Friday, July 03, 2009
Conquest! Medieval Realms Review
Conquest! Medieval Realms, developed by Illustrious Software and published by Slitherine Software.
The Good: Simple yet deep mechanics involving territorial control and unit placement, random map generator and an editor suite, lengthy campaigns, challenging, multiplayer game browser
The Not So Good: Old hex-based graphics that lack some interface features, disabling advanced rules creates stalemates, too simplistic for genre veterans
What say you? A straightforward and approachable turn-based strategy game for novice players that has a nice amount of content: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
During the Middle Ages, before both television and the Internet, there wasn't much to do. So, people decided to embark upon two noble goals: (a) spread plague and (b) kill others. Conquest! Medieval Realms is a turn-based strategy game involving the latter exploit, although I suspect a plague-based computer simulation might be enjoyable as well. Here, you are fighting for control of the land by moving units around, placing structures, and making the enemy tremble under your extreme strategic prowess. Most hex-based games are insanely complicated affairs intended for a hardcore audience, but Conquest! Medieval Realms resorts to a simple economy and static, understandable unit relationships. Does this approach work?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The best thing you can say about the graphics of Conquest! Medieval Realms is that it looks like a table-top board game. The worst thing you can say about the graphics of Conquest! Medieval Realms is that it looks like a table-top board game. Now, I have no problem with evoking the feeling of moving figurines around a hex board, but there are some enhancements that a computer game should introduce, namely in the interface. Overall, the game does a capable job showing the battlefield, with large icons for troops that turn gray when moved and easy to identify hex properties. However, here are a list of my demands. First, units need a small indicator showing their type and level: it took me several games to differentiate between level one and two cavalry units, for example. Secondly, a list of all your towns would be helpful on large maps; the minimap indicates units that can still move and towns that have money to spend, but this is somewhat limiting for expansive battles. Also, it would be nice if the game could indicate which zones can be invaded using the currently selected unit. Finally, Conquest! Medieval Realms lacks end game stats, instead displaying a simple “you are victorious” message. That is all. As for the sound design, we have minimal effects (namely the same twelve sounds over and over again) for combat and a pleasing three-minute song for background music that evokes a feeling of war...or ballroom dancing, I forget which. Overall, Conquest! Medieval Realms delivers exactly what I was expecting for an independent hex-based game: minimal at best.
ET AL.
Conquest! Medieval Realms takes place in the Middle and/or Dark Ages, and centers around two famous wars: Roses and Hundred Years. You get thirty scenarios unlocked in a linear fashion spread over four campaigns, one for each side in both wars. They rarely repeat and offer a nice variety in approach and strategy; the level of difficulty will also keep you playing for a while. Conquest! Medieval Realms also has skirmish matches against up to seven AI opponents for control of a randomly generated map, always an important feature in any good wargame. You can customize the size of the map (on a scale from one to five) and how much impassable water there is. If random isn't your thing, Conquest! Medieval Realms also includes thirteen pre-designed maps for various game sizes, although the random map feature is more than sufficient. There are some issues with the skirmish games: the game does not indicate which map size is appropriate for different numbers of players and the game never automatically saves your progress (having the option to save every five turns would be great). In addition, Conquest! Medieval Realms gives you the option of playing with advanced rules “off” (which is what the demo uses), which is really dumb. This is because the level 3 melee units have no counter and can only be defeated by cutting off territory. It does make the game easier to handle (which is the point), but it's too easy to the point of inanity. A new patch added the ability to browse for games online, always an important feature for any Internet-enabled game. The game's “tutorial” is simply three non-interactive screens with very basic information, but it's better than the online manual, but still leaves some questions unanswered (like combining units). Conquest! Medieval Realms comes back strong, however, with the complete suite of editors for the game: maps, scenarios, and campaigns can all be created with ease from inside the game. The scenario editor lets you adjust options like starting cash and choose from eleven objectives, such as capture tile, kill unit, and territory size. There is really a lot of flexibility here that should add to the game's longevity. Despite my complaints, Conquest! Medieval Realms really does have a lot of features for $20.
Your goal? Control 80% of the map (unless, of course, you are playing a scenario game with different objectives). You start out with randomly assigned territories (unless, of course, you are playing a scenario game) that are treated as separate entities, each earning an income equal to the number of hexes it contains. Your first goal will probably be to join up smaller provinces so that they can consolidate their cash and combine upgrades. You will need to build stables on flat land to produce cavalry, and archery ranges in forest for ranged units. You can also mine on hills and establish markets for additional income, although each additional mine or market is more expensive than the last. You will also need towers and castles for defense, which prevent level 1 and level 2 (respectively) units from getting near them. Since buildings have no upkeep, it's sometimes better to place towers and castles instead of defending troops, especially against low-level foes. Of course, since they lack upkeep, they are spammed late in the game, introducing some annoying tedium as you grind away at every...single...darn...castle the AI has built. Since each unit and building controls their surrounding hexes, there is quite a bit of strategy involved in where to place units and buildings.
Speaking of units, there are three types: spear beats cavalry, cavalry beats ranged, and ranged beats spear. There is no chance involved with combat: units will automatically defeat their counter and any unit of a lower level. Each unit requires upkeep beyond the initial cost. If you can't meet upkeep, all units disappear; this makes spitting a territory in two a viable strategy to eliminate high-level units from the map using low-level equipment if the other player is not paying attention. You can also combine units to make more powerful ones (something both the in-game tutorial and online manual fail to mention); while it's cheaper than spending cash on new ones, it leaves you with less units to distribute among your empire.
I like how Conquest! Medieval Realms uses simple rules to produce a compelling strategic effect. This is a game involving territorial control: placing you units to block incoming raids and take advantage of enemy weaknesses. Units can move into any any adjacent hex to their territory during their turn, even if they are nowhere near it. I like this convention, as it makes defending a large, spread-out empire actually possible. An interesting and common strategy is to split territories in order to make units disappear, as you will separate high-upkeep units from mines, markets, and income-producing tiles. It's a nice simplification of supply lines that is frankly too sophisticated (meaning confusing) in many other hex-based games. Conquest! Medieval Realms has several layers of overlying strategy that makes for a simple but deep gameplay experience. There is no chance or luck, since the rules of who wins are very concrete: construct units to counter others and use upper-level units for cities and castles. It may be because there are more AI players than humans, but I found the AI to be quite competent in playing the game, especially on the higher difficulty levels. The computer opponents do build a lot of castles (in place of mobile level 3 units), but they provide a nice challenge. With a lot of players, it can get tedious trying to defend yourself against attacks from multiple fronts, as the AI tends to gang up on the best player. Handing a large empire is tough, especially if you have a lot of one-hex-wide connections that can be easily taken. Thank goodness for the undo button during a turn. You must alternate between attacking and defending, and you need large area of territory to support the level 3 units that are required to take down the relatively cheap castles that multiply in number at the end of the game. Because of the low unit and structure count (six of each), the game can get repetitive after a while, but the random maps, campaigns, and challenging difficulty help to extend the life of Conquest! Medieval Realms.
IN CLOSING
Scared by hardcore wargames? Well, Conquest! Medieval Realms might be just the game for you! Although the tutorial and online manual leave a lot to be desired, the game is easy to learn thanks to straightforward, non-random combat and simple unit relationships. The random map generator is excellent, the campaigns are long, and the editors that allow you to create custom scenarios and campaigns in addition to sculpted battlefields. You can also take your skills online through the multiplayer game browser. The game features a really interesting use of control: you can split territories and cut off powerful units from their required resources, removing them (and all other units) from the territory. Even a lowly level 1 unit can do this, so it puts an emphasis on planning good defenses and knowing which units are present on the board. Deciding where to attack and which units to build is a thought-provoking and enjoyable process. The AI offers up some good competition, although it tends to focus more on spending on defensive structures instead of taking a more offensive approach. Still, the game is a good challenge, especially in the campaigns, requiring a lot of thinking to be successful. It would be nice to have some interface improvements, but this is a relatively small quibble in an otherwise well-designed game. The game's protracted number of units does come in to play eventually, where combat and strategy becomes repetitive. Thus, Conquest! Medieval Realms is really intended for beginners. I was more enthusiastic about the game until I learned about Slay, which Conquest! Medieval Realms “borrows” a lot of basic mechanics from. This game does flesh out the features by adding the three unit classes and multiple building types, but Conquest! is a bit less impressive overall than I initially thought because of the lack of total originality. Nevertheless, Conquest! Medieval Realms is still quite fun for novice strategy fans and different enough to warrant a purchase.
