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The story is nothing really original, but then again it doesn't have to be. A large asteroid pummels into Earth, annihilating most of the planet's population, and setting up a struggle for domination between the three major surviving, space-dwelling factions: GigaCorp, The Iron Coalition, and The Bios (the final release will include a fourth faction known as The Belters). These factions could be compared to the different "races" you can choose in most Real-time Strategy (RTS) titles, such as StarCraft, with each faction having certain appearances, attributes, and technologies. Although there are alternate game modes (deathmatch, CTF, etc.), the game is obviously built around the Conquest mode, where two or more "squads" battle in an attempt to gather and protect resources, research and build on new technologies, and ultimately eliminate all enemy outposts.
The playing field is broken up into named sectors of space with alephs (wormholes) connecting those sectors, and providing a quick means of traveling between them. Each sector has a number of scattered asteroids, some of which contain resources that can be extracted, and some that can be built upon to form new outposts. There are, of course, different "maps" that have various patterns of sectors and alephs.
Players can choose one of three roles in Allegiance: Commander, Investor, and Pilot. Pilots make up a large majority of each team, as there can only be one commander per team at any time. The Commander usually assumes both the Commander and the Investor duties, utilizing an overhead map and controls similar to most RTS titles. As one would expect, they also have the highest responsibility on their team. A commander must build and command ships to gather resources, use those resources to build new structures and research new technologies, and plan strategies and tactics to be carried out by his/her pilots. Sounds like your average RTS right? Well it is, except the pilots are REAL players, which means they may or may not respect your authority. Even pilots that DO respect your command will make occasional judgment calls, declining an order in favor of accomplishing a more urgent task. The quality of one's leadership skills, coupled with their strategic and tactical knowledge, becomes the make-or-break factor in their success as a Commander.
Most players, however, will simply choose to be pilots... the backbone of any squad. They spend most of their time in the cockpit dogfighting, protecting friendly miners, protecting outposts, and respectively assaulting those of the enemy. Pilots receive "pay" in timed intervals, the amount of which is determined by accomplished tasks, such as destroying enemies or picking up scattered "cash pods". These earnings are donated to the Commander by default, so that he/she may use it to invest in new technologies. Each pilot, however, has the option to keep the pay or donate it to another pilot. A Commander who is not performing well can quickly find himself removed from the the position of command by another player whom the pilots have deemed worthy enough to donate their money to.
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Table of Contents:
Introduction |
Overview | The Hardware | Graphics/Sound | Final Analysis
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