Introduction
Anno 1602: Creation of a new world or 1602 A.D. was the first game of the ANNO series developed by Max Design and released in the year of our lord, 1998. The mechanics were so well laid out that even now it feels easy to pick up and colonize your first island.
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| The good o'l Anno menu. |
Gameplay
Well the mechanics are quite straightforward. You generally start with a small trading vessel and you go near an island, scout it, see what resources it has and eventually settle it by building your first warehouse. then you build a woodcutter and start building pioneer homes, some fishing hut and that's pretty much your basic colony. From this point your colonists require more resources and buildings like cloth,churches,spices and schools to evolve to the next level and usually your island only has 3 resources that can be harvested and most at 50% while only one or with luck two at 100%. and so begins your quest to build more ships, colonize other islands, set up trading routes and expand. You will be able to build war ships, army units, walls, towers if you plan to go to war or just want to play it safe.
Of course there are also the Scenarios and the Campaign if you like a little more challenge but while they can keep you busy for hours, the Continous Play is where you'll mostly stick as maps are randomly generated in each play.
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| Choose your flag. And that's about it in terms of customization |
Graphics and Audio
Surprisingly the game can feel quite ok, despite the age. It looks caught somewhere between old school and modern but quite easy on the eyes without filling the screen with useless info or details. It looks clean and while a bit old and only with a max resolution of 1024x768 it's easily enjoyable if you got a weaker laptop but still want to play something fun.
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| What a nice city. I'd be a shame if I build my own army and come blow it up... |
As for the audio quality I must say I remembered it worse till I fired up the game. The soundtrack is quite relaxing and given the age of the game, quite high quality. Of course voiced leave a bit to be desired but overall the game is quite atmospheric.
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| Warships ahoy!(with a lil bug) |
Compatibility
Install and play, be it the Uplay version(which is free now till the 23rd of December) or the gog version you just have to install the game and play it. The only problem is that you're stuck with 3 resolutions with the highest being as mentioned above 1024x768.
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| And here a humble colony of mine... |
Final words...
If you want to pick a casual city builder it's hard to go wrong with any game in the series but if you want to pick the first Anno game.. well you have to adapt to the resolution and semi-clunky buttons but once you get used to it you'll probably pour hours into the game without even noticing. so get on building and spread civilization as far as possible. Go easy on the natives tho...
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