Microsoft Allegiance

Major game companies seem to play it safe these days. It's not that there aren't some terribly clever games being released, but most of the games that come from major publishers seem to be iterative. There are cool ideas, sure, but they're always buried in something that's safe. A decade or two ago, though, publishers seemed to be willing to take more risks. They made games that smashed together genres in the weirdest ways but still ended up making sense for players. One great example of this kind of genre mash-up is Micrsoft's Allegiance, a combination of space piloting sim and real time strategy.

If you want to look at Allegiance on a purely surface level, you should probably pull out the comparisons to Freespace or Starlancer. It's a piloting game, yes, but it's also a tactical game. Think of a space sim mixed with a 2000-era RTS and you'll get the basic idea of the game. At its heart, it's really just a very smart space piloting simulation, one that tasks pilots with thinking beyond their own cockpit. It's a cool concept and definitely one that hasn't gotten enough play in the almost two decades since Allegiance was released.

Allegiance is at its strongest when it is being unique. As a mix of RTS and space sim, it stands out from the crowd. While there were a few games like this when it was released, there's virtually nothing out there that comes close today. The RTS elements are a little dated but they're fun, while the flight is awesome when it's not stunted by the controls. You can tell that everyone involved with the game was absolutely committed to making something that would last, which would seem to be a successful venture seventeen years after release.

What's bad about Allegiance? Well, it's definitely showing its age. If you're a player who needs 4K resolution and sixty frames per second to enjoy a game, you definitely need to skip this one. While it was never meant to be a graphical powerhouse, it's looking even shabbier than one would hope at this point. Likewise, the controls seem to be incredibly dated for a game of this genre. They're not terrible, but they also aren't great. Given the precision most expect from the genre, this is a grip that can turn off a number of gamers. It almost seems like this game is stuck in time.

The verdict on Allegiance is definitely mixed. On one hand, it was a great game when it was released and still serves a stellar example of what you can do with good development. On the other hand, it is showing its age in all the worst ways. Is it worth playing? Definitely. It's just probably not going to be the game you want, nor is it going to be the game you remember. Unless you can look past the old-school design, you're going to have to accept that this game is a true blast from the past.