The Good: Simple yet deep mechanics involving territorial control and unit placement, random map generator and an editor suite, lengthy campaigns, challenging, multiplayer game browser
The Not So Good: Old hex-based graphics that lack some interface features, disabling advanced rules creates stalemates, too simplistic for genre veterans
What say you? A straightforward and approachable turn-based strategy game for novice players that has a nice amount of content: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
During the Middle Ages, before both television and the Internet, there wasn't much to do. So, people decided to embark upon two noble goals: (a) spread plague and (b) kill others. Conquest! Medieval Realms is a turn-based strategy game involving the latter exploit, although I suspect a plague-based computer simulation might be enjoyable as well. Here, you are fighting for control of the land by moving units around, placing structures, and making the enemy tremble under your extreme strategic prowess. Most hex-based games are insanely complicated affairs intended for a hardcore audience, but Conquest! Medieval Realms resorts to a simple economy and static, understandable unit relationships. Does this approach work?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The best thing you can say about the graphics of Conquest! Medieval Realms is that it looks like a table-top board game. The worst thing you can say about the graphics of Conquest! Medieval Realms is that it looks like a table-top board game. Now, I have no problem with evoking the feeling of moving figurines around a hex board, but there are some enhancements that a computer game should introduce, namely in the interface. Overall, the game does a capable job showing the battlefield, with large icons for troops that turn gray when moved and easy to identify hex properties. However, here are a list of my demands. First, units need a small indicator showing their type and level: it took me several games to differentiate between level one and two cavalry units, for example. Secondly, a list of all your towns would be helpful on large maps; the minimap indicates units that can still move and towns that have money to spend, but this is somewhat limiting for expansive battles. Also, it would be nice if the game could indicate which zones can be invaded using the currently selected unit. Finally, Conquest! Medieval Realms lacks end game stats, instead displaying a simple “you are victorious” message. That is all. As for the sound design, we have minimal effects (namely the same twelve sounds over and over again) for combat and a pleasing three-minute song for background music that evokes a feeling of war...or ballroom dancing, I forget which. Overall, Conquest! Medieval Realms delivers exactly what I was expecting for an independent hex-based game: minimal at best.
ET AL.
Conquest! Medieval Realms takes place in the Middle and/or Dark Ages, and centers around two famous wars: Roses and Hundred Years. You get thirty scenarios unlocked in a linear fashion spread over four campaigns, one for each side in both wars. They rarely repeat and offer a nice variety in approach and strategy; the level of difficulty will also keep you playing for a while. Conquest! Medieval Realms also has skirmish matches against up to seven AI opponents for control of a randomly generated map, always an important feature in any good wargame. You can customize the size of the map (on a scale from one to five) and how much impassable water there is. If random isn't your thing, Conquest! Medieval Realms also includes thirteen pre-designed maps for various game sizes, although the random map feature is more than sufficient. There are some issues with the skirmish games: the game does not indicate which map size is appropriate for different numbers of players and the game never automatically saves your progress (having the option to save every five turns would be great). In addition, Conquest! Medieval Realms gives you the option of playing with advanced rules “off” (which is what the demo uses), which is really dumb. This is because the level 3 melee units have no counter and can only be defeated by cutting off territory. It does make the game easier to handle (which is the point), but it's too easy to the point of inanity. A new patch added the ability to browse for games online, always an important feature for any Internet-enabled game. The game's “tutorial” is simply three non-interactive screens with very basic information, but it's better than the online manual, but still leaves some questions unanswered (like combining units). Conquest! Medieval Realms comes back strong, however, with the complete suite of editors for the game: maps, scenarios, and campaigns can all be created with ease from inside the game. The scenario editor lets you adjust options like starting cash and choose from eleven objectives, such as capture tile, kill unit, and territory size. There is really a lot of flexibility here that should add to the game's longevity. Despite my complaints, Conquest! Medieval Realms really does have a lot of features for $20.
Your goal? Control 80% of the map (unless, of course, you are playing a scenario game with different objectives). You start out with randomly assigned territories (unless, of course, you are playing a scenario game) that are treated as separate entities, each earning an income equal to the number of hexes it contains. Your first goal will probably be to join up smaller provinces so that they can consolidate their cash and combine upgrades. You will need to build stables on flat land to produce cavalry, and archery ranges in forest for ranged units. You can also mine on hills and establish markets for additional income, although each additional mine or market is more expensive than the last. You will also need towers and castles for defense, which prevent level 1 and level 2 (respectively) units from getting near them. Since buildings have no upkeep, it's sometimes better to place towers and castles instead of defending troops, especially against low-level foes. Of course, since they lack upkeep, they are spammed late in the game, introducing some annoying tedium as you grind away at every...single...darn...castle the AI has built. Since each unit and building controls their surrounding hexes, there is quite a bit of strategy involved in where to place units and buildings.
Speaking of units, there are three types: spear beats cavalry, cavalry beats ranged, and ranged beats spear. There is no chance involved with combat: units will automatically defeat their counter and any unit of a lower level. Each unit requires upkeep beyond the initial cost. If you can't meet upkeep, all units disappear; this makes spitting a territory in two a viable strategy to eliminate high-level units from the map using low-level equipment if the other player is not paying attention. You can also combine units to make more powerful ones (something both the in-game tutorial and online manual fail to mention); while it's cheaper than spending cash on new ones, it leaves you with less units to distribute among your empire.
I like how Conquest! Medieval Realms uses simple rules to produce a compelling strategic effect. This is a game involving territorial control: placing you units to block incoming raids and take advantage of enemy weaknesses. Units can move into any any adjacent hex to their territory during their turn, even if they are nowhere near it. I like this convention, as it makes defending a large, spread-out empire actually possible. An interesting and common strategy is to split territories in order to make units disappear, as you will separate high-upkeep units from mines, markets, and income-producing tiles. It's a nice simplification of supply lines that is frankly too sophisticated (meaning confusing) in many other hex-based games. Conquest! Medieval Realms has several layers of overlying strategy that makes for a simple but deep gameplay experience. There is no chance or luck, since the rules of who wins are very concrete: construct units to counter others and use upper-level units for cities and castles. It may be because there are more AI players than humans, but I found the AI to be quite competent in playing the game, especially on the higher difficulty levels. The computer opponents do build a lot of castles (in place of mobile level 3 units), but they provide a nice challenge. With a lot of players, it can get tedious trying to defend yourself against attacks from multiple fronts, as the AI tends to gang up on the best player. Handing a large empire is tough, especially if you have a lot of one-hex-wide connections that can be easily taken. Thank goodness for the undo button during a turn. You must alternate between attacking and defending, and you need large area of territory to support the level 3 units that are required to take down the relatively cheap castles that multiply in number at the end of the game. Because of the low unit and structure count (six of each), the game can get repetitive after a while, but the random maps, campaigns, and challenging difficulty help to extend the life of Conquest! Medieval Realms.
IN CLOSING
Scared by hardcore wargames? Well, Conquest! Medieval Realms might be just the game for you! Although the tutorial and online manual leave a lot to be desired, the game is easy to learn thanks to straightforward, non-random combat and simple unit relationships. The random map generator is excellent, the campaigns are long, and the editors that allow you to create custom scenarios and campaigns in addition to sculpted battlefields. You can also take your skills online through the multiplayer game browser. The game features a really interesting use of control: you can split territories and cut off powerful units from their required resources, removing them (and all other units) from the territory. Even a lowly level 1 unit can do this, so it puts an emphasis on planning good defenses and knowing which units are present on the board. Deciding where to attack and which units to build is a thought-provoking and enjoyable process. The AI offers up some good competition, although it tends to focus more on spending on defensive structures instead of taking a more offensive approach. Still, the game is a good challenge, especially in the campaigns, requiring a lot of thinking to be successful. It would be nice to have some interface improvements, but this is a relatively small quibble in an otherwise well-designed game. The game's protracted number of units does come in to play eventually, where combat and strategy becomes repetitive. Thus, Conquest! Medieval Realms is really intended for beginners. I was more enthusiastic about the game until I learned about Slay, which Conquest! Medieval Realms “borrows” a lot of basic mechanics from. This game does flesh out the features by adding the three unit classes and multiple building types, but Conquest! is a bit less impressive overall than I initially thought because of the lack of total originality. Nevertheless, Conquest! Medieval Realms is still quite fun for novice strategy fans and different enough to warrant a purchase.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
ArmA II Review
ArmA II, developed by Bohemia Interactive and published by Got Game Entertainment.
