Atrox review:
Atrox is an old school RTS, immense with detail, playability and lots of gaming challenge. StarCraft 2 has gone incognito! Personally, I was taken by surprise when I first started this little gem of a strategy game up. Atrox happens to be nicely designed and displayed with plenty of artwork and game CG. The main menu is aesthetically pleasing. As I looked over the three race choices within the game and read each of their biographies, I was given a very good storyline about humans struggling within themselves. Having spliced their genetic code into two different strands, creating the Black and the White angels. The Black angels are a race of cybernetic humans called the Createse and the White gave rise to the Intelion. Also, you've got your basic human faction trying to stop the warring races.Now, the actual gameplay is quite unique but also uses some features from other popular strategy games such as StarCraft. The difficulty can be somewhat overwhelming at times, with the AI rushing your socks off while your trying to defend against a horde of Createse and Intelion. For the most part though, the game is very fun to play. I love the interface for building and using your units. Selecting your units consists of your typical left click, right click style interface. The menu and options are nothing new, but they do the game justice. One thing I did like very much in Atrox is something that most strategy games haven't had so far, which is a leveling up system for your characters that's fairly deep. Also, the ability to record your battles is very nice. If you want boasting and bragging rights, or if you just need to review your tragic defeats for improved future performance, it's all good.The music complements the game fairly well with some slow space techno. The sound effects and voices for the units and characters are very well done. Every sound in the game is nice to listen to, from the mouse clicks to the explosion of a flying bunker. It's all good stuff. As I said earlier, the vocal dialog is very nice and there is a lot of it to listen to as you play through the story mode.Graphically though, with the 2D graphics in PC games almost extinct, Atrox isn't as pretty as most of the other strategy games currently out there. The color in the game's battlefields and units is a little lackluster. It features mostly faded colors, which does add to the post apocalyptic feel of the game, but makes it less visually pleasing. The CG characters are nice to look at when you select your race. Battle graphics add a little bit of color to the gameplay, as do the animations of the buildings and units.Overall, the game makes you want to come back for more at times. Other times though, you wish you could just go find a cheat for it because the A.I. is pretty crazy in battle. This is a nicely done space game that could be just a little late in its release. Even with the rise of MMORPG and fully 3D games running rampant, Atrox can expect the avid strategy and StarCraft fans to flock to the shelves for it, as long as it's marketed properly. Personally, I'd buy Atrox if I hadn't played it non-stop to write this review. Maybe I will just so I can 0wnz people online! I recommend you try this game if you're a space game fan, a StarCraft fan or just a strategy game fan.
Atrox review: