Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3 is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Ion Storm, published by Eidos Interactive, and released for Microsoft Windows in 1998. The game was originally developed as a spin-off of the mech simulation game G-Nome by 7th Level. Ion Storm acquired both Dominion and its lead designer, Todd Porter, from 7th Level for completion.
Gameplay
A major aspect of Dominion's design is that not all races are equal. Darken forces are sturdier, but are slower to build; Scorp forces cost much less to manufacture, but are weaker than the other races; Merc soldiers are more difficult to control, but are more accurate when firing; and the Humans are a balance of all features. In addition, each race also gets one weapon type unique unto itself. Darken has a "Cloaker which renders other vehicles invisible; the Mercs have the "Widow Maker", which converts enemy towers and tanks into allies; the Humans have the "M-Cat", which freezes any opponents' machinery from firing; and the Scorps have a "Digger", an underground transport to deliver up to six men anywhere visible on the playing field. Each of these vehicles are extremely fragile; an infantryman with a rifle can destroy it in one shot if not well protected.
There are a set of twelve missions, comprising a "campaign", for each of the races, where the computer opponent has the next level up in armaments, men or machines. For instance, when the player has light infantry and machine gun towers, the computer opponent will have bazooka men and rocket towers. There is a list of objectives to complete a mission, some requires the performing of certain tasks, such as recapture a fallen base or rescue a leader from prison, others to merely wipe out the opponent completely.
Multiplayer
There is a multiplayer mode that supports up to eight players. There are four built-in connection types, serial, modem, IPX and TCP/IP for direct play. Like other real-time strategy games the multiplayer options can be set to have high or low resources and slow to fast speed. MPlayer.com was launched with Dominion, which came pre-installed.
Plot
The game takes place on the fictitious planet of Gift 3 where war has broken out between four different races: the Scorps, Darkens, Mercs and Humans. The setting is shared with G-Nome.
Development
In November 1996, John Romero and Tom Hall left Id Software to form Ion Storm, but their excessive spending forced them to sign a deal with Eidos Interactive, which required them to provide six games for Eidos to publish. To quickly fulfill this requirement, Romero and Hall sought near-completed games for Ion Storm to polish before hand-off to Eidos. When hired from 7th Level, designers Todd Porter and Jerry O'Flaherty were tasked with finishing their spinoff titled Dominion. Despite Romero and Hall believing they could finish development of Dominion in three months, which would cost $50,000, they ultimately needed a full team to work for more than a year.
Dominion employs a voxel-based graphics engine.
Soundtrack
Dominion features an electronic soundtrack by Will Loconto; tracks vary between dark atmospheric styles and techno/electro.
Marketing
At E3 1996, 7th Level showcased Dominion by having staff pretend to play pre-rendered footage, as the game was too unfinished for live gameplay. The showcase neighbored Blizzard Entertainment's large booth for StarCraft, which led Blizzard to reboot their game to increase its visual distinctiveness. Blizzard's developers did not learn that 7th Level had presented pre-rendered footage until years after releasing StarCraft, which ultimately outcompeted Dominion by releasing three months earlier in 1998.
Reception
The game received mixed reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. This number rose to 14,000 units by November 30, 1998, which drew a total of $466,600 in revenue.
The game was a runner-up for Computer Gaming Worlds 1998 "Coaster of the Year" award, which ultimately went to Jurassic Park: Trespasser. The staff wrote, "Ion Storm's initial release sailed like a lead balloon, complete with overhyped and ineffectual AI, 1995-era graphics, and a back story so bad that it had us wondering why we even briefly stopped playing StarCraft for this."