The Good: Intense authentic simulation of small to large scale warfare, excellent visuals, command of squads and entire armies, easy-to-use robust editor, campaign with optional objectives, multiple online modes
The Not So Good: Extreme realism means extreme difficulty, bugs of varied severity including better but not completely competent AI, robotic voice commands remain
What say you? A thorough replica of military operations perfect for those wanting a realistic experience: 7/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
One of the great things about gaming on the PC is all the niche titles to fit almost every interest: hardcore strategic wargames, accurate racing titles, realistic flight simulations, and many more. In terms of military simulations, we have console games that pretend to be real, but PC gamers know the truth: Bohemia Interactive creates the go-to titles for true realism. Starting with the venerable Operation Flashpoint and continuing with the ambitious but bug-filled ArmA 1, the developer has created quite a following, and they are back with the sequel to ArmA, appropriately called ArmA II. You would assume that two more years of development would produce a more polished and complete product. Does ArmA II make an ass out of you and me?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The most evident feature of ArmA II is the significant upgrade in visual quality. Simply put, the game world looks fantastic all around, from varied terrain to tons of objects and a great level of detail. Like previous games by the developer, they have developed a very plausible world in which to shoot things. Some games that advertise a large game world are actually filled with a significant amount of empty space, but Chernarus (a stand-in for northwestern Czech Republic) feels like a complete country, with buildings, forests, mountains, brush, fencing, and cars around every corner. Coupled with the copious amounts of objects are high-resolution textures, detailed character and vehicle models, and impressive (if not totally realistic) explosions. There are also bloom and motion blue effects, although I turned these off for improved performance and a reduction in fuzziness. I found performance of the game to be quite acceptable considering my somewhat modest system; the game puts the AI procedures on additional CPU cores, taking advantage of multi-core computers. The engine of ArmA II produces visuals that compete with any first person shooter on the market. The game continues the uneven audio package of previous games. The most noticeable new feature in the sound department is the realistic clanging (for lack of a better word) of equipment as you run: it actually sounds like you are loaded down with gear. We still have the sonic boom “pop” of rounds as they fly by (a feature I am surprised more games haven't stolen) and realistic weapon effects, but the voice acting is where ArmA II still lags behind the curve. The scripted character speech ranges from “tolerable” to “forced,” but dynamically generated speech still suffers from the dreaded robotic effect: ENEMY...MAN...FRONT!! This area of the game always seems to get the lowest priority, as it was a problem when Operation Flashpoint came out eight years ago. In addition, the music is a quite silly arrangement of generic rock tunes and feels completely out of place in an otherwise serious game. Despite the subpar audio, the graphics deliver enough quality to compensate.
ET AL.
The United States Military, because it has nothing better to do, assists anti-Communist forces in a foreign land (yeah, like that would ever happen). You are one of those Marines, and over the course of the eight mission campaign, you will transition from lowly foot soldier to commanding an entire army. Don't let the small number of scenarios fool you: most missions contain a copious amount of objectives that can be completed in any order, giving the player a lot of freedom to decide how to act. ArmA II is a lot more freeform than most (all?) first person shooters: as long as you satisfy the goals, it's doesn't matter how you do it. This large amount of player freedom does get the game into trouble on occasion, with important events that do not trigger and essentially break your progress (frustrating after a multiple-hour mission). The game does a good job slowly growing your power, introducing a new aspect of warfare to command, eventually allowing you to construct forward bases and order squads of infantry and armor around to do the killing for you. You will also commonly have optional secondary objectives that impact future choices, information, and supplies. The game also has a number of different endings, depending on how effective you are in the last couple of missions. ArmA II also has frequent automatic saves, important in a game where one shot can kill you. The difficult and realism settings affect friendly and enemy on-screen tage, the amount of information contained on the HUD, the lethality of the enemy AI (from “very competent” to “insanely accurate”, and whether you automatically report the location of enemy units (despite the fact that you might not actually see them yourself). While I usually do not care much for the single-player campaign in first person shooters, playing through Harvest Red in ArmA II was a fun experience thanks to the amount of freedom granted to the player.
After you are done with the campaign, you can play through the seven stand-alone scenarios, which offer the same intense combat of the campaign with a bit more scripting. The armory mini-games also make a return, giving you the opportunity to use any of the game's weapons and vehicles in a variety of activities, like races and defensive maneuvers. You haven't lived until you have “driven” a goat through an obstacle course. The game's eight tutorials cover the basics of all the components of the game and provide a good introduction. ArmA II has the same editor as before, which is a very good thing. A fully-functional mission is quite literally minutes away, as a couple of clicks can produce a simple but fun scenario. It's a powerful tool that takes advantage of the huge amount of terrain you have to deal with. Multiplayer is improved, with much faster connection times: it took me a couple of minutes to get into a game before, but now the transition takes less than a minute. I have also experience acceptably smooth online performance, even while playing on servers that are located in Europe. There are some fun custom scenarios (both competitive and cooperative) people have edited online, and if you don't have it, it will be downloaded automatically. I was quite satisfied with the online experience. If you do decide to take on human opponents, get ready to hyper-realistic rules and cooperative play. Despite the fact that you can use the wizard to create a functional deathmatch, detector (last man standing), capture the flag, or sector control scenario in a minute, almost every server uses cooperative scenarios. Those wacky Europeans sure like their co-op.
The theme of the day is “realism,” and that starts with the infantry. You'll notice the lack of a “jump” button (the developer argues that real military folk can't jump when weighed down with equipment), but you do get to “step over” low fencing, of which there is a large amount (I think to make you use the step over command). You certainly can't shoot while running, and accuracy is drastically improved when going prone. Unfortunately, you usually can't see anything while prone (somebody serious needs to mow Chernarus), so finding a proper position is important. The game features realistic ballistics for each weapon, creating some intense encounters with the enemy. You'll have to move in a smart manner, as concealment is not cover (a bush will not stop bullets) and fatigue (caused by running for a while) makes you less accurate and run slower. In addition, you suffer from blurred vision while being supressed, and since death is quick, you must play smart. New for ArmA II is the ability to heal wounded troops and drag or carry them to safety. It's a little gimmicky, but fun. ArmA II features an impressive collection of real-world weapons, from pistols and assault rifles to machine guns and sniper rifles. And don't forget the animals: who needs to tip over cows when you can shoot them with a high-powered rifle? ArmA II also gives you a complete assortment of hardware to drive or fly: jeeps, APCs, tanks, helicopters, and jets. Controls are much the same as before: iffy. While the infantry controls are spot-on, vehicle control has always been less impressive: vehicles turn too drastically at low speeds, resulting in a lot of collisions. Although jets and helicopters are simplified for a keyboard control scheme, using a joystick is highly recommended for better precision. You can always let someone else pilot the choppers and call in air support to eliminate pesky enemy units.
You will quickly ascend up the command ladder during the campaign and be responsible for ordering around subordinate units. ArmA II includes the complex command interface from before: select a unit and go through a menu system to give move, target, engage, mount, action, formation, or team orders. In addition, you can hold spacebar to give orders based on what you are aiming at (like mounting a vehicle or engaging an enemy unit). Having both methods is nice, as you give quick instructions on the fly and more detailed orders if you desire. ArmA II eventually lets you play like a real time strategy game, ordering squads around and building base structures. While this aspect of the game is obviously not as fleshed out as a “real” RTS, it's a nice enough diversion and gives you (again) more freedom to approach a mission in different ways.
The much maligned AI has gotten generally better in ArmA II. Given the open nature of the game, I am willing to give a little leeway regarding how smart the AI is. We still get the occasional bad driver (tanks getting stuck, helicopters running into things), but, in general, it's not the idiot fest that ArmA I was. The AI will actively seek cover (the advertised “micro-AI”), and this goes both ways, as you can sneak up to AI units if you are quiet and smart. Since the AI will use supressive fire, it's important to be behind solid objects during combat. The AI is getting progressively better with each patch, but since deaths by AI allies can fail a mission, it can still be quite frustrating dealing with less than competent squad members. Adding to the overall difficulty of ArmA II is the fact that it can be difficult to differentiate between enemy and friendly troops, especially on higher realism settings. This game is really intended for veteran FPS players, although I suspect anyone looking for an unflinchingly realistic experience will find a grand, gritty time in ArmA II.
