User Reviews (1 - 11 of 39)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

This game is SIC!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I dont care what any of you people gotta say about this game. I own a plasma tv, and I got a ps3, so dont tell me what good graphics are. The graphics in this game are sweet, even for this day and age. I loved the fact you could be different alien races and each race had a different power and abilities. I loved them all.

As for you people giving this a one rating,, Ive been playing video games since I was four and Im 26 now, and this is probably one of the games that I remember the most for that time of gaming history. The N64 was sweet too, I own a Wii and I get to play alot of those games still, I just wish that Sega would release some of these classics on for next gen networks cause I would buy all of them.

Trust me, the gameplay is sweet in this game, the only problem is when you play multiplayer and you go opposite directions, then you really cant go anywhere the screen gets stuck, but its easliy dealt with a little communcation. Me and my friends played this game for over a month straight without taking it out of the system, except for the occasional 2k sports and ready 2 rumble. Oh yeah dont forget Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the dreamcast was made for the hardcore gamers who didnt care about being call a nerd, cause you have to admit, gaming back then wasnt considered a cool thing to do. Me and my friends didnt have nothing else to do in a town populated with 5000 people so we played this game on dreamcast.

A massive mistake!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First, don't get me wrong: I love 2D space shooters and RPGs. 'Armada' is a mix of these fine genres, but it's a very poor mix. It fails as a shooter because it has bad controls and poor action; It fails as an RPG because story and characters are never developed.

And here's the most ridiculous thing: this game has no end. That's right: after you beat all missions, you just keep flying on space, fighting the aliens as if nothing had happened. What's the point of beating the game, then?

This may be 'Asteroids' on steroids, but that is not nearly enough to make it actually fun.

Armada - A good game that could have been much better.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 16, 2002
Author: Amazon User

No genre goes back as far as the shooter. The first computer game, the 2 player Space War, was a shooter, with subsequent titles, such as the classic Asteroids, being more complete versions of that original concept. In many ways, Armada could be seen as a successor to those two titles. Indeed, control is handled much the same way, as is the perspective, but Metro3D intended for it to be much more. In essence, Armada could be said to be 2 parts Asteroids & 1 part Populous. If this is the combination Metro3D was going for, they did not entirely succeed.

While everything looks very crisp and clean, nothing ever really looks quite good enough to impress the fact upon you that you're playing a Dreamcast game. There's nothing here that couldn't be done on the Playstation, albeit with a bit of texture warping. That said, the lighting and translucency effects are easy on the eyes, and the textures are clean. Add to that the fact that there are quite a few enemies on-screen at any given time, and you have a game that looks good, even if it doesn't exactly tax the Dreamcast hardware.

Armada has an adequate sound package. The music is quite good, consisting of the usual orchestral science-fiction scores, that stack up quite well. Whether you complete a mission, get your ship upgraded or get defeated in space (at which time you're transported back to Earth) you are awarded with appropriate music, fitting each particular mood, as the soundtrack tries its best to give the game an epic feel. Voice acting is also quite competent, and in most cases sounds better than 90% of the B-Movie dialogue most companies seem to be going for (probably by accident). As far as the usual bells and whistles, there all there too. Explosions, weapons, alien screams, etc. all sound very good, not to mention quite loud. Another invaluable aspect is that allies can and will make themselves known, at which point you can choose whether or not to assist them in their mission (you will be awarded appropriately with a sum of credits). Whenever you manage to get the audio aspects of a game to assist in the actual gameplay, rather than just supply a mood, you know you've done something right. Armada delivers on both counts.

Armada's controls are simple and straightforward. You use the Analog stick to rotate your ship, and the analog triggers for acceleration (energy-draining warp engines, or standard sub-light engines). The D-Pad also is used, but not for out and out control. By pressing down on the D-Pad over an appropriate site (planet, space station, etc.), you will enter other areas for combat, or in the case of Earth, refuel and rearm your Power Pods (smart bombs). Pressing up on the D-Pad while in these sites will of course cause you to blast back out into space. While the system quickly becomes second nature, and is never too cumbersome to drain from the game, the amount of actions is probably a bit too limited (scan/converse, shoot, smart bomb, accelerate) for a game trying to be a "Shooter RPG."

