Destiny
by Al Giovetti
Price: $50
Genre: real time strategy game
Release: Q3 1996
Developer: Dagger Interactive
Programmer:
Music: Donald Griffin
Art:
Designer: Adrian Earle
Producer:
Interview: Destiny Interview with Interactive Magic's Lynne Beaman
Publisher: Interactive Magic
Phone: 800-789-1534
Website: http://www.imagicgames.com
Requirements: 486 DX2, 66 MHz, 8 MB RAM, mouse

Company line: Hailed as "Civilization on Steroids" by PC Multimedia and Entertainment Magazine, Destiny is an extremely detailed strategy game that allows players to multi-task as they build their civilization from the ground up. Unlike previous "god" games where players were only able to "build" and "invent" one item at a time, Destiny allows players to devote resources to multiple activities in a realtime environment.

History: Once upon a time two guys came together over an arcade game and decided to form a game company. One of the guys was Wild Bill Stealey, a US Air Force Pilot. The other guy was Sid Meier. Neither man knew they were destined to become legends in the gaming industry, they just wanted to sell copies of a game. Now Bill owns Interactive Magic and Sid Firaxis, and the company they formed back in the distant past is know owned by an English Company which used to be called Spectrum Holobyte. It is rather interesting that Bill's new company is producing a Civilization clone, which was one of the Microprose products that mad Bill and Sid famous.

Plot: Destiny is a city building and competing game similar to Civilization and from Sid Meier's ex-partner Bill Stealey.

Game play: There is a lot of clicking and building of cities that become more and more technologically powerful with time. You could branch out and conquer your neighbors but colonizing or conquering has its cost in that it automatically lowers your technology level and capacity to wage more battles.

The game takes a long time to play since the lack of roads and the lowering of tech levels with conquest or colonization makes you slow down and smell the roses. There are over 200 troop types, an elaborate combat system, 235 types of developmental breakthroughs in the five areas of Science, Agriculture, Military, Culture and Industry. The game can be played in turn based or real time modes.

Interface: Simple point and click interface. The mouse intensive interface becomes more and more cumbersome as the cities get larger and larger. The lack of automatic features for micro management is a bad deficiency in the game.

Graphics: Three dimensional polygon graphics were produced on Silicon Graphics. The graphics are exceedingly simple and flat with very little detail even at the 640 x 480 pixel resolution with 256-colors for which the game was designed.

Animation: There is virtually no animation. Objects move in the world like wooden toys sliding over the tile surface of your kitchen floor.

Compare to: Civilization and PowerMonger

Voice actors: huh?

Music score: Good music score composed by Donald Griffon. The CD will play music except for the game track, which is number one on the CD.

Sound effects: Pretty standard stuff from a stock sound effects library.

Utilities: The game comes with an encyclopedia, an online manual and a small tutorial. The game needs context sensitive help, a walkthrough and a larger manual to help out with the learning curve.

Multi-player: Head-to-head phone modem and network play for two human players. "Destiny is a great title and strategy gamers have anticipated its release for some time," added Stealey. "We are very committed to Destiny and plan to release an online version early next year."

Future: iMagic will continue to bring out games similar to the Microprose games that made Bill and Sid famous.

Bugs and patches: A message from Gina Waluk, Director of Marketing, Interactive Magic: "This week, we sent the first copies of Destiny to CompUSA stores across the country. We quickly learned from our customers that the game does not run on some computers."

"If you are experiencing problems you can download a patch on out website (http://www.imagicgames.com/techsupp.html). If for whatever reason you cannot download the patch, we will quickly mail you a copy."

"We have been working on Destiny for more than a year and a half and are very committed to this game. We plan to do everything we can to take care of our customers."

References:
Jeff James, Computer Player, volume 3, number 4, September, 1996, pg. 43.
Bernard Dy, Computer Player, volume 3, number 6, January, 1997, pg. 76, 50%.
Screens Barry Brenesal, PC Games, volume 3, number 12, December, 1996, pg. 160, 85%.