I didn’t really have much expectations when I booted up Age of Darkness: Final Stand, and when I spent around half-an-hour with the game’s newly released campaign mode, Flames of Retribution, my first thoughts were: “This is like watching a Abba-tribute band.” So to what exactly did the campaign mode seemed to be playing tribute to? It’s WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. Now, I really liked Blizzard’s RTS when it was released in 2002, but I wasn’t in the mood to play something similar.
Survival Mode
So, instead of going through Acts 1 & II of the Campaign Mode, I decided to switch gears and try out the Survival Mode, which Age of Darkness: Final Stand is being known for despite being an Early Access title. So what is Survival Mode? StarCraft 2, which coincidentally is another excellent Blizzard RTS, has an Arcade mode featuring player created maps and gameplay with one of the maps being a personal favorite of mine, Left 2 Die. This particular map has day and night cycles with elements of tower defense thrown in as players have to brace themselves by building defenses against infested humans and Zerg units swarming their base at night.
Age of Darkness’ Survival Mode is like a Skirmish Mode pretty much like the StarCraft II player-created map. Unlike Left 2 Die, there’s some buffer given to build up your base and army before the Nightmares, as the enemies are called, start attacking. Taking the initiative against the enemy, especially at night, nets your hero unit (yup, that’s WarCraft III influence right there as well), even more experience but you’ve to consider that the Nightmares tend to back each other up a lot more at night as well.
It’s Not Safe At Night
During each playthrough you’ll encounter Death Night events where large groups of Nightmares head over to your base, and this is where you’ll pray that your defenses, in particular your walls and towers can hold them at bay while your troops and your hero chip at their health bars.
Much like my first few attempts at Left 2 Die, my base was practically overrun by Nightmares. According to the developer, PlaySide Studios, the game’s proprietary SwarmTech technology allows for over 70,000 Nightmares to be rendered on the screen simultaneously. PHEW.
Final Thoughts
I like the Tower Defense and turtling aspects of Survival Mode, but things that vex me are the resource and population management. These are over-convoluted and feel like speedbumps to hinder your efforts in raising an army and a decent defense. But this shouldn’t stop you from checking out Age of Darkness: Final Stand though, Survival Mode is more than worth the price tag of the game.
Age of Darkness: Final Stand is available in Early Access on Steam now for USD$21.99 / AUD$31.95. Flames of Retribution is free for all owners of Age of Darkness: Final Stand.
