The meat of the game however is all in building up towns, farms and mines and growing the populous while keeping everyone safe and happy.Īnno has three main modes – there is the story-driven mode involving several scenarios, a continuous play mode, and a wireless multiplayer mode. It takes elements from many games in similar genres, from economic management, military organisation, exploration and to some extent: political manoeuvring. The object of the game is to settle islands around the Americas, build up civilisations, fend off attacks and ultimately come to dominate the new world. As ‘Dawn of Discovery’ along with the year 1701 suggests, Anno is an empire building game set in the early 18th century. After getting more details on the game, I had pencilled it mentally for a look when released. Similar to Age of Empires, Anno has undergone some significant changes to fit on the handheld resulting in a well put together and entertaining game.ĭespite having never played the original game on the PC, I was intrigued when Anno popped up on the DS release calendar. Like with Theme Park, Age of Empires & Sim City, Anno is a game originally released for a computer that has been ported to DS. This is made all the worse for a game like Anno 1701, which has slipped under the radar and is likely to be missed by a great many gamers who would definitely enjoy it.
By ‘too many’ I mean to highlight the personal and ultimately trivial tragedy that there are a lot of fantastic games on the DS that I will never play. The DS has already become a platform with too many great games. This article was originally published at