Must…post….on….blog…

Shamefully I would rather play games in my spare time then post here. If anyone has tried writing a medium sized review it takes time! Between working and gaming, the blog gets little attention. I made a twitter account, and if I cant keep up with that then this blog has no chance!

My first big city, 23 hours of gameplay!

When I do encounter a game so addictive, so amazingly detailed and enthralling, I am compelled to come here and post about it. Hell, even Skyrim didn’t make it here! We are talking about Anno 2070.

I have literally 10 minutes to write this. 10 minute capsule review commence!

Is Anno 2070 good? Yes.

Is Anno 2070 Amazing? Yes!

Is Anno 2070 worth getting? Yes, but maybe not for 49.99 Euro. You can find much better deals on the net for a better price. If you have to pay the full sum, then put it like this; I have been playing for almost 100 hours and cant wait to play it when I am not. I even dream of the damn game. If I suddenly hit the wall at 150 hours, It will still be worth the money i spent on it.

Is Anno 2070 beautiful? Yes. The graphics are amazing, but you will need a better then average PC to run it.

Is Anno 2070 addictive? Yes. The game keeps you going and you will lose hours in this game before you realise whats happened. Anno 2070 has this amazing ability to make you feel smart and when you try new strategies and they work perfectly, it can make you feel very smug. Coffee farms that you need to make energy drinks taking up to much space? Lets move the whole coffee making industry to a new island! Why stop there? Move the coffee, sugar, and drink making factory to a new Island and you free up space and energy on your main Island. Even setting up oil rigs make you feel like a boss, especially when a trade link somewhere lets you free up buildings somewhere else.

Does Anno 2070 DRM get in the way? YES! I had 3 free hours last week before work to play the game, and the servers did not come online till the next day, 8 odd hours over the estimated time given. In offline mode, your ark and warehouse upgrades do not work. As you learn more about the game, you become more dependent on research and upgrades to manage your trading empire. Offline might as well mean no-game at all if you want to continue on your main game.

Anno 2070 is the first Anno game for me. It is seriously fun, and I am considering a look at the previous title once Anno 2070 starts getting a bit boring (which wont be for awhile!). If you liked Settlers 7 then you will love Anno 2070. If you like city building games then Anno 2070 will be worth a shot. The game is very trade/economy focused, and you build your city for the needs of your trading and buildings, rather then trying to build a massive city just to build a massive city. That would normally put me off games like this before, but Anno 2070 seems to do make it work extremely well.

A few missions later, cleanliness gets easier

I am still very much into this game, but it does has some faults. The learning curve for the game does take time, and you can become swamped with things to do, sometimes to the point that the game is a bit stressful rather then fun. The DRM is of course backwards and does promote piracy which is a terrible shame. The AI does not play by the same rules as they player, so they will expand and build template towns while being able to trade you a fixed amount of items without actually acquiring them. This can make the AI a non-threat, predictable and boring and is probably the worse aspect of the game. Hopefully Blue Byte will fix this but thankfully the city building is what makes the game fun, not the AI.

I think I will have to come back to the faults once I play the game for another 100 hours or so. You can find me playing this at my stream at www.twitch.tv/kaihonsou. I will be playing this till mid January at least. If you have any questions about the game you can ask me there!

There is much more to this game then I can write in 10 minutes (or rather 16 minutes at this point) but if you are a fan of city building and Settlers 7, you will find many hours in this game. There is so much I have not covered which I would of liked, but your going to have to find out that content yourself!

Still not real pointing system for my reviews this will do…

8/10!

Kai Honsou.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Kai Honsou