Dominus (1994)
Retro Game Review
A little tribute / review to one of the most under-appreciated
yet greatest PC strategy games of all time.
Created by DJ Wang
DEFEAT THE INVADING HORDES &
ENTER THE MIXING ROOM OF DOMINUS!
DJ Wang with the power of the Boomerang returns:
By sending forth an army of greater numbers, you can kill the opposing army
of lesser numbers. This is simply the easiest way to make stuff dead. But I
recommend softening up the opposing army with either traps, magic, or
clubbing them.
I’m going to start something new, DJ Benvenuto has movie reviews, and
now I shall do video games. Starting off is DOMINUS, one of the best
strategy games ever.
The game isn’t heavy on story, so I’m going to improvise with what I think is the story.
The game isn’t heavy on story, so I’m going to improvise with what I think is the story.
It starts off in the year 20X6. Where you are apparently a crazy evil
overlord and have control of most of the world, and the local monsters don’t
like that. So they form an “unholy alliance” against you. (Anything against
you is apparently unholy, just like how G.I. Joes think they are the good
guys and Cobra is evil, but from Cobra’s point of view it’s the opposite.)
So you have all these monsters invading your backyard and you aren’t going
to stand for it. And what does any red blooded American do when someone is
in your backyard? Call the police and have the professionals handle it? HELL
NO! You are an American and an evil overlord, you have the right to
obliterate them and their entire race, much like in Dominus.
Here is a low-down of how you can destroy everything in your path.
Traps
Takes time to gather the resources to make traps, but it’s worth it.
A simple process. You choose an object that would be appealing to the
invaders; like a treasure chest, sandwich, or a stereo, or maybe even a
desirable and attractive whatever-you’re-into. Then you attach it to the
reaction part of the trap; may it be an explosion, hot tar, scalding acid,
or a net. The list goes on. Traps come in two varieties, the killing kind or
the capturing kind.
More on the benefits of capturing later.
Magic
Magic also takes resources to make.
The only spells you’ll want to create are ones that either kill everything
or capture a monster. Making spells is a lot like an Easy-Bake Oven or a
Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors Ice Cream Maker. You select stuff from a list and
mix it with a mortar and pestle.
A lot of spells are redundant; which is good because they all use different
components, which means more death. Spells range from boulders falling from
the sky and maiming stuff, fireballs coming from the sky, disintegrating
enemies and making other stuff fall from the sky.
Capture spells are good.
More on that later.
More on that later.
Monsters
More on clubbing in a second.
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Clubbing
Clubbing is the greatest.
You come down in your awesome flying chariot that has dragons instead of
horses. Then the monsters come to you and you simply bash their faces in with
your club.
If you want some long range combat, you got fireballs the size of monster
truck tires that you shoot at monsters. Clubbing is really good for weak
crappy monsters that don’t deserve the honor of dying in a glorious battle;
instead they get a club to the face.
Like I promised earlier, here are the benefits of capturing monsters.
Torture Chamber
I originally thought your character was a good guy, but from the looks of his
dungeon, I’d say otherwise.
Back to torturing. You poke at them with a hot iron and ask them questions
with varying degrees of kindness and intimidation; like, “What is your rank?”,
“Who is your leader?”, “What clans do you like?” and so forth.
The purpose of this info is to increase the efficiency of clubbing things in
the face. It saves you time. You find the leader of the Fire Demons and you
tell him to leave, and you’ll kill something for him / give him something / or
just tell him to get the hell out before he gets a club to the face.
If they have nothing useful, you send them to your kennel.
Kennel
The kennel is where all your monsters are kept because you don’t want your
Wolf Warriors and Carniferns messing up the carpet or tearing up your
curtains.
It’s just a holding pen for your monsters to load up on murderous rage so they
can go out and punch something in the stomach.
Capturing monsters adds to your own army; so if you play your cards right, you
could possibly capture an entire army and never have to fight them.
Mutants
Did the evil empires of the past experiment on their own people? No, that’s
what everyone else was for. Same thing in Dominus.
Capture stuff and send them to your mixing room and WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED I
AM SUPER MUTANT. It’s a huge roided-up version of a monster with crazy
stats.
You have four generals that do your bidding and other odd tasks. They come in handy when you are busy interrogating Sea Devils, making magic spells to kill the Sea Devils, or clubbing the Sea Devils.
Your generals can assign your sweatshop slave labor pool of monsters to make
traps, Nikes, spy on other clans, gather components for traps or magic to kill
or capture the Sea Devils.
But in all honesty, you don’t need to bother with the Sea Devils. All that
time hanging out with Aquaman apparently made their skulls soft, which make
for ideal targets for clubbing.
I single-handedly clubbed the whole race of Sea Devils.
They never made it
past the lobby of my castle.
I’ll conclude this in-depth game report with this fact:
This game rules!
Never once have you been a bad guy that had a club in any game prior or even
now.
This game was ahead of its time.
I wish it was remastered so people could enjoy it in all its clubbing glory.
I wish it was remastered so people could enjoy it in all its clubbing glory.
Graphics
8
8
Sound
7
7
Control
10
10
Fun Factor
9
9
Club Factor
10
10
We will miss you, oh evil overlord and your club of might.
We will also miss U.S. Gold, who brought us this game.
I also miss the TV show M.A.N.T.I.S.
Never before has a disabled man
clobbered so many people in 30 minutes.
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