Facebook Dragon Wars Review

Is this social networking game that is catching fire, really all its cracked up to be? Or just a loud puff of Smoke? This review is taking a look at the game Dragon Wars, by Zynga.

This is a summary of the review of Dragon Wars. This review starts off with a somewhat brief description of the game. That is followed by an overview of the review, listing all the scores of the three categories that we will be scoring Dragon Wars on. The next several sections are those categories in more definition, why they got what they got. These sections are as listed, Gameplay, Graphics, and Multiplayer. The overview of the review defines what each category is in more detail.

The next section will be a quick conclusion to the review, followed by an important links section. Then a poll, and some comments. Be sure to comment this article, its the only way I know how I am doing. That and ad revenue, but even that correlation is sketchy. 

So leave comments!

Dragon Wars is a Medieval themed, text based game, that involves teamwork, determination, and basic math skills in order to be successful. It puts you in a world where you and your friends are Dragon Warriors. This includes all of your friends on Facebook (who play Dragon Wars, and add you to their Alliance).  Like other Zynga games, a player starts out by doing several tasks (ie Quests) and these evolve into the actual tasks within the game. This quick tutorial explains the basics of the game. A player completes quests, with energy, for gold and then purchases land with that gold to for sustained income. The player then uses this cash to buy stronger weapons from the armory, which then can give them the upper hand in attacking other players.

The armory offers three types of items, Offensive, Defensive, and Dragons. Dragons are cool, because unlike many other games where dragons are involved, you can have more than one. Just picturing rivals meeting on a battlefield, and sending hordes of dragons at each other is enough to make any D&D fan's toes curl. If you are into that sort of thing, this may be the game for you.

Lords and Ladies, I welcome you to Dragon Wars.

Gameplay = 8.5

Dragon Wars started off amazing. The quests were interesting, the leveling was fun, and the quests were rewarding. Then i hit a wall. Not enough of something to buy what I needed. While this promotes giving money to the game it came too early, I wasn't hooked yet. To find out what this resource is, read the gameplay section below.

Graphics rating = 10

I have said that "A text based game always suffers in this category." This game has proven me wrong. While the game is somewhat lacking in interesting graphics for the items, (they are par with the type of game) There is one feature that blew me away. Read down below to find out about this "feature".

Multiplayer Co-Operation = 7

A game like Dragon Wars is supposed to excel in multiplayer action. This is due to where its located, on a social networking site. This allows you to recruit your friends, assuming they want to play a Facebook game. But the community in this game seems to be lacking. Read more down below.

Total = 8.5

While Dragon Wars turns out to be fun, but I would not have played it to that point had I not been creating this review. Now that I am past it, I can't seem to stop. Ok, well maybe I can, but the game is still pretty fun.

For more in depth discussion about each category and the game in general, check out each detailed section below.

Dragon Wars Gameplay Score:

Dragon Wars was a fun game to play. Being partial to the theme, I found the idea of controlling a dragon warrior, like Eragon, pretty exciting. I also liked the magic weapons found within Dragon Wars. While the game does suffer from some minor issues, like a giant gap in gold supplied, to the amount of gold needed to buy items for the unlocked missions, the game went pretty smoothly. This gap, I think is purposefully engineered to try and coax some cash out of the player. That makes sense, Zynga has to make a living somehow.

The most striking feature of Dragon Wars (a text based game) is the 3D gameplay. While at first I found this to be mind blowing, it quickly lost its shine. When a player plays through the mission more than once, they find out that sadly the level does not change. Even more disapointing, is that as you progress through the missions, it is the same level, just with a subsquent level of difficulty unlocked.

For example, the first level lets you in the first room, the player kills all the baddies, and claims the prize. The second level makes all the enemies a bit harder, perhaps adds one, and allows you to unlock the door, and move one more room forward. While this seems logical, it does get a bit tedious, especially in the parts where the most profitable missions are the 3D missions, and you can end up playing the same one as many as 5 times! But overall this was a great addition to the game, and really separates it from the rest of the text based pack.

