Action - Allegiance

Allegiance

Whoah-ha. Every time I think of this game I have to make up some sort of new exclamation sound. Last year, FreeSpace 2 had the space-combat-game slot here due not only to the fact that it started with the earliest letter in the alphabet, but also because it brought singleplayer space shooters to perfection. The level of refinement present therein was unprecedented, as was the good multiplayer support. This year, we're going in a completely different direction with Allegiance.

Ship Selection

Ship Selection

Totally Weird

By far the most innovative game out this year, perhaps the past 5 years, Allegiance took real-time strategy, space combat and semi-massively-multiplayer and brought them all together. You can play either two ways - by paying a monthly subscription for Microsoft's Zone - with special perks including massive servers and special events. Or you can play the free game on public, Quake-style servers hosted by Allegiance owners.

Either way, you're in for one heck of a ride. There is a steep learning curve, but fortunately you do not have to learn it all at once. With a friendly interface and intuitive gameplay, Allegiance makes starting out easy - all you have to do is fly, recon and shoot enemy ships down. As you gain experience, you can start fiddling around with the commander's view or even try your hand at being a commander. The excellent tutorials go a long way to making this complex game easily accessible to nearly any gamer.

Turn turn!	Holy mother of...
Doh!	This is going to be a long trip home
Sigh	I just had to join the side that was losing

Tell Me More

Of course, the charm is in playing against other people who are not as predictable as a computer AI. They don't follow the same strategies, they don't make the same flying mistakes and they are just as underhanded and devious as you are. They are skilled, competitive and often friendly - Allegiance lends itself very well to clans and dedicated teams.

So why isn't it the talk of the town? Why aren't people mentioning Allegiance right there along with Asheron's Call, Quake and StarCraft? Unfortunately, for many the same innovation that they often demand, is often too much innovation. Allegiance, despite being an excellent game, seems to scare of people with how different it is. Trust us on this one - the difference works to the game's advantage.

Allegiance: 93%, Editor's Choice.