Sega Dreamcast

Armada 2
Platform: Dreamcast
Developer: Metro3D

The Basics

The original Armada got lost in the avalanche of games at the Dreamcast's launch, and while some wrote the game off as an Asteroids clone, those who took the time to play the game found it to be a compelling shooter with some slight RPG elements.

screenshot
Click to enlarge
In the original Armada, you played as one of six races of humans that banded together to thwart an alien invasion. In Armada 2, the humans had become comfortable once again, and they were striking out to find new inhabitable areas. "After A1, the alliance between the six human races had grown strong," revealed Mark Jordan, vice president of development. "The six Earth-born races are now spreading out to colonize deep space. The first war against the armada has toughened you--now it is up to you to venture forth and carve out your own civilization." You played as the governor of a frontier outpost, and it was your responsibility to see that supplies were delivered safely, the trade routes were clear, and the alien armada was kept in check.

screenshot
Click to enlarge
In the original Armada, you could play the game through with six different races, and each race had a particular ability. The same six human races returned in Armada 2, though their abilities had changed somewhat. The terran race used advanced technology. "Terrans also have good technology for small agile fighters and bombers to escort your ship," Jordan explained. "Armada ships in areas dominated by terran players will start to show more independent thinking, aberrant behavior, and adaptation due to the surgical nature of the terran technology." The nomads caused the armada to mutate and were able to take out several enemies at once with the spreading properties of their weaponry. "Nomad phoenix bombs, torch beams, and resonance mines will set the enemy aflame in gouts of plasma, which spread to nearby armada ships," Jordan continued. The remaining races exhibited even more specialized abilities. The eldred race used stealth to sneak behind enemy lines and harvest minerals, scarabs turned the armada enemies into allies, the draken race could extract weapons from the armada and hinder its reproduction, and the vorgans were passive scientists that studied the armada to produce new technology. During the course of the game, other races made their presence known as well, and they became either allies or enemies.

The RPG elements in Armada were fairly meager. Your ship gained new abilities every four levels, and its appearance changed to reflect the acquisition of new technology. Jordan claimed that the RPG elements were much more extensive in Armada 2. "A2 has statistics, which you improve, and more importantly you are playing a very strong role in the area of space where you spend your time," Jordan explained. "Growth is not isolated to your character, ship, and items. You can also upgrade space stations, allies, and planetary colonies. We have a very robust random mission generator to keep a narrative drive going. The soul of any good RPG is long-term growth, open exploration, and choice. Many RPGs have a storyline, and A2 does also. A2 has a central mystery and a goal that makes people work together and focus on a common goal. Because it is an online game, this story is renewable and changeable, and it is epic in scale. Each race has one approach they are trying to take to resolve the central conflict."

screenshot
Click to enlarge
There was really no end to the original Armada, and Metro3D was hoping to implement this sort of open-ended game design in Armada 2. "Since you can own and control an area of the server, and since the long-term effects of what you do there affect the global variables, your play style produces some interesting results," Jordan stated. "The 'story' is something that you live. If you do something really tremendous, it will be announced on the server, and more people might want to come visit your GuildSpace and trade with you." Metro3D made other improvements to the Armada series as well. The graphics received a nice upgrade. Armada 2 featured real-time lighting, smoother enemy animations, new weapon effects, and spline-based planetary terrain. Real-time cutscenes featuring your upgraded ship moved the plot forward. The missions took place in space, on the planet surface, and even inside some of the larger armadas. The mission types remained similar to those of the first game in that you'd be asked to escort shipments, make deliveries, defend allies, and head out on seek-and-destroy missions. There were eight mission types in all used to randomly generate five quests per area. Once the five quests were completed, you had defeated the area.

One of the best features of the original Armada was the cooperative multiplayer mode. It's always nice to invite friends over for some extra firepower when you're getting your tail whipped over and over by a boss. The traditional multiplayer mode returned in Armada 2, but this time, in addition, your friends could have stayed at home and served the same purpose, thanks to the online mode. The online mode was structured so that each Dreamcast with a copy of Armada 2 became a virtual online world. Players could have joined your world to go on quests with you, or you could have joined someone else's world and brought your race's unique attributes and your powered-up ship along with you. The games would have been held on Metro3D's servers, so if the Dreamcast version had launched and the PlayStation 2 version had been completed, owners of both consoles would have been able to play together.

Armada 2 looked like a compelling shooter with unlimited replay value, thanks to its living, breathing online world. Jordan described Armada 2 best when he stated, "Armada 2 emphasizes long-term growth and exploration in the context of a fun action game. One big engineering goal was to make Armada 2 an online game that gives players a lot of choice about how they want to live their game life and is built upon enough interchangeable systems to give players infinite worlds to explore." But the only worlds you'll be exploring via Armada 2 will be found on your Xbox, not your Dreamcast.

WHAT HAPPENED?
Metro3D canceled both of its Dreamcast games, Armada 2 and Dark Angel: Vampire Apocalypse. According to Mark Jordan, vice president of development at Metro3D, the company did not see a viable market for either game following Sega's exit from the hardware market.

Armada 2 was developed to take advantage of the SegaNet network service and was set to feature online multiplayer gameplay. The Xbox version of the game is currently the only version in development, and Metro3D hopes to include online support in that game. It will be released in Q1 2002.
 

« Previous Page Next: Show me more »