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Adding to the deep gameplay, Allegiance sports some wonderful graphics. You will witness some of the most cinematic explosions in computer gaming. Each faction of the game has its own look and feel, and all the ships are beautifully rendered with detailed texture maps and special lighting effects. When a pilot hits his boosters, his ship will leave a vapor trail that is very nicely animated. Maps consist of intricately simulated three-dimensional backgrounds with splashes of color, similar to that of Homeworld. Many sectors have at least one large planet that looks as real as any NASA photograph. And there’s nothing like doing a fly-by in a large dogfight, allowing a close-up view of the enemy ship as it whizzes past. Going into a large, swirling Aleph (black hole) is fun to watch no matter how many times you do it. Overall, the graphics in Allegiance are top-notch.

Sound

The sound in Allegiance is quite well done, particularly when you’re in a dogfight with enemies doing corkscrews around your ship as you try to avoid their seeker missiles. It often becomes necessary to listen for the direction of enemy fire, so that you know from where you’re being targeted. The sound of space itself is low and rumbling, adding to the atmosphere. Explosions could stand to be a little more earth-shattering, but the visual effect more than makes up for the lack of sound as you blow up a capital ship or starbase. Voice communication is another aspect of Allegiance that adds a lot to the gameplay. The many pre-recorded voices sound similar to the marines in Starcraft. You can use voice commands to taunt other players, coordinate an offensive, or call for help when you’re stuck in a pod after being ejected from your ship. Rather than incorporate real-time voice communication, Microsoft Research opted for an in-game voice chat that uses keyboard commands to send pre-recorded messages to other players. This reduces bandwidth and makes it easier to communicate when there are several dozen people in a single game. If everyone used a headset, the chaos would be enough to kill the game.

Lag Time

One of the first questions that comes to mind with an online-only game of potentially close to a hundred players is “How much lag do I have to suffer through?” After playing several 32-player games with a 56k modem, I can say the lag is minimal. This is likely due to Allegiance’s lack of any real AI (almost every ship in the game is manned by a human pilot). The game code has been optimized for handling several different types of Internet connections without choking the game or causing players to warp. I did, however, experience several lockups while trying to log on to a server, or playing the game.