Relativity Wars

[TouchArcade Bot]

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[strivemind]

Found a trailer, and I believe the XBOX version was just called "Relativity".


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[Exact-Psience]

Note: A network connection is required to play

Skipped.

[Baracus]

This does sound pretty cool in those Xbox reviews tho.
I'm too busy to get into something like this right now anyway, but may give in to temptation this evening! If I do, I will report back my findings!

[syntheticvoid]

Hmmm... Any impressions?

[Filing Cabinet]

Originally Posted by Exact-Psience

Skipped.

Yeah why is a network connection always needed?

[syntheticvoid]

That's the only thing that's holding me back - the network connection requirement... though I've got an iPhone - it's not that big of a deal, but I like to play RTS games on my iPad, so I wouldn't be able to play it in the car...

But it's on sale for a buck right now, and here's a review of the XBOX version...

Relativity is a new game by UK based Indie developer, PurpleGames, which has recently appeared in the Xbox Live Indie spotlight. It's a game that puts science first, as many of its principles are based on Einstein's theory of relativity - hence the name. It's also a game that lets players battle it out on the galactic front against an alien race, all while exploring the space/time continuum.

Taking up the effective role of the Toodians' leader, players start off by enabling them to expand their horizons and take their first steps at space exploration. However, when they start to branch out a little further, they encounter a formidable foe in the form of the Squishians. They adapt quickly and don't like to play fair, all this does though is allow the Toodians to flex their muscles and show the universe what they're capable of.

The game's real-time strategy component is pretty basic. Players can take over planets in the galaxy, and on each planet a set number of buildings can be made. Build time depends on the happiness of the planet's population, as well as the size of the population. It's also possible to invent things as well though, although this is completely independent from the buildings. Inventions are based around improving the quality of ships, defences and improving life expectancy. Terraforming is also something which can be researched, and this allows for more planets to be taken over. Each invention has three levels of improvement, and the next level is unlocked upon researching the one before.

Where the game starts to get more interesting though, is with the combat. Everything is displayed in a 2D plane, but gravity is represented in 3D plane. It means that an entity like a sun, is nestled deep into the game's landscape in order to represent its gravitational pull. While it is possible to manually fly ships and fire their lasers with the right analog stick, the game is far more interesting when using space/time weaponry. Space/time waves send shockwave across the galaxy in a specified direction, affecting the gravitational pull objects are influenced by. If a planet gets caught on the crest of a wave, it can simply fly out of a sun's orbit, or it can be pushed closer into its orbit causing it to spiral into the sun.

Space/time bombs are similar, except they are user controlled, like a ship. They detonate when their time expires, creating a circular impact wave from where it ended up. Placing this next to a planet can cause serious damage to both the inhabitants and its future within the galaxy. Naturally, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt, and so countermeasures are also available. They help to dampen the effects that waves cause. It's some seriously advanced warfare and really makes for some interesting exchanges. Sure, it's possible to take over a planet by invading it, but why do that when it can simply be obliterated?

It really serves to highlight both the physics and graphics on display. Watching a wave ripple across the screen is great, and watching how planets/ships react to it looks great too. Watching waves collide is even more impressive. However, the overall presentation is fairly standard. Ships are bland and the planets are just circles with some very basic textures slapped on top. It's a shame that the graphics couldn't compliment the smooth representation of the physics that are present within the game. The voices during a level can get a bit tedious too - hearing that something has been built over and over again could have been done with a simple text pop-up.

The game actually has quite a lot of length. There are ten levels to play through, some of which can actually be quite time consuming. There is a slightly annoying aspect to this though, as players must save in-level if they wish to continue through the campaign. There's no option to continue from where they left off without doing this. After reaching a certain place in the campaign they can play older levels, but this doesn't help with progression, only to reminisce. To cap the experience off, there's also a skirmish mode, which players can tailor to their liking.

^^ from gaminggunion.net


--Looking at the devs previous games in the Appstore, there's 2 that have gotten 1 update since release, while the others have not gotten a single one...

Worried that the network requirement won't be removed or changed...

But - if it ever is, that's when I'll take the plunge...

Hate when developers just dump a game into the AppStore and never update it... =o/

[Youtopia]

Just bought it.
Internet is necessary 'cos there's IAPs [the in game currency.] Still don't know how necessary are them...

[Youtopia]

Ok, this is my first [little] review - please, forgive my poor english-:

This is a typical RTS game, set in the space. I've just played the tutorial and 2 stages, and you have to do the same you do in this games: colonize planets and fight aliens.

You start with one planet and 3 ships [without weapons.] Clicking on the planet a menu's shown, it has 4 parts:

- Ships: here is a list with the ships within the planets and they
- Available Builds: Here is where you have the stuff you can "evol" to [ships with weapons, technology for colonize more planets...]
- Weapons: lists the weapons your planet owns, like A-bombs [what kill planets and modifys all the solar system.]
- Available Builds: Stuff you can build, as ships, defence lasers, stadiums, factory [speeds up the production.]

You have to "evolve" your tech so you can build ships with weapons. Also, you need to evolve to be capable of colonize some planets [at the beggining you may be able to live in one, but if you can modify the terrain you'll be able to live in more planets.]

You can also build defense lasers for your planets and sport stadiums to make your population happy, so they work faster. And you want them to work faster 'cos it takes like loads of time to build anything, in a range between 6:30 minutes D_: to 56 secs... Also, the in-game currency is for speed this up.

Next, the ships: when you build them, you build them in a generic way, so there's no "bombers/fights/mothership" category. If you have the tech. to build them with lasers, they'll have, if not, not.

When you want to colonize an empty planet, you can both drive one of your ships by yourself or use an autopilot from the planet menu that will send it to the selected planet.

If you want to conquer an enemy's planet, you can do it piloting one, but it will die, so you have to use autopilot, sending all the ships within the planet. You can't select various ships while they are flying. Also, you can't create a rally point for your new-build ships.

Also, in the Ships menu you can choose, under the Autopilot button, to put all the ships to patrol the galaxy where you are.

There are various galaxies. And he beautiful thing is that they are always in movement, like the teach us on school, yep.

So far, I'm enjoying it, even being so slow to build stuff.

Hope this helps and once agains, sorry for my lack of english :_(

[drloony]

This game looks really interesting, I would usually jump at console port, but it looks to me like they fudged this one up with the game currency and IAP, I bet the console version didn't have that.