Ascendancy was regarded as one of the best strategy / simulation games of the mid 90′s and won several awards for the game’s excellence. Now in 2011, Ascendancy is back and better than ever with an updated interface, smarter AI and new features that are bound to get any fan of the genre or the game excited. We here at New Gamer Nation generally don’t review iOS games but being a fan and knowing how good of a game this is, I thought I would share my experiences.
Ascendancy is a space strategy game where you have the choice of 21 different species to command and lead to space superiority. Each species has its own personality, style and special ability which range from faster technology development, faster space travel or the ability to get your way out of hostile diplomatic situations. Each species feels much different from one another and you will really have to play around with the game to see which species fits your play style the best. Soon after you choose your species you are brought to your home planet where you must develop your infrastructure and start your research. Within a few minutes you’ll be creating colonies, researching new and powerful technology and building ships to expand your empire. At this point the game opens up to your specific play style and you are able to customize your experience. Whether you are the gentile diplomat looking to create a galaxy wide alliance or you are the ruthless dictator seeking to destroy all other forms of life, Ascendancy allows you the freedom to play any way you wish.
What makes Ascendancy really unique and different from other strategy games is the level of customization of your colonies and your ships. The tech tree in the game is very detailed and this level of detail gives you the opportunity to create a ship or colony with a very specific purpose. You can have a colony that is built of nothing but labs which will contribute greatly to your research ability, or have a colony that is completely industrialized and would create capital ships in just a few days. You can create a ship that is built to invade other species or have a ship that will block other ships from entering your colonies starsystem. The amount of depth this game has is great and you can spend hours playing with all the tech available in the game.
All that was well and good but how much of what was mentioned applies to the new version of Ascendancy? Well there are a number of added features to the latest release that make a great game, even better. Ascendancy now has a new interface that is optimized for the iOS touch interface. You will still recognize all the functions but now you’ll be able to control these functions without a mouse. I particularly liked having the ability to manipulate the star map with my fingers. Rotating and panning the map felt great and was a vast improvement over the original version. Other improvements include an auto-manage feature which corrects one of the biggest problems with the first game. Often when you created a colony or invaded a sparsely developed alien colony you would have to manage each improvement as it was built. Over the course of improving an entire planet, you could have to personally oversee the construction of 60 or so improvements one at a time for one planet. If you had ten planets at developing at once this process became extremely tedious. Though micromanagement is fun for some, having the ability to automate the process helps immensely and that is exactly what this version delivers. Now you can focus on the aspect of the game that you like the most. Lastly, the one problem that most people encountered was the artificial intelligence. When the game was originally released in 1995, many complained about how easy the game was. A patch was released to tweak the difficulty and make the AI smarter and more competitive but since the internet wasn’t where it is today, many people missed out on the addition. In this version that AI patch is integrated in the game and you get a better, more complete package right from the download.
Overall, Ascendancy is an excellent game and definitely worth the price of the download. I would have liked to see some of the graphics updated to compliment the new interface but it doesn’t hurt the quality of the game. Ascendancy has given me hours of fun and I know it will do the same for you. I highly recommend this game to any gamer out there willing to spend a little time to learn it, your reward for doing so is playing one of the best space strategy games around.
TMA - Looking at the power of modern mobile devices, it’s no wonder then that more and more of them are the target of developers, looking to get more life out of their classic titles.
TouchGen - Space is huge, it is actually impossible for us to grasp it’s size. Even playing Ascendancy on the most dense planetary setting come nowhere near the real thing. But once you get into the world your race populates the world will feel huge. A world where the meek inherits nothing but death. Strength is measured by space dominance, population and technological advances.
