Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 2:40 am
Hey all,
It's been a real long time since I even looked at Allegiance.
Back around '99/2000 I came across Allegiance in a gaming magazine and thought the concept sounded positively fantastic. I'd played a ton of the original Age of Empires on the old Gaming Zone [oh ya!] during high school and was just starting to find the original Counter-Strike interesting, so a blending of the two genres was highly appealing to me. In fact, the entire reason I later beta-tested Savage was because Allegiance was dead at the time and I wanted the same gameplay!
My brother and I adored Allegiance mostly because of the immersion. The gameplay was nearly perfect, simply because it was so easy to understand yet clearly would take time to master. You could just get sucked in for hours and totally forget you were playing a game because it got so intense the there was always something to do. Neither of us ever got particularly good or well-known =P
What got us really into it was all the auditory feedback and the way the sound effects really brought you into the fight. The sounds of bullets and fighters Dopplering overhead, all the hyperactive voice chats, and every single ambient noise just made the game feel so much better than all the games of the time. We loved the game before it died.
Several years later while going to school for game development, I heard through a classmate that the Allegiance source code was being released, and it got me talking about the game like crazy to my friends at the time. I don't remember how long after that I heard about FreeAllegiance, but I was stoked you all took the game into your own hands so it didn't have to remain dead.
Anyway!
I've been thinking rather heavily about playing it some -- very casually -- because I've gotten a little nostalgic recently. My biggest concern is the controls! How do you guys play the game now? Have you made changes so a mouse and keyboard now work well? Back in the day that seemed like a horrible way to play when we tried it, so we bought a SideWinder Force Feedback Pro. Man, that thing really brought the game even more to life!
So does everyone just use the mouse and keyboard now, or do people prefer joysticks, or what?
It's been a real long time since I even looked at Allegiance.
Back around '99/2000 I came across Allegiance in a gaming magazine and thought the concept sounded positively fantastic. I'd played a ton of the original Age of Empires on the old Gaming Zone [oh ya!] during high school and was just starting to find the original Counter-Strike interesting, so a blending of the two genres was highly appealing to me. In fact, the entire reason I later beta-tested Savage was because Allegiance was dead at the time and I wanted the same gameplay!
My brother and I adored Allegiance mostly because of the immersion. The gameplay was nearly perfect, simply because it was so easy to understand yet clearly would take time to master. You could just get sucked in for hours and totally forget you were playing a game because it got so intense the there was always something to do. Neither of us ever got particularly good or well-known =P
What got us really into it was all the auditory feedback and the way the sound effects really brought you into the fight. The sounds of bullets and fighters Dopplering overhead, all the hyperactive voice chats, and every single ambient noise just made the game feel so much better than all the games of the time. We loved the game before it died.
Several years later while going to school for game development, I heard through a classmate that the Allegiance source code was being released, and it got me talking about the game like crazy to my friends at the time. I don't remember how long after that I heard about FreeAllegiance, but I was stoked you all took the game into your own hands so it didn't have to remain dead.
Anyway!
I've been thinking rather heavily about playing it some -- very casually -- because I've gotten a little nostalgic recently. My biggest concern is the controls! How do you guys play the game now? Have you made changes so a mouse and keyboard now work well? Back in the day that seemed like a horrible way to play when we tried it, so we bought a SideWinder Force Feedback Pro. Man, that thing really brought the game even more to life!
So does everyone just use the mouse and keyboard now, or do people prefer joysticks, or what?
