Microsoft Allegiance

Microsoft Allegiance is a game I got into late, sometime in 2007. I played it hard, long, and eventually well for years. It's an extremely difficult game to pick up, you'll need to adjust your resolution to 19020x1080 because it defaults to 800x600 (you need to set it in the lobby AND in the game.) You'll need to dedicate some time to setting your keybinds. You'll need to do the tutorials and spend your first two or three games absolutely clueless as to what's happening. Once you do all that, you're going to experience the best game you've never heard of. It's a classic space fighter combined with RTS, much like Natural Selection 2 combines a simple FPS and RTS elements. Allegiance, however, has depth for miles. There are more factions, more tech trees, capital ships with multiple pilots, bases can only be destroyed by escorted special anti-base weaponry, specialized faction specific ships, a deep economy that varies between factions, and more. This is a game worth playing and exploring, if you have the time and the will to overcome the initial lack of user friendly interface.

[h1]SUMMARY: [/h1] Back in the days when Microsoft Game Studios was a real and active presence that gave us games like this, Mechwarrior 3, Outwars, and Crimson Skies, Allegiance was one of the first multiplayer oriented space sims to come out. Designed to work with the now defunct Zone multiplayer service (God, I'm old. Hey, remember MPlayer? or Kali? Or Gamespy?), this game offers an RTS/FPS mixup like no other. Think less Natural Selection and more like X-wing versus Tie Fighter, but each side has evolving tech trees. Strongly recommended! [h1]IN-DEPTH:[/h1] The two main methods of play are as a combat pilot, or as the commander of the team. [h2]AS A PILOT:[/h2] Your job is to be one of the grunts you order around with Right Click in an RTS. The commander is supposedly in charge, but, uh... if you've been on the internet for any amount of time you know how the general public reacts to any kind of authority giving orders. The team's success now rests in your collective sweaty, possibly anti-social hands. God help us all. This is a space combat game, taking place on a large map with several smaller zones connected by gates. There are semi-newtonian physics involved during normal flight. There are max speeds, but WASD lets you use lateral thrust, and afterburner slides are a recommended tactic. Your piloting goals are to kill enemies (or just force them to eject, which is really inconvenient) and keep the team's economy going long enough to get stuff to kill bases with. To win, destroy all the enemy bases. Harder than it sounds. You can fly defense as an interceptor, or deploy proximity mines to ward off assaults, but winning requires that you take the offensive in bombers or escorting capships. Similar to C&C Renegade, another FPS/RTS, there are AI miners who try and mine resources for money. If you manage to keep them from being annihilated, they eventually return home and give everyone a cash payday. If they take too much damage, they get cold feet and run for home with empty cargo bays, so keep a close watch! In true classic RTS form, there are powerups and cash drops, so your awareness and pilot skills do make a difference, even in the economy! Even if you think you suck, you can still contribute just by spotting enemies and harassing miners. [h2]AS A COMMANDER:[/h2] Congratulations! As the only person with some semblance of authority, you are now the first person to be blamed for everything. Assuming you haven't been scared off, being a commander is not really so difficult. Your job is to be the omnipotent RTS commander, with the caveat that you can only order Miners, Constructors, and automated non-player objects. You may not be able to control a player directly, but you can give them orders, make suggestions, call out sectors, and are directly commanding how the game goes for your team. You tell the miners where to go to mine Helium 3 (Money) and other special resources to build new bases. You also control what to build, where and when. To win, you need to expand into other sectors and get down your tech tree as fast as possible in order to take down enemy bases. You can build several different types of bases, which sometimes requires special asteroids. This means that you are always feeling some kind of pressure to expand and attack certain sectors - money alone won't win it for you! You automatically get money when the miners return home from harvesting. The tech tree is quite involved and actually varies depending on the faction you're in. Iron Coalition has better fighters, BIOS have faster scouts and stealth, just to give a couple examples. You're not chained to the command console, and can always go and lead the charge. You can access the command console mid-flight, but be warned you will make a highly tempting target for any combat pilots. [h2]IN CONCLUSION:[/h2] A fine space action game desperately in need of an official sequel, featuring involved RTS mechanics, great skill-based combat, and a varied game experience with different factions and maps. Strongly recommended. Especially if you still have your Microsoft Force Feedback 2 joystick.

This game is not for everyone, but for those who can handle it, it's amazing. A team-based multiplayer space sim, where the commander of each team is playing an RTS with humans as "units". Fast-paced space combat and deep strategy all at once. WARNING: This game has one of the steepest learning curves ever. You WILL be completely clueless your first several games. You WILL make lots of stupid mistakes. You WILL feel powerless and useless at first. Don't lose heart, though. This game is 100% based on player skill, not some artificial level progression, so you'll get better with practice.

