On the real-time front, space combat games have fared\u2026well\u2026okay. But not since the now classic Sins of a Solar Empire <\/em>(2008) has a game really had such a massive effect on the entire real-time space genre. SOASE<\/em> was sort of the real-time equivalent to MMO2<\/em> in terms of having that \u201cit\u201d factor, although the exceptional Stellaris<\/em> is a worthy contender to the science fiction RTS throne.<\/p>\n But I have always wondered\u2014why aren\u2019t there any games out there that allow you to take command of the fleets themselves? <\/em>I\u2019d always dreamt of playing out Star Wars-types of battles with other humans, each of us helming individual ships, or even entire task forces. Well, that question has recently been answered\u2014well, sorta.<\/p>\n Although developers Yegar Development\/Six Foot\u2019s space combat title Dreadnought<\/em> has been out since the beginning of the year, I actually tried Edge Case Games\u2019 Fractured Space<\/em> first. That\u2019s probably because Fractured Space<\/em> did have at least a little bit more hullabaloo surrounding its launch, this past September. If I hadn\u2019t done an online search for other capital ship combat games, I would have never learnt of Dreadnought\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n I reviewed Fractured Space<\/em> upon its release, and talked about how it was a pretty decent game, but lacked several things that could have made it much better. Therefore, I had high hopes for Dreadnought<\/em>, especially after watching several gameplay videos that were put out on YouTube by its creators. The videos made the game look so super-strategic and immersive, that I thought\u2014this might finally be the capital ship game I\u2019ve been looking for!<\/em><\/p>\n Well, having played a good number of multiplayer matches in Dreadnought,<\/em> I can tell you that although it does do several things right, like Fractured Space<\/em> it also has some things working against it. First off, Dreadnought <\/em>is a multiplayer-only affair, and there are only two game modes available right now\u2014team deathmatch, where whichever team reaches one hundred points first, wins, and a last-ship-standing mode where whichever team outlasts the other, wins (with only one life apiece per ship).<\/p>\n Since I tend to favor having one life in a game, since that usually forces people to play much more strategically during a match, I couldn\u2019t find a single match available\u2014even with the game\u2019s matchmaking set-up. So, I sauntered into team deathmatch, a mode which I detest, in order to get a sense of the game. I was presented with a choice of few starter ships; a destroyer, which has decent armor, weapons, and speed; a siege vessel, which is a lightly armored sniper ship; and a tactical ship, which can heal other ships. I chose the siege ship, and after a short tutorial explaining the game\u2019s control scheme, dove right into my first few matches.<\/p>\n One of the things that I noticed right away was that each ship had such ponderous movement speed. In other words, compared to Fractured Space,<\/em> where it feels like you\u2019re controlling a bunch of oversized toys, in Dreadnought,<\/em> each ship (besides the speedy corvettes) feels like it has some serious gravitas. You get more of a sense of their grand-scale size as they slowly lurch forward\u2014their smoldering thrusters ejecting particles of energy. They really nailed the speed department.<\/p>\n My initial strategy consisted of hanging back towards the rear of each map and getting a wider view of the battlefield, while pelting targets of opportunity when I spotted them. Well, pelted might not be the right verb. Artillery ships carry massive cannons that can quickly erode an enemy\u2019s hull. So much so, that I managed to destroy quite a few within just a few hits. Then it struck me\u2014ships tend to get destroyed a little too quickly in Dreadnought.<\/em><\/p>\n Indeed, when I\u2019d been under attack, I barely received any warnings before being blown to smithereens. There were no damage alerts that various peripheral systems were faltering, no loud sirens, no on-board fire alerts, nothing\u2014just a large orange fireball. Speaking of which, when these massive capital ships explode, they literally just disappear into clouds of orange flame and you never get to see their gigantic hulls falling apart. They more or less vanish within a couple of seconds. For me, that mitigated any sense of immersion that had been built up.<\/p>\n Dreadnought has five ships types, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. You have the aforementioned destroyer, siege, and tactical ships, and then you also have a speedy and fragile corvette, which can dash in, cause massive damage, and then vanish; and the titular dreadnought, a hulking, slowly moving massive target, bristling with weapons systems. I was disappointed that, as with Fractured Space, there were no carriers. Also, much of the game is pay to win, so I never got to try out one of the dreadnought class ships since I never feed pay to win business models.<\/p>\n Another thing that irked me was that there weren\u2019t any separate factions present within that game\u2019s universe\u2014so each team is comprised of the same exact styles and models of ships. I\u2019d have liked to see at least several different factions being represented, duking it out for faction supremacy, instead of everyone using the same pool of ships.<\/p>\n To its credit, Dreadnought\u2019s<\/em> graphics are exceptional, and suit its far-future science fiction setting to a tee. Not only are the ship\u2019s models themselves super-impressive, but the game\u2019s weapon and ship ability effects are stellar (no pun intended). The only drawback to the game\u2019s beautifully crafted environments is that there are only four or five of them, and each one is tragically small. Luckily, your ship can take cover behind each map\u2019s gorgeous mountains, stardocks, or spaceports, but even then, you feel like you\u2019re in a tiny, boxed-in arena, hardly the epic sense of scale a game like this deserves.<\/p>\n Dreadnought<\/em> is a decent capital ship combat game, however, it has some curious design decisions that will hold it back, should it move forward with them. If the developers make the maps a lot larger, improve the ship damage system, and offer more multiplayer modes, I\u2019d gladly revisit it in the future. But as of right now, I\u2019ll chalk it up as a great looking, temporary distraction, but nothing more. It\u2019s also free, so I can\u2019t complain too much.<\/p>\n SCORE: 70%<\/p>\n Dreadnought <\/em>offers beautiful visuals that suit its science fiction theme. However, you have to have an equally fast gaming PC in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.cyberpowerpc.com\/system\/Christmas_Vector_15_VR<\/a><\/p>\n Visit CyberpowerPC\u2019s website<\/a> to check out all of the other great deals as well!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dreadnought Yegar Development\/Six Foot\/Grey Box Space combat games have had a pretty long and storied past within the digital gaming realm. The first one to gain critical acclaim was the magnificent Master of Orion 2, which hit the gaming world like a hurricane way back in 1996. Although many turn-based space games have strived to… Read More »Dreadnought Review \u2013 Massive Ships, Tiny Arenas<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2732],"tags":[2520,741,2628,2488,67,2486,2607,2556,2627,2629],"class_list":["post-5865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-games","tag-4k-gaming","tag-cyberpower-pc","tag-dreadnought","tag-game-review","tag-gaming-pc","tag-ian-kane","tag-reviews-2","tag-science-fiction-games","tag-space-combat-games","tag-yegar-developmentsix-footgrey-box"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5865"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5875,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5865\/revisions\/5875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberpowergaming.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"dr1\"](\"http:\/\/www.cpgaming.gg\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/dr1-915x514.jpg\")
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