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Gnomish Mustard
United States
Texas
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Anno 2070 is the latest installment in the Anno / Dawn of Discovery series by Blue Byte Studios. The series features a complex economic environment, with multiple layers of strategy, along with a slim down combat portion of ship to ship combat. This installment marks the first time the series has been based in the future and not part of a historical backdrop.
First let me say that if you have played any of the previous games, you are looking at a very similar framework as the previous games. The pacing, objectives, graphics, and more will look and feel very familiar. That being said, this shouldn't sway you to not pick this game up. This is by far the most robust in the entire series and well worth picking up.
Graphics
Graphically the game is gorgeous, with excellent animations of your inhabitants and all their various jobs, and environmental effects such as rivers and oceans. Even the reddish / orange haze from pollution appears if you chose to use items that pollute the environment.
Do yourself a favor and take time to zoom in for a closer look at your inhabitants. Anything from their jobs to their home life can be very enjoyable to watch and visually appealing to the eyes.
Interface:
The interface is easy to use, from the opening menu to the game menu. One of the most interesting aspects of this game is how it plays. Players are free to have multiple games going at once, work on multiplayer games, create sandbox continuous games with a ton of options, continue with the single player game, or work on several one and done missions.
In short there is something for every play style and preference.
Features:
Dynamic World and Events
One of the first things I noticed about the game is how dynamic the world is that the game takes place in. There is a new mission every day, which normally is a task of delivering some goods that gives you experience towards improving your ark, which I will talk about below. There are elections for the council president, which determine certain in game bonuses available to you depending on who wins. The elections are from all the votes of all the players of the game and effect everyone, not just one person.
Along the dynamic lines recently a "world event" happened where a pirate decided to escalate his attacks. Players were tasked with saving the day. I had the flexibility to do one of those missions, and then go back to a continuous game that I was really enjoying. The world event missions were free, kind of like a miniature expansion pack.
The Ark
Now let's talk about one of the more interesting aspects of the game, the Ark.
The ark is you centralized base of operations. It has room to store goods, place orders for weapons, goods, or tools, and is upgradable. One of the really unique items related to the ark is that it is constant throughout all game modes.
What this means is the items you have built up and saved from say a continuous game, are available to you in a single player campaign game, and vice versa. The ark can be customized to include bonuses such as less energy consumption, more effective buildings, faster and deadlier ships, and much more.
Bonuses can be obtained through a variety of means throughout all game modes. Upgrades to the Ark are usually obtained from reaching certain levels with the three main factions in the game. Making the techies happy could net you another upgrade slot, a different looking ark, or more storage capacity. These upgrades are clearly defined in the game so you know exactly what to work towards.
Gameplay:
Anno 2070 is complex, but builds on itself in such a way that you aren't overwhelmed. Just as a quick overview there is a class system in place that generally drives the game. At first the workers only have 4 basic needs, which vary depending on what faction you are playing.
For example, the ECCO worker group needs fish, tea, a place for culture, and a city center for everyone to gather. Once these options are met they "move on up" like George Jefferson and have more sophisticated needs. Continuing with the example, the next class needs commutators, health food, broadcasting station, etc in order to advance to the next class level.
As incentive to go to these higher classes one receives more credits from these individuals as well as increased selection of buildings. Initially the ECCOs have simple wind turbines as their only form of electricity, but higher classes provide more efficient buildings along with their sophisticated needs.
Anno 2070 also brings us underwater for the first time. Tapping resources at underwater plateaus is occasionally expensive but sometimes is really the only way to meet the needs of your population. I found this portion of the game to be very interesting as only certain vehicles could discover these locations as well as they do not generate any income as no one can live there.
Sound
The soundtrack is standard and not great, but doesn't detract from the game either. Dialogue is pretty standard and not out of this world, but not too cheesy. Sound is probably the one area that I wasn't overly impressed with.
Rankings
GamePlay 
Graphics
Sound  
Value
Overall
Anno 2070 is a great game to play and will provide hundreds of hours of gameplay. It is a good fit for both veterans of the series and newcomers alike. It's mix of game modes, dynamic events, and consistent ARK use makes it extremely enjoyable and highly addicting.
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Time for a new computer me thinks. Loved Dawn of Discovery. Should really really play this.
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