The game is fun, but could have been more thought out as far as game play is concerned. After I was able to earn enough gold from buying properties, the cash came very easily. Almost too easily. When I first started playing Dragon Wars, and saw the hit list (or traitor's list) reaching over into the billions for a hit, I was blown away. Now making 90k an hour and more everyday, that really doesn't seem so far fetched. The improvement that could be made is a little more balance in the leveling to gold needed. A bit of increase in prices of later land, and less income from each parcel would be a great addition. Perhaps if the player earned less from each extra land type he owns. That would make Dragon Wars even more fun to play. 

One other thing that was a bit sketchy about Dragon Wars was in the 3D combat, the fighting commands are very hard to get right. When you execute a kick, it is a slower, more powerful move, great against larger enemies. But the chances of actually doing it right are slim. You have a greater chance of clicking too far past the enemy, and forcing your character to dance around the bad guy, while getting clobbered. Unless a player wants to waste energy and practice on the easier levels before trying the fancy moves on an extended level, I wouldn't recommend it. It might cost you extra health, and even the mission itself. Which can be frustrating since 3D missions are the only missions that you can fail in the game. It is more cost efficient to do the basic one click missions. (If you count your time.) If a player could heal within the missions, or used ranged missles, or something besides the god awful close combat moves. (Note, this probably would be quite a bit easier with a mouse rather than a laptop track pad, but you would still screw it up sometimes)

The next section in this review of Dragon Wars, is Graphics. As you can already tell, this is a section of the game that did very well. In fact, I would say that it is its best feature.

The graphics score for Dragon Wars is a 10.

The reason it received a ten is not because it is on par with a game like Gears of War, but because it is significantly better than its peers. When comparing it to other text based games, there is no comparison. The 3D action, is to put it simply, amazing. It brings the game right off the page, quite literally.

Don't let me get ahead of my self though, the game wouldn't hold its own against some of the other free games out there that have 3D action. I would even go as far as to say that Runescape is still better as far as an interactive game goes. Dragon Wars offers very few different options, but it almost seems as if more is going to be added later. But like most Zynga games that are out, I cannot see much happening in the way of significant improvements.

Below is a video of the 3D action in Dragon Wars. You can see the mana bar off to the right, yeah, it doesn't get used at all during the game. Also, when you buy items during the text game, they do not get added in the game either. This is pretty lame. It would be very cool if you could impact the game with what items you bought. For example, using a bow and arrow, if you purchased it. That would be a great feature. But the game is still pretty cool. Check it out.

The Multiplayer Score of Dragon Wars is a 7.

Dragon Wars has the basic elements necessary to have a successful text based game. Dragon Wars contains a hit list, allows you to add friends from Facebook, and other basic functionality that other games in its "class" have. What it lacks is originality. It is very par. Lacking a community, consistant updates, and it just is within a not "cool" category. Who is going to ask their friend, to play Dragon Wars a Facebook game? So not only do you get updates from Dragon Wars, all your friends know you play it as well. That girl you were trying to convince you were half cool? Yeah she knows too. Not many people are going to take that risk.

One thing that the game lacks in this section is a very strong base. Something about playing Dragon Wars on Facebook, just seems to turn people off. I have a very hard time getting any of my friends to join! These aren't real friends, but the friends I have that play all the other games. It after I invited all 200 of them, I have six people in my alliance. Pretty lousy since I still get invites for other Zynga games everyday. I think this still goes back to the whole stigma of playing the game. Even openly gaming nerds on Facebook, have a hard time bringing themselves to play this!

It isn't that Dragon Wars's multiplayer lacks any special feature, it just doesn't do anything special. Couple that with the lack of community and the score falls to 7.

Dragon Wars is a great Facebook game. It allows users to look at text based gaming, in a new light. While it is certainly lacking in other areas, this review applauds that attempt.

The total score for Dragon Wars was 8.5. This number accurately describes how this review views the game. Gameplay, is great, except for a rather large gap in gold amount generated from quests, to the items the player requires to do more advanced missions. Graphics received a 10, for the fantastic 3D action. Multiplayer in Dragon Wars suffered, due to a lack of a community, but the potential for it to develop brought the score back up.

In turn, if you are into Knights and Dragons, and enjoy text based games, this one is probably one you will enjoy. If not, then I would warn you to stay away. The 3D action in this game is interesting, but not really interesting enough to pull people in who would not already like this type of game.

Facebook can be found here.

Zynga's webpage can be found here.

Facebook application page of Dragon Wars can be found here.