Anno 117's Pax Romana's Best-Kept Secret Reveals Itself as a Impressive First-Person View.
Wait — did you know it's possible to experience the game Anno 117 in first-person? Should that be your response, your surprise matches compared to my initial response upon finding out this concealed mode. I must step away from overseeing my civilization, leave it in a capable deputy, commandere a carriage, and take a spin through Ancient Rome.
How to Access the First-Person Feature
Being a city-building title, Anno 117 Pax Romana usually operates from a bird's-eye view. Yet, when you press a covert button sequence — for example “Ctrl,” “Shift,” and “R” on a keyboard or “Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B/Circle, A/X” on a controller — you gain the ability to walk the empire as an ordinary Roman. Given a comparable hidden feature was included in the previous Anno title, I looked forward to test it in Ubisoft's newest game, but I wasn’t sure it would function until I found myself stuck in a Celtic building (possibly an unexpected bug — this option can be prone to glitches now and then).
Roaming the Streets of Rome
Once I crawled out, I walked the busy roads across my settlement and toured markets, breweries, floral patches, and seafood collectors — it was glorious to observe my diligent efforts from a brand-new perspective. I observed numerous fine points that would escape notice from the top-down view: Doorway embellishments, an ass transporting a floral pail, poultry scattering about, people relaxing on their verandas… Simply noticing the shape of a window sill and the coating on a pillar becomes engaging to someone who doesn’t live in Ancient Rome.
Beyond Simple Strolling
But there’s more to the game's immersive perspective aside from meandering through streets. I felt particularly pleased upon discovering that not only could I look upon farming fields, but also access them. And although I’d assumed interiors would be restricted, I was able to enter mud extraction sites, explore a prestigious Grammaticus building while lessons were in session, and intrude into private gardens. Don't bother with door access (not even the creators allocated resources for that), yet it's completely feasible wander through a grain field, watch folks shoveling and carrying sacks, and take a peek inside any small shack provided the entrance is missing.
Graphics and Ambiance
Although I was fully prepared to observe my settlement depicted in PlayStation 1 graphics, excluding a few unpolished motions and the occasional civilian resting in a bench as opposed to atop a bench, the immersive perspective seems much better than expected. The intricately designed surfaces (especially stone surfaces) are unexpectedly excellent within a game that's fundamentally a city-builder. You won't necessarily notice any individual strands of hair, yet you will notice writings on surfaces, fiery particles from lamps, fading on bricks, eye details, and evergreen foliage. Nighttime, with its flickering fires and celestial bodies twinkling afar, generates a uniquely immersive environment, and proves significantly less intimidating compared to Anno 1800, now that the citizens don’t look like sleep paralysis demons now.
Discovery and Modification
Given the covert first-person feature lacks official documentation, I opted to try different commands, and immediately located the abilities to leap, run, and adjusting the view — with the latter allowing me to change from first-person to third-person mode and return. I then decided to hit various digit inputs and discovered that I could change my character’s appearance. Amber garment? Red toga? Azure and violet outfit? Or — potentially preferable — armored suit? You can wield a blade and protection, or, my favorite, don a marksman outfit; if you activate the engage command, you shoot flaming projectiles upward. In case you’re wondering, eliminating citizens cannot be done (though I didn't test this, obviously).
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 “You cannot keep a fox as a pet and should you provide another poultry, your grandmother will be furious.” Rightly so, Roman dad. A friendly native Celtic person then started applauding my excellent cross-cultural strategies by describing it as “Ideal combination,” meanwhile a grumpy senior female chose to intimidate me: “Say that one more time, and they’ll never find your body.”
The Joy of Joyriding
At the moment I believed I had found everything available in Anno 117: Pax Romana’s first-person mode, I found the joys of joyriding through classical settlements. Completely unexpectedly, I clicked on a wagon and was promptly seated on the box. Bovines, equines, even human-pulled carts; you can control each one as desired. The donkey-powered transport, notably, moves quite quickly, although you shouldn't expect any GTA-like shenanigans — colliding with pedestrians or other carts is impossible (once more, not admitting any attempts).
Combat Limitations
The single feature that frustrated me regarding the first-person view was learning about my exclusion from in battle encounters. Equipped in warrior attire, I ran up to the enemy during active combat and attempted to attack them, yet was completely overlooked. The proximate observation remained quite impressive, and watching the enemy run, their limbs waving wildly, seemed enormously rewarding, but it would’ve been cool to effectively strike targets via my incendiary bolts.
