Thandor Die Invasion
The destroyed 'Alliance of Avares' must be re-established and you're the only one that can do it in JoWood Production's Thandor: The Invasion. Jointly developed by the teams at Innoics and Planet 4, Thandor is a futuristic real-time strategy game that boasts more than 60 fully animated units and buildings as well as an active terrain system that includes realistic reactions from environments based on snow, ice, desert, and grass. If violence isn't your way, however, you can also employ a myriad of diplomatic tactics to further your progress without firing a single shot, or team up with as many as eight friends with the multiplayer campaign option. Thandor: The Invasion Review By Chad Montague June 05, 2012I absolutely love Real Time Strategy games. My first exposure was the godly Command & Conquer, and I've been a fan ever since - especially for those of the science fiction variety (Total Annihilation forever, baby!). Once I'd learned that another such offering had come down the pipeline in the form of JoWood Productions' Thandor: The Invasion, I couldn't wait to leap into the saddle once again and partake in some of that classic point and click action.And then I played it.What happened here? This could have been such a nice little come-out-of-nowhere time-waster if only a few key elements had been tweaked and refined.
Instead of a pleasant underground stroll down real time alley, we're left instead with a lesson in how not to structure your play mechanics. If the German programmers had spent a few weeks more trying to get everything just right, then the disaster that Thandor is could have been easily avoided.The storyline is typical science fiction video game fare, with 'Group A' out to stop 'Group B' from taking over their home world and in turn ruling the galaxy. There's a civil war, political intrigue, and plenty of mid-battle shenanigans to keep the plot-oriented folk out there somewhat pleased.
Thandor Die Invasion Gog
Of course the conclusion (and the road that takes us there), is something we've all seen before in countless other movies, books, and digital entertainment. In short, the plot is an afterthought.Overall, I was thoroughly impressed by the graphics engine that Thandor has, and you will be, too. Its fantastic complexity allows for any number of neat visual tricks and eye-based chestnuts, and had me 'ooh-ing' and 'ahh-ing' every time I booted the sucker up. A nifty little zoom and rotate feature lets you get incredibly close to the action, so close that you can almost read the writing on some of the buildings without any trouble at all. Luckily, the power of your machine doesn't have too much bearing on how smoothly this transition works and given the realistic detail found on the units and structures themselves, a hearty pat on the backs goes to the artists for this one.Noteworthy also, are the stellar light sourcing and shadow effects. Comparable to the otherworldly medieval franchise Myth, the true-to-life angles and silhouettes strewn throughout the battlefield are some of the best I have ever seen.
While it may seem like overkill in certain nooks and crannies of the landscape (like in those valleys. Whoa, Nelly), the desired outcome still shines through.
Unfortunately the compliments end right there, and finding quality in the rest of the game proves difficult.The first and most noticeable problem comes with the sound, which is really a shame because of how well composed the score is. Filled with abrupt stops and overpowering structure noises, putting up with the audible treatment without pulling your hair by the roots is more difficult than sitting through Event Horizon. Yes you can adjust the level of all this in the options menu, but trust me when I say that no matter what setting you turn that dial too, it's too much.
Press the mute on your speakers for maximum effect.Oh and how about the narrator? Obviously pre-recorded in the deepest, darkest, depths of a Leeds underground men's room, the tutorial in Thandor is one of the worst in recent memory. Long-winded, inaccurate, and non-stop (it doesn't wait for you do what it asks you to do, and if you manage to accomplish something early, he'll keep talking about it anyway), the grating English bookworm just goes on and on and on. Worst of all, the sound effects from neighboring buildings will all but drown out the important phrases no matter how low you have them turned. Because they're all controlled by the same blasted adjustment dial! Idiocy, I tell you!Other bothersome tidbits include the resource meters (what in the hell are they trying to say anyway? And why are they so frigging small?), buggy mission parameters (I was supposed to destroy these gun turrets and I did.
Thandor Die Invasion Demo
So why am I still sitting here waiting for something else to happen? Hello, is anyone there? Hello?), and why the same unit on the opposing force is twice as powerful as your version (They're both Jeep Weasels and your one takes out two of mine?). Frustrating to say the least.But the biggest, most glaring problem of them all is the gameplay itself. How this ever managed to make it out of the beta testing stage I will ever know, but somehow it did. Please tell me why on earth you have to build a resource collector in order to build another different kind of resource collector in order to start collecting resources!
Does that make any sense? Would Warcraft have been half as fun if you needed to build a barracks that made a special barracks to let your peasants collect wood? Hell no, it wouldn't have, and it doesn't here!To add to the insanity collision problems abound, and getting your units to actually fire on an enemy without taking a few hundred shots themselves is like pulling teeth from a crocodile. What good is your research going to do when it doesn't seem to affect your units at all (Oh goody, we have increased our armor +50.but I still die just as fast)? And please tell me why the maps on even the smallest of campaigns had to be so massive?
You can drive from one end of Texas to the other in less time than it takes to navigate the 'midget maps' in Thandor. We are supposed to be able to find our enemy, right? Are you sure this isn't a real estate sim?A couple of the extra features like the diplomacy option and ability to rotate and customize some of your structures are just cosmetic, as any real negotiation is over in seconds and buildings have the same collision problems mentioned earlier no matter which they face. It's all about 'kill or be killed' in Thandor, which normally wouldn't pose a problem for me.
But why try and hide it all under a poorly veiled simulation element? Why add extra buildings when you don't have too? It's just plain baffling.The Official Thandor website boasts a tagline from another online magazine posing the question 'Is there anybody who still wants to play Tiberian Sun?' On the top of their page. After downloading the most recent patch and giving the new and improved version just as much time as the older one (there's a difference?), I would have to say the answer to that question is a resounding 'yes.' Not even worthy of the bargain bin, Thandor: The Invasion is better left on the shelf.
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