IN CLOSING
ArmA II is more engaging and polished than its predecessors (although you could argue that being more polished than ArmA I doesn't require much of an improvement). The graphics are quite fantastic all around: Chernarus is a great setting filled with lots of subtle touches to create plausible surroundings. The open-ended campaign gives the user enough freedom to tackle large missions with multiple objectives in varied fashions as a member of an infantry squad all the way up to the commander of an entire army. The gameplay is brutally realistic: there is no “bunny hopping” or health packs here (although being healed by allies sort-of counts). The auxiliary scenarios and sandbox armory missions involving every unit in the game round out a nice package. Multiplayer is more streamlined with faster connection times, and the editor is simple to use and can create some impressive results. Vehicle control is not as solid as the infantry portion of ArmA II and can't compete with more dedicated flight or tank simulations. ArmA II gives you the tools to command squads and entire armies, using the robust (but potentially confusing) complete interface or quick, point-and-click context-sensitive orders. The AI is improved but not perfect: for every exhilarating battle that involves computer-controller soldiers successfully using cover, you have a tank getting stuck on a house or a helicopter pilot that lands sideways. These kinds of bugs are annoying and they are plentiful enough to definitely be noticeable, but I think fans of this series of games are willing to forgive some inconsistencies because the game as a whole is so stirring. Plus, recent patches are making improvements, and hopefully the developers will continue to improve the problems with the game. ArmA II is better off when released than ArmA I was, so the large contingent of gamers looking for a realistic military simulation should not be disappointed.
The Good: Intense authentic simulation of small to large scale warfare, excellent visuals, command of squads and entire armies, easy-to-use robust editor, campaign with optional objectives, multiple online modes
The Not So Good: Extreme realism means extreme difficulty, bugs of varied severity including better but not completely competent AI, robotic voice commands remain
What say you? A thorough replica of military operations perfect for those wanting a realistic experience: 7/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
One of the great things about gaming on the PC is all the niche titles to fit almost every interest: hardcore strategic wargames, accurate racing titles, realistic flight simulations, and many more. In terms of military simulations, we have console games that pretend to be real, but PC gamers know the truth: Bohemia Interactive creates the go-to titles for true realism. Starting with the venerable Operation Flashpoint and continuing with the ambitious but bug-filled ArmA 1, the developer has created quite a following, and they are back with the sequel to ArmA, appropriately called ArmA II. You would assume that two more years of development would produce a more polished and complete product. Does ArmA II make an ass out of you and me?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
The most evident feature of ArmA II is the significant upgrade in visual quality. Simply put, the game world looks fantastic all around, from varied terrain to tons of objects and a great level of detail. Like previous games by the developer, they have developed a very plausible world in which to shoot things. Some games that advertise a large game world are actually filled with a significant amount of empty space, but Chernarus (a stand-in for northwestern Czech Republic) feels like a complete country, with buildings, forests, mountains, brush, fencing, and cars around every corner. Coupled with the copious amounts of objects are high-resolution textures, detailed character and vehicle models, and impressive (if not totally realistic) explosions. There are also bloom and motion blue effects, although I turned these off for improved performance and a reduction in fuzziness. I found performance of the game to be quite acceptable considering my somewhat modest system; the game puts the AI procedures on additional CPU cores, taking advantage of multi-core computers. The engine of ArmA II produces visuals that compete with any first person shooter on the market. The game continues the uneven audio package of previous games. The most noticeable new feature in the sound department is the realistic clanging (for lack of a better word) of equipment as you run: it actually sounds like you are loaded down with gear. We still have the sonic boom “pop” of rounds as they fly by (a feature I am surprised more games haven't stolen) and realistic weapon effects, but the voice acting is where ArmA II still lags behind the curve. The scripted character speech ranges from “tolerable” to “forced,” but dynamically generated speech still suffers from the dreaded robotic effect: ENEMY...MAN...FRONT!! This area of the game always seems to get the lowest priority, as it was a problem when Operation Flashpoint came out eight years ago. In addition, the music is a quite silly arrangement of generic rock tunes and feels completely out of place in an otherwise serious game. Despite the subpar audio, the graphics deliver enough quality to compensate.
ET AL.
The United States Military, because it has nothing better to do, assists anti-Communist forces in a foreign land (yeah, like that would ever happen). You are one of those Marines, and over the course of the eight mission campaign, you will transition from lowly foot soldier to commanding an entire army. Don't let the small number of scenarios fool you: most missions contain a copious amount of objectives that can be completed in any order, giving the player a lot of freedom to decide how to act. ArmA II is a lot more freeform than most (all?) first person shooters: as long as you satisfy the goals, it's doesn't matter how you do it. This large amount of player freedom does get the game into trouble on occasion, with important events that do not trigger and essentially break your progress (frustrating after a multiple-hour mission). The game does a good job slowly growing your power, introducing a new aspect of warfare to command, eventually allowing you to construct forward bases and order squads of infantry and armor around to do the killing for you. You will also commonly have optional secondary objectives that impact future choices, information, and supplies. The game also has a number of different endings, depending on how effective you are in the last couple of missions. ArmA II also has frequent automatic saves, important in a game where one shot can kill you. The difficult and realism settings affect friendly and enemy on-screen tage, the amount of information contained on the HUD, the lethality of the enemy AI (from “very competent” to “insanely accurate”, and whether you automatically report the location of enemy units (despite the fact that you might not actually see them yourself). While I usually do not care much for the single-player campaign in first person shooters, playing through Harvest Red in ArmA II was a fun experience thanks to the amount of freedom granted to the player.
After you are done with the campaign, you can play through the seven stand-alone scenarios, which offer the same intense combat of the campaign with a bit more scripting. The armory mini-games also make a return, giving you the opportunity to use any of the game's weapons and vehicles in a variety of activities, like races and defensive maneuvers. You haven't lived until you have “driven” a goat through an obstacle course. The game's eight tutorials cover the basics of all the components of the game and provide a good introduction. ArmA II has the same editor as before, which is a very good thing. A fully-functional mission is quite literally minutes away, as a couple of clicks can produce a simple but fun scenario. It's a powerful tool that takes advantage of the huge amount of terrain you have to deal with. Multiplayer is improved, with much faster connection times: it took me a couple of minutes to get into a game before, but now the transition takes less than a minute. I have also experience acceptably smooth online performance, even while playing on servers that are located in Europe. There are some fun custom scenarios (both competitive and cooperative) people have edited online, and if you don't have it, it will be downloaded automatically. I was quite satisfied with the online experience. If you do decide to take on human opponents, get ready to hyper-realistic rules and cooperative play. Despite the fact that you can use the wizard to create a functional deathmatch, detector (last man standing), capture the flag, or sector control scenario in a minute, almost every server uses cooperative scenarios. Those wacky Europeans sure like their co-op.
The theme of the day is “realism,” and that starts with the infantry. You'll notice the lack of a “jump” button (the developer argues that real military folk can't jump when weighed down with equipment), but you do get to “step over” low fencing, of which there is a large amount (I think to make you use the step over command). You certainly can't shoot while running, and accuracy is drastically improved when going prone. Unfortunately, you usually can't see anything while prone (somebody serious needs to mow Chernarus), so finding a proper position is important. The game features realistic ballistics for each weapon, creating some intense encounters with the enemy. You'll have to move in a smart manner, as concealment is not cover (a bush will not stop bullets) and fatigue (caused by running for a while) makes you less accurate and run slower. In addition, you suffer from blurred vision while being supressed, and since death is quick, you must play smart. New for ArmA II is the ability to heal wounded troops and drag or carry them to safety. It's a little gimmicky, but fun. ArmA II features an impressive collection of real-world weapons, from pistols and assault rifles to machine guns and sniper rifles. And don't forget the animals: who needs to tip over cows when you can shoot them with a high-powered rifle? ArmA II also gives you a complete assortment of hardware to drive or fly: jeeps, APCs, tanks, helicopters, and jets. Controls are much the same as before: iffy. While the infantry controls are spot-on, vehicle control has always been less impressive: vehicles turn too drastically at low speeds, resulting in a lot of collisions. Although jets and helicopters are simplified for a keyboard control scheme, using a joystick is highly recommended for better precision. You can always let someone else pilot the choppers and call in air support to eliminate pesky enemy units.
