond enjoying the little details like gathering resources, fabricating items, and waging war, Dawn of Discovery is light entertainment, but entertaining indeed. |
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-Fridtjof, GameVortex Communications AKA Matt Paddock |
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