Perimeter: Emperor’s Testament review

A couple of years back, K-D Lab released a strategy game that went largely unnoticed by much of the RTS community. Perhaps through a lack of PR or maybe because it didn’t boast one of the big franchise names, Perimeter pretty much failed to blaze a trail. Which was a shame, because for those who played it, it introduced more than a shard of innovation into one of the most glacial genres of PC gaming.

Fast forward two years later, and the first expansion pack for the game has just arrived. So what's new? Well, the first hurrah goes to the fact that the add-on is standalone, so you don’t need a copy of the original game to play. Then there’s the promise of new graphics to gawk at, fresh unit types to transmute and hitherto unseen buildings to build.

Back to Basics

Far from being a one-trick pony, Perimeter laid claim to a handful of gameplay mechanics that were innovative, or at the very least, unusual. Arguably its biggest draw was the ability to terraform terrain, and this aspect makes a return in all its glory in ET. The way it works is simplicity itself; you click on one of your Brigadier units, then select an area of land you want to terraform, and the little blighter sends out a load of tiny drones to flatten the chosen area.

The reason for terraforming land, naturally enough, is so that you can build a base. In ET, however, bases aren’t just a means by which you amass armies; they are also central to winning missions, as capturing and holding specific structures is a key aspect to many scenarios. Additionally, since there are no resources to harvest, the only way you can power your constantly expanding base is via energy pylons, which can only be built on terraformed terrain.

Another unusual element that makes a return is the transmutation aspect. Remember that little Plasticine fella off Take Hart who could turn himself into an assortment of shapes of comedic value? Well the basic unit types in ET (of which there are three: solder, technician and officer) work a bit like that, transforming themselves, at your behest, into little silvery balls and then into something a bit more lethal, such as tanks or airborne attack vehicles.

Ratio Harmony

Before you can make one of these more lethal craft, however, you need to have the correct ratio of basic units to transform. One soldier, twelve officers and seven technicians, for example, are needed before you can make a Leamo tank, and this process is complicated a little further by the need to construct certain building types before you can get access to the more advanced combat units.

As far as actual combat is concerned, the game adheres to the standard rock-paper-scissors convention, only with added dynamism, as you can transform your units to counter anything the enemy throws at you. Being attacked from the air by a load of futuristic gunships? No problem, just transform your charges into something with an AA capability and watch the enemy crash and burn. The flipside is, of course, that the enemy is as adaptive as you are, so you need to stay on top of each and every combat situation.

Blancmange

The plot of Emperor’s Testament remains as devilishly convoluted as that of the original, but the basics are as follows; you play the part of a ‘can do’ lackey to the Emperor, boss of the Sponge Empire. Not content with the size of his Sponge Empire, the Emperor erects more Vice Frames, a sort of pan-galactic Viagra, and creates the Mechanical Spirit to help find new Worlds. But one Vice Frame stumbles upon the Mechanical Messiah and a parallel Chain of the Psycho-sphere Worlds. Confused? Just wait until you’ve sat through a few of the mission cutscenes.

Apart from the labyrinthine, capitalized narrative, however, the dynamics of the campaign are fairly simply. There are three opposing humanoid factions carried over from the first game, with a new alien race thrown into the mix for good measure. Your goal, should you choose to accept it, is to expand the titular Emperor’s domain at the expense of the other factions. Additionally, you get to face the Scourge, an unceasingly attack minded race of insects, dragons and feathery critters that will assail you inexorably.

Bloody Hard

There’s no two ways about it, if you try cutting your teeth on the Perimeter franchise with this expansion you’ll come away looking like Shane McGowan. Emperor’s Testament is that difficult; there’s no grace period at the beginning of each mission, and the complete absence of a tutorial of any sort indicates that KD Lab intends the game to be played by those who have already earned their stripes. For sure, there are a few missions that are quite straightforward and that you can breeze through on your first attempt, but there’s no apparent continuity to the mission difficulty curve.

Graphically, ET is a bit like the uninformed bloke who turns up at a fancy dress party wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a kebab stain down the front. That’s to say, not very impressive, especially when considered next to its better looking contemporaries. There’s very little difference between ET’s visuals and those of its two year old forebear, which were admittedly good at the time. But time, like the sea, is a fickle mistress, and she’s more likely to toss you aside if your amorphous silvery blobs look only vaguely more defined than your airborne attack craft.

But in the end, it’s a little ironic that Emperor’s Testament doesn’t really bring anything new to the RTS table considering the advances that the original game made.

The add-on sticks strictly to the classic sense of what an expansion pack should encompass; same flavour, just a bit more meat to chew on. Still, with that first release having had such a limited audience, there’s no doubt that what is on offer here will seem fresh and innovative to some of those who pick up what is a decent and lengthy expansion.