Battle Dawn: Review

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Have you ever wanted to sit in your office while filling out paperwork and conquering the whole world at the same time?!  Well, now you can!  Battle Dawn is a browser based strategy game developed by Tacticsoft.  It uses a turn based system that allows players to manage their cities and resources casually without the stress of playing a real time strategy game.  The game allows you to form alliances, create enemies, lay waste to other user-created fortresses, and build your own into a magnificent powerhouse.  I’m sure you’re all thinking that this sounds like a fun and easy game that you would casually play in your spare time, but is it as good as it sounds? Or does this browser game need a whole new direction?  Find out in my Battle Dawn review below!

Visuals:

I think it’s a good idea to start things off by discussing the visual aspects of the game, because it’s usually where gamers get most of their impressions.  From the first glance I unfortunately knew that the game’s graphics would not, could not, ever impress me.  That’s not to say that the visuals are bad.  Before I begin to tear into the game’s visuals,  it’s very interesting to consider that the game has three selectable themes to play the game in: Mars, Earth and Medieval.  Said themes don’t actually change the gameplay at all, but rather the unit names and background locations.  Let’s get down to the nitty gritty.  The entire game is built in Macromedia Flash, which will entitle it to some mercy points considering the game doesn’t use any three dimensional models.  The game is entirely designed with 2-D artwork and sprite built icons.  After glancing at the game’s map screen for a mere second I found it safe to say that the background art of the game (which is the majority of the scenery) has set its standards below the average MMO.  The game’s visuals are only going to receive a mediocre grade for many reasons.

For starters, the scenery is very boring and bland.  You spend most of your time in the game just staring at the green, yellow or white blotches on your map.  These massive blocks of poorly textured land represent either grass, desert, or some sort of mountains.  There is no diversity within the landscapes, and you will find that the same blotchy trash is everywhere you look.  Is this a bad thing?  Well it’s not very appealing, that’s for sure.  I suppose it’s not so bad, because aside from these bland landscapes, there are actually relatively well done sprite images of all the fortresses and structures featured on the world map.  These cute little buildings are EVERYWHERE.  In fact, there are so many of these fortresses and camps that they almost cover up the landscape entirely.  So, for all those dedicated players that like to build a ton of outposts, you guys/gals get brownie points.

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As for the game’s other minor sights to see; the menu is laid out fine, all the buttons and icons look good and the interface in general looks as pretty as it needs to be. In other words, it gets the job done.  Here is my biggest problem.  Despite what I’ve said, I don’t have any kind of real issues with the game’s visuals.  I understand that this isn’t what the game’s about.  Yes, the land needs some work and I’ve stressed that, but nothing looks any more ridiculous than the avatars players can create for themselves.  I’m going to throw a picture of one up just so you can grasp what I’m talking about.

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I want you to try and tell me that you’ve seen something scarier than that guy!  The picture above is actually what my in-game avatar looks like, and trust me: I tried to make him look presentable.

Gameplay:

Let’s move on to something a little more important; the gameplay.  At first glance, this game appears to be a general MMORTS.  That’s what the official screenshots portray. But it’s not an RTS.  This entire game is based on what Tacticsoft calls the tick system.  Depending on what server you join, a tick may represent 1 or 2 hours.  If you haven’t already guessed, this game is a turn based strategy game.  You can do whatever you want with your units and structures, whenever you want, but in order for the game to progress and your units to move onwards, an hour in real time must pass.  This completely removes all ambitions to play Battle Dawn.  In an hour’s time, I’ve already gone and played another game, gone out to the bar, had a drink, come home, and caught the end of a show that was on.  This is may be an exaggeration, but honestly there’s definitely plenty to do in an hour’s time.  After all that waiting, do they really expect me to remember to go back and check my Battle Dawn progress?  I think not.  Although I suppose it’s not all bad.  This tick system does give you wiggle room when setting up base defenses and counter attacks.

So the game doesn’t have a lot of actual game time, but what about its features?  The game allows you to place a single main fortress and construct smaller outposts around it for the purposes of upgrading and transporting.  Outposts can also be used to build such things as  silos and radar towers.  Each of these structures is granted its own unique abilities and strategic advantages.  Players are capable of upgrading and building bigger and better structures to support your main city.  These structures can provide you with things from gold farming to energy enhancements.  Every structure is necessary to building a bigger and better army.  A minor problem I had when I first started building (during the tutorial segment), was that you’re not given detailed instructions on how to place your main fortress.  The only instructions your given is to just “place it” , but the way it’s laid out leads you to believe that you have to place it on a grayed (or empty looking) outpost.  However these are actually just conquered player outposts. At a first glance, there was absolutely no way I was supposed to know this. I successfully wasted my first 5 minutes of game time trying to figure out how to place a city.  I finally decided to try clicking on an open land patch.  This was so obvious yet so well hidden.