Lovely older game. You've got to use teamwork to win. Things can get really crazy when you've organized an assault and you all show up at the enemy's base at once: There you are, poised and ready to go at the Aleph (Wormhole) to the enemy sector. You are in the bomber with two others. One pilot & bombardier, two gunners, one of them you. Four of your team are in scouting ships, carrying repair guns to make sure your team's bomber stays in one piece. The rest of your team are strapped into interceptors, bristling with guns and fueled up with powerful afterburners. The commander uses the quick voice command shortcut [`cg], the prerecorded message echoes over everyone's comms at the same time: "Go, go, go!" In go the interceptors, blazing the trail. All at once they dive into the Aleph and disappear into the enemies' sector. Resistance is heavy, the first small pings notifying you of fallen teammates are starting to be heard in the background. Then your pilot takes you into the aleph as well, scouts fast on your heels. You're in the enemy sector, gunfire is all around. Slowly but surely, your team's interceptors are cleaning up the area immediately near the Aleph. The way is clear. Your pilot puts the pedal to the metal, and your supporting scouts start ramming the bomber from behind, transferring their momentum to you. The bomber picks up speed, hurtling in a mad dash towards the enemy base. The enemy mounts a panicked defense, their initial camp has been broken, and the ejected escape pods don't all make it home in time to relaunch in another fighter. They try to go for the bomber, but the scouts keep the bomber's hull in fine shape, and so the enemy fighters switch their attention to them. You fire your turret gun at them, but one by one they manage to kill off your support. In that moment, when things look their darkest, a massive explosion occurs and a chorus of pre-recorded 'Yeee-haw's sounds. Your pilot has fired off the final anti-base missile in his rack, and it's hit home. The enemy base is destroyed. Now you just need to pull that off 3 more times to win this game.

This is my all-time favorite game. It's old, and the learning curve is very steep, but if you manage to get competitive at this game you will have the time of your life.

There is so much about this game may people don't know, and I could talk for days about the abilities, tactics and details of this game but I'll try to cover the high level aspects of this game. If you want more details contact our community in the discord link below. Allegiance was originally developed by Microsoft in the late 1990s and was originally released on March 16, 2000 as a pay to play premium game on Microsoft zone. Eventually to help boost sales they released a limited version free to play. Microsoft's failure to run the game and assist new players lead to low sales and poor customer service. They officially shut down the servers in 2002 and released the game under a shared license. After that the community supported the game to keep it alive by running their own servers and keeping the code up to date and working on balancing and supporting new players into the game. In June of 2017, Microsoft released the code to the public and opened the license to public domain and the community who loved this game took the code, fixed problems with it and released it free of charge to everyone on steam so they could share this game with the world. Magazines have noted this game as the "Best game you never played" awards and the community couldn't agree more! Microsoft Allegiance combines real-time strategy elements into a space combat simulator. The main objective of Microsoft Allegiance is to attack and destroy your enemies bases, while protecting your own. You have to consider all aspects important such as defense of your miners so your team can make money, defending your bases, attacking enemy miners to disrupt their resources, attacking and defending against enemy pilots, and you must work with your teammates to achieve this objective. Without it, you're doomed to fail. While old to the eye, the game is incredible to play. No other game has ever been this detailed in strategies and tactics. There are many different factions all with their own special abilities and weaponry. The "fog of war" that everyone talks about is entirely based on scanning and signature of your own ships abilities. Some factions can easily scan targets while others provide superior cloaking and are hard to detect. You must also consider that the ship has better scanners in front, than behind so you can sneak up on enemies with poor scanning from behind. You can also lower your signature by disarming weapons and running with limited ammo. Your mass entirely bases your ability to turn and attack enemies. Once you master the ability to fly the ships and you understand their capabilities, the game is far from mastered because now you can also be the commander of all the ships on your team. The Real time strategy elements now play a factor. You have limited money to purchase ships and upgrade technology for your team, and being the eye in the sky, you have the ability to see what's going on everywhere. Employ your friends to assist you with commanding miners and keeping them going, while you focus on the overall strategy, or employ your best squadron leaders and have them lead attacks while you keep your leaders informed with details of whats going on around them. The community is amazing. You will never find a group of people who love the game more than the people you find in the discord channel. There's people willing to provide help, and training to anyone who wants it. All you have to do is ask and you will get people willing to help you. They love the game, and they know they need people to enjoy the game they love and the old saying "The more the merrier" couldn't apply more here. The community developers will answer questions and are actively working with the game. If you want to help out, the community will accept anyone with talents to help with building the community as well. If you have problems, join the official discord channel for help and assistance from experienced players who have been playing this game for over 15 years. [url=http://discord.gg/TXGmynB] You can connect directly to discord by clicking this link[/url]. Hope to see you on the battlefield in space. There's so much more to this game. Come and check it out!

This continues to be perhaps the greatest online game ever created, The game can be run on just about any internet connection. In fact, when it was first created, dialup modems were the norm. The team play, the graphics, the flight simulation are all top notch. Long live Allegiance!

Still the greatest team base game i have ever played or seen. Way ahead of its time. Poorly marketed and maintained is the only reason for its downfall. One day someone will come out with a sequel or something very similar and people will say its ground breaking not knowing this ever existed.

Best game ever