You will quickly ascend up the command ladder during the campaign and be responsible for ordering around subordinate units. ArmA II includes the complex command interface from before: select a unit and go through a menu system to give move, target, engage, mount, action, formation, or team orders. In addition, you can hold spacebar to give orders based on what you are aiming at (like mounting a vehicle or engaging an enemy unit). Having both methods is nice, as you give quick instructions on the fly and more detailed orders if you desire. ArmA II eventually lets you play like a real time strategy game, ordering squads around and building base structures. While this aspect of the game is obviously not as fleshed out as a “real” RTS, it's a nice enough diversion and gives you (again) more freedom to approach a mission in different ways.
The much maligned AI has gotten generally better in ArmA II. Given the open nature of the game, I am willing to give a little leeway regarding how smart the AI is. We still get the occasional bad driver (tanks getting stuck, helicopters running into things), but, in general, it's not the idiot fest that ArmA I was. The AI will actively seek cover (the advertised “micro-AI”), and this goes both ways, as you can sneak up to AI units if you are quiet and smart. Since the AI will use supressive fire, it's important to be behind solid objects during combat. The AI is getting progressively better with each patch, but since deaths by AI allies can fail a mission, it can still be quite frustrating dealing with less than competent squad members. Adding to the overall difficulty of ArmA II is the fact that it can be difficult to differentiate between enemy and friendly troops, especially on higher realism settings. This game is really intended for veteran FPS players, although I suspect anyone looking for an unflinchingly realistic experience will find a grand, gritty time in ArmA II.
IN CLOSING
ArmA II is more engaging and polished than its predecessors (although you could argue that being more polished than ArmA I doesn't require much of an improvement). The graphics are quite fantastic all around: Chernarus is a great setting filled with lots of subtle touches to create plausible surroundings. The open-ended campaign gives the user enough freedom to tackle large missions with multiple objectives in varied fashions as a member of an infantry squad all the way up to the commander of an entire army. The gameplay is brutally realistic: there is no “bunny hopping” or health packs here (although being healed by allies sort-of counts). The auxiliary scenarios and sandbox armory missions involving every unit in the game round out a nice package. Multiplayer is more streamlined with faster connection times, and the editor is simple to use and can create some impressive results. Vehicle control is not as solid as the infantry portion of ArmA II and can't compete with more dedicated flight or tank simulations. ArmA II gives you the tools to command squads and entire armies, using the robust (but potentially confusing) complete interface or quick, point-and-click context-sensitive orders. The AI is improved but not perfect: for every exhilarating battle that involves computer-controller soldiers successfully using cover, you have a tank getting stuck on a house or a helicopter pilot that lands sideways. These kinds of bugs are annoying and they are plentiful enough to definitely be noticeable, but I think fans of this series of games are willing to forgive some inconsistencies because the game as a whole is so stirring. Plus, recent patches are making improvements, and hopefully the developers will continue to improve the problems with the game. ArmA II is better off when released than ArmA I was, so the large contingent of gamers looking for a realistic military simulation should not be disappointed.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Delta Force Xtreme 2 Review
Delta Force Xtreme 2, developed and published by NovaLogic.
The Good: New maps and a map editor, online stat tracking, cooperative multiplayer, several game modes
The Not So Good: Tired shooter mechanics, uninteresting and short single player campaign with brain-dead AI, old graphics with poor textures, no significant improvements from the original
What say you? E“xtreme”ly outdated, this first person shooter's numerous archaic properties have not aged well nor changed at all: 3/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Remember when Novalogic's games were innovative tactical titles? Oh, and those voxels were spectacular. Too bad it’s not 1998, because here we are 11 years later with the latest iteration of the once-proud Delta Force franchise. The last decent title in the series was probably Black Hawk Down, and I had logged extensive play time in Land Warrior (birthday present, I believe). This time, we are takin’ it to the XTREME once more with the aptly-named Delta Force Xtreme 2, sequel to a the original XTREME title that came out four years ago. I swear I played Delta Force Xtreme, although it might have just been the demo. Anyway, four years is long enough to allow for including significantly improved content to further develop the game towards full potential. Right? Maybe not.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
One area that has gotten absolutely no improvement is the graphics. Delta Force Xtreme 2 features what I would say are identical textures, models, and effects when you compare it against the original, four-year-old game. That’s quite a bold choice for the developer, eschewing “logic” and convention by not actually making the game look any better. When the Novalogic games were voxel-based, they has a sort of unique appeal to them, but once they joined the rest of the world in pixel-based 3-D land, washed-out and bland textures became the story and Delta Force Xtreme 2 is no different: the game world here lacks detail in every area. Considering that the original game was graphically outdated when it came out four years ago, you can imagine the shortcomings we have to endure this time around. The area that needs the most work is the textures: nothing in the game has any crispness or detail. You would think this might be an easy thing to update (just change some graphics files), but I guess “effort” was not part of the equation when developing Delta Force Xtreme 2. It doesn’t stop there, either: player models are blocky, weapons look horrible, and locations and environments lack any sense of realism. About the only “neat” aspect of the game is the blinding sunlight, but this is the only unique feature of an otherwise awful graphics package. The sound design (as you might expect) holds up better: the campaigns have voiced introductions and the weapons are convincing, and that’s all you really need in a first person shooter. Unfortunately for Delta Force Xtreme 2, having outdated graphics is more of an issue for a first person shooter.
ET AL.
You get an extremely strong case of déjà vu while playing Delta Force Xtreme 2, mainly because it’s the same four-year-old game repackaged with a handful of new maps and missions. The remainder of the game is identical to the original title, which is a sad, sad thing, especially because Delta Force Xtreme 2 is priced at $30 (at least twice what it should be). If you have or played the original game, you can probably stop reading here (if you haven’t already) and safely go back to Delta Force Xtreme 1 (along with the two other people that still play that game) with no regrets. For the rest of you dedicated readers (all three of you!), here’s what you get in Delta Force Xtreme 2.
First off, you get two, count ‘em, two single player campaigns with ten missions…total. You can play with up to four other people cooperatively online, but there is really no point, as the campaign missions are bland, predictable, and more linear than the open nature of the game should warrant. Missions do take place in wide-open, outdoor environments, so you are given a bit of leeway in determining the best course of action: Delta Force Xtreme 2 is not as restricted as more linear first person shooters. That said, the campaigns are not interesting in the least thanks to idiotic AI: enemies are in scripted locations and rarely react to being shot at, do not use cover effectively (or at all), and generally behave like total morons. The only thing they have going for them is numerical superiority, and this is the only thing that makes Delta Force Xtreme 2 challenging at all. I suspect most people will spend their time with the multiplayer portions of the game, and we get a complete retread of past features: five game modes (deathmatch, team deathmatch, team king of the hill, capture the flag, and flagball) and high player counts (the game can support 150 players supposedly, but I never found more than 20 on a single server). A “gold” subscription ($5/month) to the NovaWorld service (included for a month with the purchase of Delta Force Xtreme 2) will also track your online stats, something that most online shooters offer for free. Delta Force Xtreme 2 also features more maps (40 total) with “highly detailed” terrain. I can’t tell the difference between the “new” and “old” maps, so the “highly detailed” terrain must not be that significant. We also have a map editor to make even more content; always a good thing.
Delta Force Xtreme 2 features weapons that any good military organization would have access to: assault rifles, machine guns, sub machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, and explosives. There is a good number to choose from, but they change little in behavior or strategy. I had just as much success using a machine gun as an unscoped assault rifle, so it’s really a matter of preference as to which specific weapon you’d like to shoot people with. It should also be noted that all of the weapons were (again) the same as in the previous game. Delta Force Xtreme 2 also lets you handle some vehicles, a novel feature if it was 2002. Unfortunately, the vehicles handle like arcade garbage: there is no sense of driving along the ground, rather you are floating above it. This is most noticeable driving a jeep on uneven terrain, where you rarely bounce around or have any difficulty adhering to the ground. Plus, the selection of helicopters, APCs, tanks, motorcycles, and jeeps have all been seen before in much better games. Delta Force Xtreme 2 maintains its balance of tactical arcade play. It’s not terrible, but it’s been the same formula for over a decade (since the original Delta Force) and cracks are starting to show just due to the age of the engine. The little things start to annoy you, like extremely high accuracy while running, and the fact that you can run just as fast going straight up an incline than on flat terrain. Xtreme! One area that definitely needed improvement and didn’t get it was the AI. As I mentioned before, they usually do not react at being shot, usually do not move, and only sometimes return fire. They are cannon fodder rather than an actual opponent, and this makes the single player experience of Delta Force Xtreme 2 completely forgettable. For a game that has several areas that need improvement, the developers have decided to add a couple of maps and leave the deficiencies intact. Xtreme!
