Anno 117: Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Is a Impressive First-Person View.
Hold on — were you aware gamers have the option to enjoy the game Anno 117 using a first-person camera? If you're thinking that, you’re just as shocked compared to my initial response upon finding out this concealed mode. Excuse me while briefly leave managing my empire, entrust it to a capable deputy, borrow a cart, and enjoy a ride across the Roman world.
How to Access the First-Person View
As a city-building game, Anno 117: Pax Romana is normally experienced from an overhead perspective. However, if you input a hidden code — such as “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on keyboard or else “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you gain the ability to walk the realm as a regular inhabitant. Given a comparable hidden feature was part of Anno 1800, I looked forward to test it in Ubisoft's newest game, but I wasn’t sure it would operate prior to being stuck in a Celtic building (which probably wasn’t intended — this option tends to be prone to glitches now and then).
Exploring the Ancient Streets
Once I crawled out, I walked the busy roads across my settlement and visited markets, breweries, blossom gardens, and shellfish gatherers — it was glorious to see my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I detected all kinds of details I wouldn’t have spotted when viewing from overhead: Front door decorations, a donkey carrying a flower bucket, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Even just observing the form of a ledge and the coating on a pillar is quite interesting to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Further Than Mere Wandering
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective than strolling along the road. I was especially delighted upon discovering that not only could I view agricultural plots, but also access them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, investigate a respected schoolhouse as teaching was underway, and intrude into private gardens. Don’t try to open any doors (not even the studio have the budget for that), but it’s entirely possible stroll around a barley farm, see citizens working with tools and burdens, and look within any modest shelter when there's no doorway obstructing.
Appearance and Mood
Even though I expected to witness my city rendered using primitive rendering, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting within a bench rather than on a bench, the immersive perspective seems far superior to anticipations. The meticulously crafted materials (notably masonry elements) really have no business being this good in what is still, essentially, a top-down game. You might not observe separate follicular elements, however, you can observe engravings on walls, fiery particles from lamps, discoloration of masonry, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Evening, with glowing light sources and celestial bodies twinkling afar, is especially atmospheric, and also a lot less scary versus the earlier title, especially since the inhabitants no longer resemble sleep paralysis demons now.
Testing and Personalization
Because the game's hidden immersive perspective doesn’t come with an instruction manual, I decided to experiment a bit, and quickly discovered the functions for jumping, dashing, and zoom in or out — the zoom function permitting me to switch between first and third-person views and revert. I subsequently tried pressing certain numeric keys and learned I could modify my avatar's look. Yellow toga? Red toga? Sapphire and amethyst dress? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You might hold a weapon and defense, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; when you press the action key, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (not that I’ve tried, of course).
Humor and Citizen Interactions
However, I had no desire to injure my people, since they're incredibly amusing. Only seconds after I landed the immersive perspective, I listened to a dad instructing his kid that he “Can’t have a pet fox and if you feed it one more chicken, your elder will punish you.” Appropriate response, paternal figure. A friendly native Celtic person then proceeded to praise my brilliant Romano-Celtic policies by labeling it “Perfect fusion,” while some cranky old lady decided to threaten me: “Utter those words again, and your fate will be sealed.”
The Joy of Joyriding
At the moment I believed I had found everything available within the game's immersive perspective, I found the joys of joyriding in Ancient Rome. Totally unintentionally, I interacted with a cart and immediately found myself in the driver's position. Cattle, asses, even human-pulled carts; you may operate any of them freely. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — you can’t drive into people or other wagons (again, not saying I’ve tried).
Battle Constraints
The single feature that frustrated me within the immersive perspective was finding out I couldn’t partake in battle encounters. Wearing my military outfit, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and endeavored to damage them, only to be ignored completely. The proximate observation was nonetheless magnificent, and observing foes flee, their appendages thrashing around, felt highly gratifying, yet it would have been exciting to actually hit something via my incendiary bolts.
