by Adam - March 22, 2005

Ever since I was a young boy I dreamed of world domination. In Dreamcatcher's newest game Domination, the sequel to Massive Assault they attempt to recreate a futuristic war in which your strategy will win the battle or lead to defeat. Domination is a turn based strategy game set in the future in which two warring nations are battling over control of the planet. You can play as either The Phantom League or the Free Nations Union.

A Calculated Game

Domination is a game that has decent game play. I say decent game play because as a turn based strategy your moves must be precise and you must be able to have strategic control. The turn based strategy element to the game makes it almost play like a game of chess. Each side gets 36 different types of units in which they have to control. The movement on Domination is hexagonal and becomes a little frustrating when your units can only move into certain positions. Hexagonal movement means you have to plan out your attacks in advance so your units don't become stuck behind each other. Another aspect that was unfortunate about the game was that it seemed like fortifications added nothing to the defensive capabilities of your troops.
 

The Fog War

Graphically Domination is nothing out of the ordinary. When a unit is finally destroyed the game feels necessary to do some poor animation of your unit killing the other piece, which becomes boring very quickly. Another problem I encountered is as the longer I played it seem to slow up the game as if it were eating too much memory, animations would start and end very quickly. The game would also randomly crash and occasionally freeze my computer, or it would just crash to my desktop. Another downfall is there are no real videos and the pathetic story is told through a series of cheap pictures and boring text and spoken dialog. Graphically this game just churns out poor animations, which attempt to recreate what could be a dramatic game.
 

My Ears Are Bleeding

The sound in Domination has to be amongst the worst I've experienced in my years of gaming. The voice acting sounds flat and with a terribly faked foreign accent. Voice talent is extremely poor, at first I thought it was due to the language gap but DreamCatcher is a British gaming company. The cheap voice talent makes you hurry to the end and skip most of the dialog. The music is not much better it only insults the listener less by not being terribly over bearing and it being used sparingly. Sound effects are flat and uninspired, missile launches sound cheap and there isn't the good sound of heavy machinery thundering to war.
 

One Word, Strategy

Domination was a blast to play despite the bugs. The turn based strategy concept was fun and challenging as universal troop management and strategy became key to winning major battles. The game was very easy to learn and get adjusted to. While playing through the various scenario's you learn different skills you will use to defend your troops. One aspect that was cool is the various types of games you can play which ultimately is different scenarios over and over. The storyline mode only adds the ugly graphics and text to the game. Each game is pretty much a solitary scenario in which you had to complete one objective or another and then that game would be over. This made missions easy to beat within 20 minutes or so, perfect for those who only have a few moments to play for a given day. The different pieces that one could use did help to plan out strategies and forced you to use your units strengths and weaknesses. Another aspect of the game I enjoyed was that both sides had the same amount of units. This made the game balanced and ultimately about strategy.
 

Conquer the World

One thing I did enjoy about Domination was the aspect of email base Internet games. In this aspect of multi player you can register an email account with wargaming.net and play a game against someone and submit your moves via email, they will respond by email with their moves. This is a cool feature for gamers who may only get to play when they are on lunch break or have just a few minutes to the Internet a day. Network play is also available which makes this game great for LAN parties. A hot seat feature is pretty cool it allows you to jump straight into instant action against many different opponents. There is a downfall in the multi player for domination though; it's pay to play. At $6.95 a month it's a pretty big decision to decide to pay for a game like this when there are more real time strategy games with free multi player.
 

Surrender

Domination was a fun turn based strategy. It forced players to play a calculated and thought out game, you would have to think about moves in advance. Coordination and good logic will help you through most of the levels in this game. However the very weak storyline, the graphic bugs, game play bugs, and pay to play multi player all detract from what otherwise could be a classic game. Hopefully DreamCatcher will continue to update the game through patches available via the Internet, or stop the costly multi player, which would draw fans to this game. I would recommend this game to anyone who has to have a different type of strategy game. If you go to or host a lot of LAN parties I would highly suggest buying this game. I would suggest waiting to try this game at a friends or waiting until it goes on sale because it certainly is worth owning for the strategy value.