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Once you have a base that’s well on its way to being bigger and more powerful, the game does pick up a little bit.  I did enjoy making units and creating ships for them to be carried in.  It’s also quite enjoyable to check back on the game every now and then to see how close your units are to your enemies base.  As for the units available for construction, the game’s  website boasts that there are a total of 27 units available to use. This doesn’t seem to be true.  In Battle Dawn you are capable of creating a soldier, light vehicle, or a heavy vehicle.  Now as far as I’m concerned, those are the only three available units to build and utilize.  The reason behind the game stating that there are 27 units available for play, is because you are able to give your units 1 of 3 weapons plus an additional 1 of 3 upgrades. There are a possible 27 combinations of weapons and abilities.  This is very cool and all but it also creates another major problem I have with Battle Dawn’s units.

There is no diversity to the game’s available forces.  I want to see air ships and siege weapons.  I want to see bomb strikes and artillery cannons. But as much as  I would love to see all these things, the game lacks interesting units preventing Battle Dawn from actually thriving.  Yes, you can create missile silos and use them as power weapons and such, but it would be nice to see a little more effort put into some of the more common units.  Don’t get me wrong, changing the stats of your soldiers is great! But even if just a few more weapons and abilities were introduced, it would add some more depth to the unit customization which would be awesome!  Other than the lack of available and diverse forces, I can say that each of the units definitely work well.  There are units that overpower some and others to counter those oncoming forces.  The game is well balanced, and I do like that the tick system provides the player with some time to prepare for an attack.   Another important aspect to the unit creation is the spy.  The spy plays a very important role once you have acquired the resources and structures to create one.  I have to say, I did like toying around with my own secret agent.  The spy is capable of infiltrating enemy bases and revealing what kind of defenses they might have in place.  This allows you to create an effective task force that will easily crush your foe without him or her having the time to rebuttal against your massive counter army.

This is all sounds fine and dandy, yet it all still gets narrowed down to one key factor.  There isn’t much to do in the game.  Like I mentioned before, this game is meant to be played in your spare time at work.  This is not a “World of Warcraft” type game that you can play for hours on end.  I doubt this is even the type of game that you could play for 20 minutes straight.  Once you’re done making some moves and building some units, the game comes to a halt.  This gives you the time to go off and walk your dog for a couple hours before anything remotely enjoyable can happen.  Even IF you happen to witness or take part in some action, it’s not as if the game is real time, so an enemy attack isn’t really life threatening nor is it exciting.

Audio:

I’m sure you can all make a guess as to what I’m going to say regarding the game’s audio, and you’re actually probably wrong.  This is where Battle Dawn shines its brightest.  The audio in this game is surprisingly phenomenal.  The game’s audio resembles a sort of Starcraft theme mixed in with some hardcore Red Alert metal music.  I actually logged onto the game one day just so I could play the music in the background while doing other things on my computer.  Not only is the music great but for some absolutely random reason, some of the game’s tracks include quotes from movies.  Who doesn’t like conquering the globe with Samuel Jackson yelling, “Oh I’m sorry, did I break your concentration?” in the background.  The audio in this game is just plain enjoyable.  It sets a good hardcore feel to the game (without the hardcore aspect being present), and it really gets you pumped up to start a full out war.

Story:

Don’t count on it.

Conclusion:

All in all, Battle Dawn is a very, VERY casual game.  It lacks in the way of units and actual time spent playing the game.  It provides the player with a moderate amount of unit customization (making up the game’s roster of units),  as well as structural upgrades for your major city and outposts.  Building up your fortress is a fun and entertaining time waster that will absolutely please the average powerhungry gamer.  Unfortunately, Battle Dawn will not offer much in the visual aspect of things.  However, it makes up for the fact with its kick-ass soundtrack that will get you jacked up and ready to take on the world.  I recommend Battle Dawn to any and all casual gamers with some spare time and a sharp wit for strategies.  For anyone who can’t wait to begin their global conquest, click here to visit the official Battle Dawn website.

Battle Dawn gets a solid 6.5/10.

16 Comments

  1. I play Battledawn and my name is Secret Agent Guy. I have played many online strategy games like, evony, ikariam, etc. But BattleDawn is by far the greatest online strategy game ever made. Its completely original and has many options that you can do in the game. the many different kinds of soldiers, structures, and worlds make the game interesting.

