Total Domination is a unique, fast-paced and gritty real-time strategy (RTS) MMO developed by (relative) publishing newcomer Plarium. If you’re a fan of visceral, realistic and dark MMO’s — as well as at least a little bit of a fan of RTS-style games — then you’d be doing yourself a great favor by giving Total Domination a further look.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves — first up, the basics — let’s cue em!
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Publisher: Plarium
Number of players: Above average
Type of MMO: MMORTS
EXP Rate: Moderate
PvP: Yes
Filesize: N/A
Worth Your Time: If you like RTS games? Absolutely!
Pros: Mission based strategy and storyline; unique RTS take on MMO’s; dark, gritty semi-futuristic universe and atmosphere; good voice acting work.
Cons: Relatively generic gameplay; still relatively new, so not a ton of players yet; some mission types can get a bit repetitive.
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>> GAMEPLAY
The premise of Total Domination is simple: you’re placed in control of your own colony, of which you’re to fully develop, oversee, discover new technology’s for and, ultimately, wage war for ultimate superiority. After all, for every world, there must be a supreme ruler — one who exhibits total domination in their own image.
With your planet lying in shambles around you, only you can properly and efficiently restore both industry and civilization. Developing your colony goes hand in hand (at least in terms of importance) with also instilling absolute loyalty amongst your followers. Discovering lost knowledge and researching new technologies is also incredibly vital, as is the need to control the weapons that will be used primarily in the future.
You’ll lead the world’s greatest army (or at least try to), protect your people, and — of course — wage a total and ultimate war for sole domination and superiority over all you survey.
Sound fun?
Good, because it is. It’s a lot of fun.
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>> GRAPHICS
As a browser-based MMO, Total Domination certainly doesn’t have cutting edge graphics. And as a real-time strategy MMO, most of the graphics are from a relatively distant, top-down view. Even so, what details and atmosphere there are, Plarium has managed to display most efficiently, and the overall tone and mood of the game (see: dark, very dark) is portrayed extremely well both with the visuals, character models and sounds.
All in all, if you’re looking for a high-powered graphical MMO, then you’d do well to look elsewhere. Hopefully you aren’t looking for a high-powered graphical MMORTS, though, because the odds are you’ll probably never find one.
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>> THE BOTTOM LINE
When it comes to making one of the first in-depth massively multiplayer real-time strategy games, Plarium certainly hasn’t presented an absolute, glowingly perfect option. However, what they have managed to provide is certainly worth a look if you’re at all interested in RTS games as well as their take on the genre as it can and should operate in the MMO world.
Even if you’re not too big an RTS fan, Total Domination is still worth a look — the entire MMO take on the RTS strategy game, as well as the fact that you’re essentially put in the role of a god-like figure, should be more than enough to spark most people’s interests. And keep them entertained for some time.
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FINAL SCORE: 7.0 out of 10 stars
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