Dark Reign the Future of War - Awesome rain in the dark

simon

New member
Well do you remember it?
It was developed by Auran and published by Activision back in 1997. It was one of the first games that came out with a campaign construction tool.
The expansion came out a year later and was called Dark Reign: Rise of the Shadowhand.
If not, well then there really is something wrong with you. Dark Reign was one of the RTS games that was an instant hit from the 90's along with Command and Conquer (also Red Alert), Starcraft, Total Annihilation, Warcraft, KKND and of course my other favourite Dune. Hey did anybody play War Wind (thinking of good rts games).

If you do remember it you will remember the glorious (back then) 256 colour in 640 X 480 of tanks and cyborgs and men shooting each other. When they died it looked like a how do I say "squelch..."

Well, honestly, I only bought this game from Cash Converters about a year after its release and remember what it did for me, it gave me a love for Dark Reign 2. Anyways this was a game that would set the standard for quite a few games in the future, hence the name "future of war" :), no not really but still...
  • The terrain height made a difference
    • You could power down your buildings
    • You had usage of a customisable way point system
With all of those features who could have said no? If you are still wondering what I am talking about, maybe this will jog that old memory of yours? or do you need an upgrade? :wtf: lol
Dark_Reign_-_The_Future_of_War_Coverart.png


Do you remember it now?
Do you remember Saturday mornings gaming playing this game instead of Red Alert because everyone was still playing Red Alert and you wanted to play something different because you wanted to be you and go against the grain?

Well not me, I loved Dark Reign 2 a lot more. I loved the rain effects in game, I loved the day night cycle, I loved the units, I loved the graphics and till this day it is one of my fondest memories.
In fact I bought a copy of the game last year, unfortunately the previous owner was a useless sod who scratched the game beyond belief, my hopes of returning to nostalgia were dashed when cyclical error occured.
I would still love to get this game, if it works on Windows 7 and give it a go again. Anybody know where I can get a boxed copy of the game?

What are your thoughts on this game? Did you play it a lot or a lot more then somebody else. If you didn't play it and had a pc I still don't understand what your excuse is, go play it. go play it now.
here is a link to the demo
http://www.fileplanet.com/11432/download/Dark-Reign-Demo
 
This was the first game to have waypoints, and boy did it go all out with those things. You could spend like 10mins just setting and configuring a patrol route for a single unit, needless to say it was pretty advanced. :) RTS games have since abandoned the whole waypoint system it seems.
 
This was the first game to have waypoints, and boy did it go all out with those things. You could spend like 10mins just setting and configuring a patrol route for a single unit, needless to say it was pretty advanced. :) RTS games have since abandoned the whole waypoint system it seems.

Didn't Supreme Commander do the waypoint thing? Anything since then, well I can't think of any.
 
Yeah a few games did waypoints, especially after Dark Reign, it was pretty popular at a stage but then it kind of died out since they were a bit too clunky and slowed down the action.
 
This was one of the 3 RTS games I actually liked. The second one was a lot better, and more... colourful if I remember correctly
 
This was one of the 3 RTS games I actually liked. The second one was a lot better, and more... colourful if I remember correctly

Well it being better, well opinion that I fully agree with, it was a very good sequel I reckon as you see above. And yeah a lot more colourful, the first one was more brown / grey / black and green. 2nd one was pretty rainbow on a summer nights sunset in comparison lol.
What other RTS games are part of that 3?
 
Ground Control / Ground Control 2 / World in Conflict

Awesome games, all by Massive. Brought more action into the RPG, more single unit control and less resource management. Probably an inspiration for Dawn of War and Company of Heroes.
 
World in Conflict is awesome. In fact I bought the collectors edition for it. Quite a nice package I must say.
Anyways...

Anybody else play Dark Reign or play the sequel and agree with me that it is better?
 
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