    In my opinion, choose Battledawn first over Anything

  2. i would never play battle dawn for one admin seth chaet me and swearing at me someing i didt do i been playing battle dawn over a year now i buy mad tokens i send over 1000 dollars to battle dawn i been there real active then admin seth says im farming me and my girl plays the game and i counqer my girls bases then im bann thats so wrong i been huge fan of bd now im like why wat i do wrong? admin seth told me that its called farming when i couqer my girls bases and how is that farming i thought farming was post to be if u have 2 accounts and feeding off the one to make other one beeter thats farming i have 1 account and my girl sarah has 1 account and amin seth tells me im lieing im just fake person and he wont give me the email to the owner of battle dawn this bull crap i did noting wrong i ben paying mad mad for noting now and im mad as crap just want let ppl no how battle dawn will treat u when u make mistake they bann u for life and i didt do dan thing i even got were admin seth called my the b word so admin can get way with it thats not right i didt not get fair unfair rights why i was bann and reson why i cant play my best game ever

  3. Great review. Glad to see that the music got top mark, since I was the main composer for it :).

    I get quite a few people saying they also enjoy listening to it in the background.

    Cheers!

    Yarron Katz
    Sonic Brilliance Studios

  4. Great game, i played Everquest for 5 years (99 to 2004) and WoW for 4 years (started in 2004, since beta) and i had never played any of these kind of games.

    I stoped with MMORPG cuz i cant spend to much time like i had time to, then i started battledawn and its not a casual game for who is a hardcore gamer and i’ll say what.

    I start playing in a server where each tick take 20 minutes… if you stay 1 day out of the game you will be conquered for sure!

    Staying online alot, you can have a good alliance/guild/clan and conquer everyone and even have epic fights with another hardcore players.

    Who never played should be thinking how ridiculous can it be, hardcore gamer on this kind of a game? Well… play, understand how the game works and you will see, you really need think in every move, its like a chess game, if you play in a server where each tick is 1 hour you can be “casual” but should be good if you spend 5 minutes every 12 hours at least, to build structures and army and when everything be maximized, spend more time to attack another players.

    Cya!

    Less Than Jake
    U.K.

  5. lol? 1-2 tick a hour?

    get with the times man,theres 1-4 tick a hour now,and on kongregate BD,even 6,realy,when DID u write this? :p

  6. lol? 1-2 tick a hour?

    get with the times man,theres 1-4 tick a hour now,and on kongregate BD,even 6,realy,when DID u write this? :p

    kong BD player,qqqwxs,once again happy to prove u wrong

  7. Battle dawn isn’t one of the best strategy games, it IS the best! I have been playing it for a few years now and it has never gotten boring! Unlike others, the ticks reset giving you another chance if you were doing bad! I recommend battledawn to anyone who loves these games!

  8. Battledawn is a great game. its the best MMO/RPG ever. it has great game play. it never bores u, there is something new to do every time u play.

  9. Iv played battle dawn for quit a whie my names TANK ….Battle Dawn is a great online stradagy game u can meet new friends and become #1 so go play

  10. Very time consuming, you have to check your colony every hour and not go away from your computer more than 6 or 7 max. if you want to get anywhere with this game. You’re playing with people that are consumed by this game and take it WAY too seriously.

    This game is a “free to play” game. Which means its only enjoyable when you do whats called “BOOSTING” which is sending them money through credit or paypal in return for a lot of ressources. Without that boost in ressources it takes around 2-3 days to do what it takes a premium player 1 hour. There’s a huge gap between regular non-paying players and the premium one.

    I was a premium player, and bought more than $500 USD in ressources. I made it to the top 30 players of the 2000 players in the game. I logged in one morning only to find that my account was frozen. Why? Because it said I had commited “Paypal Abuse” and that I was banned for life. The reason was because I opened a paypal dispute on the paypal website because Battledawn had charged me twice as much as they should have!

    I live in Canada, so I used Skype to call their office in Jersulam, no answer (it was 12pm local time). I emailed their contact email and pm’ed the game admin. After 24 hours, the admin answered me and said that in fact, their terms of use state that they can change the fees at any time for any reason… What the hell ? I purchase the boost thinking it was $45 and I ended up paying over $100.

    DONT PLAY THIS GAME. OR IF YOU DO DON’T GIVE YOUR MONEY TO THEM! THEYRE A FRAUD ! THEY WILL STEAL YOUR MONEY LIKE THEY DID TO ME.

    I tried to contact the authorities and the paypal security team, and they said they could in fact do nothing because I had authorized the initial transaction, and that I couldn’t prove that it was a different price to begin with.

    Don’t make the same mistake I did, don’t support these thiefs!

  11. I am no longer certain where you are getting your information, but good topic. I needs to spend some time studying more or working out more. Thanks for excellent information I was searching for this information for my mission.

  12. dont waste your time playing this game it not newb friendly at all. The existing community has made it a pay to win game. They do not try to keep or train new players even though they offer a mentoring system it is pure crap. Either you need about 30 friends with credit cards to challenge the elite in this game or about a year to get into the various networks that monopolize the game. They used to have 2400 players per world now they have 400 due to the community of players who would rather bully new players and since they pay for the development of the game they dont think anybody else should play for the win but them. Neat game, BAD BAD community.

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