While not a bad game by any means, the promise of a "Shooter RPG" seems to get hopes up a little too high, because when all is said and done, Armada is basically just an overhead, mission-based shooter with a few elements of role- playing, such as conversing with NPC's and levelling-up thrown in for good measure. The multiplayer aspects of the game add some much-needed life into a game that can get extremely repetitive rather quickly, but oftentimes it also can become frustrating when you have players who choose not to cooperate. Another downer is the open-ended gameplay, because as soon as every mission is completed, you basically have nothing more to do, and it seems more like a way to cheat the player out of a proper ending, than a "feature." As a shooter alone, Armada would have been a passable title, but throw the letters "RPG" in there, and you have a game that cannot possibly live up to the hype.

Armada, if a bit of a let down, was and is a good idea in concept, if falls a bit short in execution. Don't get me wrong, Armada is an enjoyable game, especially if you like shooters, but it simply doesn't deliver the role-playing experience Metro3D seemed to promise. Multiplayer is a nice touch, when used properly, but the open-ended game cheats the avid gamer who completes the game, from a more fulfilling experience. Unless Metro3D plans to have additional missions for download into a VMU or the upcoming ZIP Drive, this is a mistake. Rumor has it that Metro3D is already planning to correct the mistakes and provide a more thorough role-playing experience in the sequel. If this is true, perhaps then gamers will get the overall experience they deserved with this game. As it is, Armada is a welcome, if somewhat disappointing addition to the US Dreamcast library.

A really addicitve game.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is great. The graphics and sound are good. Basicly you conytrol a little space ship blowing aliens up and completing missions. The missions are cool but the thing I like nost is just flying around and trying to level up and make tons of cash. When my friends and I get together and play a four player game, it makes the game several times more fun. Don't believe the people that gave this game bad ratings. After reading thier reviews I can obviuosly tell that they didn't even know what they were doing when they played. "There is no RPG elements whatsover," my god people, didn't you realize that you gain XP and levels and can buy items. So don't believe them. Buy this game it is COOL.

Flat and boring...don't waste your time or money

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 6
Date: December 20, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I can't believe that a game this shallow actually made it into production for a system such as Dreamcast.

This game is more representative of the old standup arcade games from the 80's than the virtual absorbing games of today.

An extravagantly long game, Armada has ZERO graphical depth and gets boring very quickly.

Ever heard of a game called Escape Velocity?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: September 06, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Well I must say that from the various Dreamcast review sites I've checked out, this game is probably the ultimate Dreamcast sleeper. At this rediculously cheap price any Dreamcast owner worth his salt should pick this beauty up. However, for those of you who also happen to own a Mac computer, you might be excited to know that Armada bears a striking resemblance to a masterpiece called Escape Velocity by Ambrosia software. This little known game (in the PC world anyway) actually created this addictive style of gameplay, and is shareware to boot! Go to www.ambrosiasw.com to check it out. Regardless though, please don't pass on this game because of it's lack of 3D graphics and seemingly old-style gameplay. It's actually a refreshing game that involves you like no other (with perhaps the exception of Escape Velocity) and will leave with a silly grin on your face as you realize that you picked this up for a mere twenty bucks. ;-)

Entertaining for a while, not much replay value

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: July 25, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Initially, I was very excited by this game. The 2-D action of rotating a ship and using a thrust button to move was familiar from old arcade games; the graphics were kind of cool; there looked to be a huge game world to explore, with hidden artifacts; backstory given from the perspectives of several different races; protecting friendly ships on journeys into deep space; a variety of special weapons to choose from.

However, a number of things about the game quickly deflated my enthusiasm.

* Combat got to be monotonous - you could mix things up a little bit by playing different races, some of which you need to use different strategies for. However, even that gets old quickly.

* As you play, you won't see much new in the way of graphics - new planets that you'll find are less interesting looking than where you started, and about all that you'll see that's new are some different ship designs. After a while, there's absolutely nothing new to see.