IN CLOSING
Delta Force Xtreme 2 is about twice the cost of what it should have been, especially when you consider that the game adds absolutely nothing of note. $30 for a couple of maps? No thanks. Sure, you get a shiny new (I think it’s new, anyway: I don’t recall the original game having one and information on the great Internet is scarce) map editor to add some more content, but Delta Force Xtreme 2 is drastically overpriced for what you get. The game does come with some new content: new maps to bring the total over 40 and a map editor to increase that number even further. You can also play most of the campaign missions cooperatively and there is a good variety of multiplayer game modes, although they were all featured previously. Sadly, this is where the new-ish content stops, as the rest of the game is identical to Delta Force Xtreme. The shooting and ballistics have the same arcade-simulation feel that has been present in the series from day one, so there is nothing innovative there, despite it being not necessarily “bad.” The campaign only consists of ten missions and features terrible, dumb AI that is only challenging in large numbers. The graphics have undergone no noticeable overhaul, an important feature of the usually eye candy rich first person shooter genre. In short, playing Delta Force Xtreme 2 is like playing Delta Force Xtreme 1, and I can’t justify paying $30 to do the same thing over again.
The Good: New maps and a map editor, online stat tracking, cooperative multiplayer, several game modes
The Not So Good: Tired shooter mechanics, uninteresting and short single player campaign with brain-dead AI, old graphics with poor textures, no significant improvements from the original
What say you? E“xtreme”ly outdated, this first person shooter's numerous archaic properties have not aged well nor changed at all: 3/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Remember when Novalogic's games were innovative tactical titles? Oh, and those voxels were spectacular. Too bad it’s not 1998, because here we are 11 years later with the latest iteration of the once-proud Delta Force franchise. The last decent title in the series was probably Black Hawk Down, and I had logged extensive play time in Land Warrior (birthday present, I believe). This time, we are takin’ it to the XTREME once more with the aptly-named Delta Force Xtreme 2, sequel to a the original XTREME title that came out four years ago. I swear I played Delta Force Xtreme, although it might have just been the demo. Anyway, four years is long enough to allow for including significantly improved content to further develop the game towards full potential. Right? Maybe not.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
One area that has gotten absolutely no improvement is the graphics. Delta Force Xtreme 2 features what I would say are identical textures, models, and effects when you compare it against the original, four-year-old game. That’s quite a bold choice for the developer, eschewing “logic” and convention by not actually making the game look any better. When the Novalogic games were voxel-based, they has a sort of unique appeal to them, but once they joined the rest of the world in pixel-based 3-D land, washed-out and bland textures became the story and Delta Force Xtreme 2 is no different: the game world here lacks detail in every area. Considering that the original game was graphically outdated when it came out four years ago, you can imagine the shortcomings we have to endure this time around. The area that needs the most work is the textures: nothing in the game has any crispness or detail. You would think this might be an easy thing to update (just change some graphics files), but I guess “effort” was not part of the equation when developing Delta Force Xtreme 2. It doesn’t stop there, either: player models are blocky, weapons look horrible, and locations and environments lack any sense of realism. About the only “neat” aspect of the game is the blinding sunlight, but this is the only unique feature of an otherwise awful graphics package. The sound design (as you might expect) holds up better: the campaigns have voiced introductions and the weapons are convincing, and that’s all you really need in a first person shooter. Unfortunately for Delta Force Xtreme 2, having outdated graphics is more of an issue for a first person shooter.
ET AL.
You get an extremely strong case of déjà vu while playing Delta Force Xtreme 2, mainly because it’s the same four-year-old game repackaged with a handful of new maps and missions. The remainder of the game is identical to the original title, which is a sad, sad thing, especially because Delta Force Xtreme 2 is priced at $30 (at least twice what it should be). If you have or played the original game, you can probably stop reading here (if you haven’t already) and safely go back to Delta Force Xtreme 1 (along with the two other people that still play that game) with no regrets. For the rest of you dedicated readers (all three of you!), here’s what you get in Delta Force Xtreme 2.
First off, you get two, count ‘em, two single player campaigns with ten missions…total. You can play with up to four other people cooperatively online, but there is really no point, as the campaign missions are bland, predictable, and more linear than the open nature of the game should warrant. Missions do take place in wide-open, outdoor environments, so you are given a bit of leeway in determining the best course of action: Delta Force Xtreme 2 is not as restricted as more linear first person shooters. That said, the campaigns are not interesting in the least thanks to idiotic AI: enemies are in scripted locations and rarely react to being shot at, do not use cover effectively (or at all), and generally behave like total morons. The only thing they have going for them is numerical superiority, and this is the only thing that makes Delta Force Xtreme 2 challenging at all. I suspect most people will spend their time with the multiplayer portions of the game, and we get a complete retread of past features: five game modes (deathmatch, team deathmatch, team king of the hill, capture the flag, and flagball) and high player counts (the game can support 150 players supposedly, but I never found more than 20 on a single server). A “gold” subscription ($5/month) to the NovaWorld service (included for a month with the purchase of Delta Force Xtreme 2) will also track your online stats, something that most online shooters offer for free. Delta Force Xtreme 2 also features more maps (40 total) with “highly detailed” terrain. I can’t tell the difference between the “new” and “old” maps, so the “highly detailed” terrain must not be that significant. We also have a map editor to make even more content; always a good thing.
Delta Force Xtreme 2 features weapons that any good military organization would have access to: assault rifles, machine guns, sub machine guns, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, and explosives. There is a good number to choose from, but they change little in behavior or strategy. I had just as much success using a machine gun as an unscoped assault rifle, so it’s really a matter of preference as to which specific weapon you’d like to shoot people with. It should also be noted that all of the weapons were (again) the same as in the previous game. Delta Force Xtreme 2 also lets you handle some vehicles, a novel feature if it was 2002. Unfortunately, the vehicles handle like arcade garbage: there is no sense of driving along the ground, rather you are floating above it. This is most noticeable driving a jeep on uneven terrain, where you rarely bounce around or have any difficulty adhering to the ground. Plus, the selection of helicopters, APCs, tanks, motorcycles, and jeeps have all been seen before in much better games. Delta Force Xtreme 2 maintains its balance of tactical arcade play. It’s not terrible, but it’s been the same formula for over a decade (since the original Delta Force) and cracks are starting to show just due to the age of the engine. The little things start to annoy you, like extremely high accuracy while running, and the fact that you can run just as fast going straight up an incline than on flat terrain. Xtreme! One area that definitely needed improvement and didn’t get it was the AI. As I mentioned before, they usually do not react at being shot, usually do not move, and only sometimes return fire. They are cannon fodder rather than an actual opponent, and this makes the single player experience of Delta Force Xtreme 2 completely forgettable. For a game that has several areas that need improvement, the developers have decided to add a couple of maps and leave the deficiencies intact. Xtreme!
IN CLOSING
Delta Force Xtreme 2 is about twice the cost of what it should have been, especially when you consider that the game adds absolutely nothing of note. $30 for a couple of maps? No thanks. Sure, you get a shiny new (I think it’s new, anyway: I don’t recall the original game having one and information on the great Internet is scarce) map editor to add some more content, but Delta Force Xtreme 2 is drastically overpriced for what you get. The game does come with some new content: new maps to bring the total over 40 and a map editor to increase that number even further. You can also play most of the campaign missions cooperatively and there is a good variety of multiplayer game modes, although they were all featured previously. Sadly, this is where the new-ish content stops, as the rest of the game is identical to Delta Force Xtreme. The shooting and ballistics have the same arcade-simulation feel that has been present in the series from day one, so there is nothing innovative there, despite it being not necessarily “bad.” The campaign only consists of ten missions and features terrible, dumb AI that is only challenging in large numbers. The graphics have undergone no noticeable overhaul, an important feature of the usually eye candy rich first person shooter genre. In short, playing Delta Force Xtreme 2 is like playing Delta Force Xtreme 1, and I can’t justify paying $30 to do the same thing over again.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 Review
Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943, developed by 1C Company and published by Battlefront.com.