* The game world turns out not to be so deep or interesting. You'll get tips that a base or planet exists at certain coordinates, but later on you'll get sent there anyway on a quest. About all there is to the game world is the farther away from the base you go, the harder the enemies get; and on any given planet, you'll find a distinct type of enemy ship.

* The backstory sounds interesting at first, but starts to come down to "there's a blah ship at blah coordinates that seems to be coordinating the Armada activity, go destroy it." You go blow it up, and are then told "that only seems to have made the Armada mad, this blah ship is now threatening blah base, go destroy it." Various plot teaser elements are never followed up on. The actual end of the game is distinctly unsatisfying. The storyline given is that the Armada will now leave humanity alone; however, to keep you playing, you can still go out into space and fight all the same old random enemies. So, is the big threat to humanity over or isn't it?

* There's no variety in the impromptu missions. They all amount to escorting a computer-controlled ship to some coordinates, and blasting stuff along the way. To make matters worse, the destination never makes any sense, it's just some random location. Once arrived, the escorted ship just starts flying around blasting stuff until it gets blown up. Talk about futile! You spend as much time on those missions as on anything, and they make no sense and have nothing to do with the plot.

My experience with the game was initially exciting and intriguing, but quickly turned to monotony; from there, it became "ok, well, I guess I'll try to finish it". The end came fairly quickly, and after that the thought of continuing to play to beef up my ship seemed mind-numbingly boring.

A surprisingly good game despite simple graphics...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User

At first glance, Armada doesn't look like much. On first impression, it looks like your run of the mill space shoot-out, with slightly more complex controls. Give it a chance, however, and you'll find yourself playing it more and more than the 'fancier' games for the Dreamcast.

First off, the universe that Armada takes place in is huge, and changes throughout the course of the game as you complete missions. You discover new worlds, hidden starbases. You go on search-and-destroy missions deep in the heart of space. You bring supplies to exotic starbases.

What elevates this space shooter, however, is not merely the plot elements (which serve to help keep you interested) but the strong multiplayer mode. Additional players can jump in at any moment, either from a saved character on a VMU or as a new character. This team element makes for exciting gameplay in some of the titanic battle scenes that occasionally occur. Up to four players can join in at a time - so far we've only played with two. But having two players definitely magnifies the enjoyment of this game immensely.

In short, this under-rated game, while not as visually spectacular as a lot of other Dreamhouse games, is a powerhouse of replayability, full of surprises and interesting exploration.

Awful!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: April 25, 2000
Author: Amazon User

What an awful excuse for a game! What could possibly haveposessed Sega to put forth a game of such low quality as this one? Theonly good thing was the short FMV intro. After that, everything sucked.

I know Armada was one of the 1st Dreamcast games and as such, would not exactly be perfect. But come on, this game is just ridiculous!

This game was so bad that I could not even tell what the objective/s were. I never knew what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to do it, where I was supposed to go, or why I was to go there. You do little more than fly around areas that have no interesting features and that all look identical, all the while shooting at ridiculously large and difficult waves of enemies which all look nearly the same and seem to just keep coming and never stop.This gets very boring rather quickly. Aside from the high frame rate and the somewhat good graphics, there isn't any aspect of Armada's gameplay that could not be duplicated on any of the old 16 bit systems. Some say this is good, but I don't think so. If Sega wanted to release one of these re-hashed 2D shooters a couple years from now, ok, fine. But since this is one of the games that premiered with the Dreamcasts' lauch, it should have been something new and interesting. If this game would have been 3 dimensional, it would have somewhat increased its interesting qualities ( though the repetitive, virtually identical looking enemies and levels would not help matters any ). But as it is, this game is just terrible. Whatever you do, stay away from this awful excuse for a videogame!

Not an RPG game, not much of a shooter, either.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: April 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

When I bought this game for my Dreamcast, I was craving an RPG. I hoped that Armada would be able to tide me over untill a more traditional role-playing game came out. There is practically no RPG element to this game, however, and the shooter aspect gets boooooring fast. If you want a role-player, buy a role-player, if you want a shooter, buy a shooter. This game is not much of either. ...I'm going to the pawn shop.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 Next 

Actions