The Good: Realistic large battles, map editor included
The Not So Good: Horribly inadequate user interface, sub-par AI, only fifteen missions in nine unique locations, poor performance
What say you? A disappointing step backwards for this limited sequel: 5/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Apparently, there was this war in the 1940s known as World War II (or, as it is more commonly called, The Really Big Civil War 2: War Harder). I know; I had never heard of it either. Good thing there are computer games to keep us informed. From Russia, glorious land of PC development, comes Theatre of War 2, sequel to (surprise!) Theatre of War, a good RTS from two years ago. Taking the action to the neglected theater (that's the correct spelling, people) of North Africa, how does Theatre of War 2 improve upon the original game?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Maybe it’s because it’s two years later, maybe it’s because of the setting, or maybe it’s because it’s using a different graphics engine, but Theatre of War 2 actually looks worse than the original game. The combination of bland desert environments, jaggy buildings, and poorly animated units makes Theatre of War 2 much less visually impressive than the original game when it came out. What has most likely happened is that other RTS games, such as Men of War, has left Theatre of War 2 behind. In addition, the setting here (the deserts of Northern Africa) are really not suited for the game’s engine; green is just as repetitive a color as yellow, but the maps of Theatre of War 1 featured a lot more variety in the form of roads, trees, and buildings. The well-done backgrounds of the original game also strikingly joined with the foregrounds, an effect lost in the monotonous deserts of Africa that are not very exciting to look at. The bland, washed-out textures make indistinguishable, poorly detailed terrain as well. In addition, the game engine doesn’t handle the large battles common in the game well, with frequent slow-downs and poor performance on machines that should easily handle the increased amount of action. The sound design is average for a strategy game: the voice acting is not as noticeably repetitive as in other Russian imports and the weapon and special effects do the job. While the sound design holds up, the graphics of Theatre of War 2 have clearly been left in the dust.
ET AL.
I’ve never understood how you can make a sequel that’s inferior to the original game, but Theatre of War 2 offers a crash course in this paradox. How so, you ask? Well, start out with a small amount of missions: fifteen scattered across three campaigns (one for each of the major sides blowing stuff up in North Africa). But it’s not fifteen unique missions: the missions repeat, as you will replay the same one from the other side. There are only eight unique missions in the entire game; I guess the developers are relying on some robust community work with the editor. Let’s compare to the original game, which had almost fifty missions in both campaign and stand-alone varieties (all of the missions in Theatre of War 2 are campaign-only, although you can play them singly after you have beaten them). That’s three to four times less content. Seriously? There’s not any incentive to play them again, either: the difficulty levels simply tweak the amount of damage you give and receive, rather than introducing a different, more complex scenario. Before each mission, you can customize the order of battle and choose (to an extent) which troops to bring into battle. The battles are large where you normally control only a fraction of the total units, an increasingly more common approach to realistic RTS games. Theatre of War 2 also has multiplayer features on ten maps, although the servers are not populated and the browser didn’t even work until I patched the game. Nice.
Theatre of War 2 has gotten an interface overhaul, and it’s an epic fail. This is thanks to a couple of limitations, the first being the mini-map. It has decreased in size so much that you can’t see anything but a chaotic arrangement of dots. The hand-drawn minimap used previously worked fine and dandy, but now you can’t usually see objective locations, leading to a lot of confusion. You essentially must use the tactical map, which (of course) takes up the entire screen, obscuring your view of the battlefield. You will get journal entries (really just event messages) about your units, but you cannot click on them to focus on that particular unit. So why even have them? Like I know where “Bob Smith” is located. Speaking of names, Theatre of War 2 will automatically pause every time a unit dies. Considering that most missions have hundreds of units, this insane “feature” gets highly annoying. I have no idea what the developers were thinking. You can turn off the “feature” if you patch the game, but its inclusion is still completely idiotic. Units can be issued common RTS orders: area fire, assault, ambush, scout, defend, smoke, stance, and behavior, just to name a few. Formations in the game are also highly useless: you can choose from a single column where everyone is in one giant line, or a line consisting of one row. Genius! Even the wedge formation is just a single line with a ninety-degree angle in the middle. This means lassoing a bunch of units and issuing a move order is pointless, since they will arrange themselves in some idiotic configuration.
Theatre of War 2 contains the same core gameplay that was present before, and a lot of it is fun realism. Containing realistic ballistics, damage, morale, ammunition counts, and powerful backup like air support, fighting in the game is quite fun if the auxiliary features didn’t get in the way. Of course, all of this was available two years ago and it’s also present in many other World War II strategy games. Theatre of War 2 contains accurate units from the time period with stats for health, armor, and weapon penetration (sounds dirty!). Each infantryman is rated in four areas (accuracy, scouting, driving, gunner), and their skills can be increased between missions as they gain more experience. There is nothing terribly innovative here, though, now that pretty much every decent realistic strategy game has the same features.
The AI is not as polished as I would have expected in a sequel. The game does not suffer from the foolhardy pathfinding of the original game, but it is still hit-or-miss sometimes, especially for enemy units and when you factor in the horrible formations. Enemy troops have problems traversing large distances, so any mission where they are attacking is typically very poorly organized with a constant trickle of troops not significant enough to penetrate your defenses. Friendly units behave intelligently enough, automatically engaging the enemy under most (but certainly not all) circumstances. Using good tactics will typically keep most of your troops alive. Troops will scout for cover and fire automatically on the enemy (unless explicitly told not to do so), which makes controlling a large number of units a more manageable situation. Unfortunately, the setting for Theatre of War 2 makes for some less-than-interesting battles: except for the urban areas, most maps have plentiful open spaces devoid of any amount of cover, eliminating a lot of the tactics seen in more diverse locations.
IN CLOSING
Theatre of War 2 is a game that improves nothing from the original and actually turns out worse. Both of the quality aspects of the game, the core gameplay and the map editor, were present the first time around. While the heart of Theatre of War 2 features some nice tactical gaming, all of the ancillary materials stink. First is the unusable interface, from the futile tiny minimap to the constant pausing whenever a soldier dies. Before the first patch, you couldn't even turn off this “feature.” How annoying it is, considering the large-sized battles Theatre of War 2 offers. Your AI opponent can’t handle large-scale attacks, providing only a small dribble of enemies that will easily be defeated. Not that you’ll be playing Theatre of War 2 for long, since the game comes with only a fraction (namely 1/3) of the content the original game had, and it even repeats a lot of the same missions over again for each side. Multiplayer is not a popular venture, either, so the life span of Theatre of War 2 is quite short, a death sentence for a game in a genre where replay value reigns supreme. Finally, the bland textures, repetitive environments, and underwhelming animations don’t even run smoothly during large battles. North Africa may be an ignored theatre of war, and it should continue to be so.
The Good: Realistic large battles, map editor included
The Not So Good: Horribly inadequate user interface, sub-par AI, only fifteen missions in nine unique locations, poor performance
What say you? A disappointing step backwards for this limited sequel: 5/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Apparently, there was this war in the 1940s known as World War II (or, as it is more commonly called, The Really Big Civil War 2: War Harder). I know; I had never heard of it either. Good thing there are computer games to keep us informed. From Russia, glorious land of PC development, comes Theatre of War 2, sequel to (surprise!) Theatre of War, a good RTS from two years ago. Taking the action to the neglected theater (that's the correct spelling, people) of North Africa, how does Theatre of War 2 improve upon the original game?
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Maybe it’s because it’s two years later, maybe it’s because of the setting, or maybe it’s because it’s using a different graphics engine, but Theatre of War 2 actually looks worse than the original game. The combination of bland desert environments, jaggy buildings, and poorly animated units makes Theatre of War 2 much less visually impressive than the original game when it came out. What has most likely happened is that other RTS games, such as Men of War, has left Theatre of War 2 behind. In addition, the setting here (the deserts of Northern Africa) are really not suited for the game’s engine; green is just as repetitive a color as yellow, but the maps of Theatre of War 1 featured a lot more variety in the form of roads, trees, and buildings. The well-done backgrounds of the original game also strikingly joined with the foregrounds, an effect lost in the monotonous deserts of Africa that are not very exciting to look at. The bland, washed-out textures make indistinguishable, poorly detailed terrain as well. In addition, the game engine doesn’t handle the large battles common in the game well, with frequent slow-downs and poor performance on machines that should easily handle the increased amount of action. The sound design is average for a strategy game: the voice acting is not as noticeably repetitive as in other Russian imports and the weapon and special effects do the job. While the sound design holds up, the graphics of Theatre of War 2 have clearly been left in the dust.
ET AL.
I’ve never understood how you can make a sequel that’s inferior to the original game, but Theatre of War 2 offers a crash course in this paradox. How so, you ask? Well, start out with a small amount of missions: fifteen scattered across three campaigns (one for each of the major sides blowing stuff up in North Africa). But it’s not fifteen unique missions: the missions repeat, as you will replay the same one from the other side. There are only eight unique missions in the entire game; I guess the developers are relying on some robust community work with the editor. Let’s compare to the original game, which had almost fifty missions in both campaign and stand-alone varieties (all of the missions in Theatre of War 2 are campaign-only, although you can play them singly after you have beaten them). That’s three to four times less content. Seriously? There’s not any incentive to play them again, either: the difficulty levels simply tweak the amount of damage you give and receive, rather than introducing a different, more complex scenario. Before each mission, you can customize the order of battle and choose (to an extent) which troops to bring into battle. The battles are large where you normally control only a fraction of the total units, an increasingly more common approach to realistic RTS games. Theatre of War 2 also has multiplayer features on ten maps, although the servers are not populated and the browser didn’t even work until I patched the game. Nice.
Theatre of War 2 has gotten an interface overhaul, and it’s an epic fail. This is thanks to a couple of limitations, the first being the mini-map. It has decreased in size so much that you can’t see anything but a chaotic arrangement of dots. The hand-drawn minimap used previously worked fine and dandy, but now you can’t usually see objective locations, leading to a lot of confusion. You essentially must use the tactical map, which (of course) takes up the entire screen, obscuring your view of the battlefield. You will get journal entries (really just event messages) about your units, but you cannot click on them to focus on that particular unit. So why even have them? Like I know where “Bob Smith” is located. Speaking of names, Theatre of War 2 will automatically pause every time a unit dies. Considering that most missions have hundreds of units, this insane “feature” gets highly annoying. I have no idea what the developers were thinking. You can turn off the “feature” if you patch the game, but its inclusion is still completely idiotic. Units can be issued common RTS orders: area fire, assault, ambush, scout, defend, smoke, stance, and behavior, just to name a few. Formations in the game are also highly useless: you can choose from a single column where everyone is in one giant line, or a line consisting of one row. Genius! Even the wedge formation is just a single line with a ninety-degree angle in the middle. This means lassoing a bunch of units and issuing a move order is pointless, since they will arrange themselves in some idiotic configuration.
Theatre of War 2 contains the same core gameplay that was present before, and a lot of it is fun realism. Containing realistic ballistics, damage, morale, ammunition counts, and powerful backup like air support, fighting in the game is quite fun if the auxiliary features didn’t get in the way. Of course, all of this was available two years ago and it’s also present in many other World War II strategy games. Theatre of War 2 contains accurate units from the time period with stats for health, armor, and weapon penetration (sounds dirty!). Each infantryman is rated in four areas (accuracy, scouting, driving, gunner), and their skills can be increased between missions as they gain more experience. There is nothing terribly innovative here, though, now that pretty much every decent realistic strategy game has the same features.
The AI is not as polished as I would have expected in a sequel. The game does not suffer from the foolhardy pathfinding of the original game, but it is still hit-or-miss sometimes, especially for enemy units and when you factor in the horrible formations. Enemy troops have problems traversing large distances, so any mission where they are attacking is typically very poorly organized with a constant trickle of troops not significant enough to penetrate your defenses. Friendly units behave intelligently enough, automatically engaging the enemy under most (but certainly not all) circumstances. Using good tactics will typically keep most of your troops alive. Troops will scout for cover and fire automatically on the enemy (unless explicitly told not to do so), which makes controlling a large number of units a more manageable situation. Unfortunately, the setting for Theatre of War 2 makes for some less-than-interesting battles: except for the urban areas, most maps have plentiful open spaces devoid of any amount of cover, eliminating a lot of the tactics seen in more diverse locations.
IN CLOSING
Theatre of War 2 is a game that improves nothing from the original and actually turns out worse. Both of the quality aspects of the game, the core gameplay and the map editor, were present the first time around. While the heart of Theatre of War 2 features some nice tactical gaming, all of the ancillary materials stink. First is the unusable interface, from the futile tiny minimap to the constant pausing whenever a soldier dies. Before the first patch, you couldn't even turn off this “feature.” How annoying it is, considering the large-sized battles Theatre of War 2 offers. Your AI opponent can’t handle large-scale attacks, providing only a small dribble of enemies that will easily be defeated. Not that you’ll be playing Theatre of War 2 for long, since the game comes with only a fraction (namely 1/3) of the content the original game had, and it even repeats a lot of the same missions over again for each side. Multiplayer is not a popular venture, either, so the life span of Theatre of War 2 is quite short, a death sentence for a game in a genre where replay value reigns supreme. Finally, the bland textures, repetitive environments, and underwhelming animations don’t even run smoothly during large battles. North Africa may be an ignored theatre of war, and it should continue to be so.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
AI War: Fleet Command Review
AI War: Fleet Command, developed and published by Arcen Games.
The Good: Challenging and multifaceted AI that increases in difficulty as you become more powerful, extremely large battles with lots of varied units that promote strategic variety, ample interface designed to handle a large scale, procedurally generated campaign maps, cooperative campaigns over a LAN
The Not So Good: Long match lengths on huge maps with a slow pace, no Internet server browser
What say you? A deep cooperative real time strategy game for veterans of the genre: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Hey look! Another space strategy game! Yes, I might be able to officially change the name of this site to Out of Eight Space Strategy Game Reviews, although then I would miss out on playing some truly awesome games. Our bi-monthly (it seems) space RTS comes to us this time in the form of AI War: Fleet Command, a game where you command a fleet in a war against the AI. I know, they could have made the title of the game more clear. Here the focus is on engaging the incoming AI hordes and taking over their planets, mainly because they lack table manners and smell funny (so, they are Irish, then (please direct all hate mail here)). Needlessly insulting cultures aside, this game has a couple of unique features that might be intriguing to the strategy gamers among us, namely the AI and the large unit counts. How does AI War stack up? Good thing I am about to tell you!
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Although AI War is a 2-D game, the graphics have features of three dimensions in them that is especially noticeable when you pan the camera. It’s a weird change in perspective as the foreground moves more than the background does, but the result is a more visually stimulating package than a strictly 2-D space game. Unit icons are in 2-D, however, and they are small but show slight variations in designs of the same kind and some of the more exotic ships have some neat blueprints. Even when fully zoomed in, though, things are still quite small, so you’ll be starting at a gigantic mass of icons most of the time. This also means that the visuals for battles are understated, with small pixels for each weapon type, although the missiles have a nice smoke trail effect. Still, nobody will confuse AI War with a higher budget space strategy title. The sound design consists of battles that sound like extremely small fireworks are going off and a classical music arrangement to accompany your mass xenocide. None of the tutorial instructions are voiced, but I didn’t really expect them to be. Overall, AI War is a slight step above your typical independent space-based strategy game in terms of graphics and sound.
ET AL.
AI War is a real time strategy game where you and (hopefully) a couple of friends take on an enemy force. Despite this focus on cooperative play, AI War does feature Internet-based play (using a known IP address) in addition to local area network gaming. This means you need actual friends in order to enjoy AI War to its fullest, as the game lacks multiplayer matchmaking. Now, I doubt that AI War would ever have the audience required to have constant ongoing online matches (especially considering the long game lengths) to warrant a server browser, but you can theoretically meet people on message board and subsequently play with them (common in the wargaming community). AI War does allow you to save your progress and resume at a later date, so you don’t have to complete the typically fifteen-hour-long matches in one session. AI War has procedurally generated random maps (over 13 billion combinations! Count them all!) that offer enough variety and mystery to keep you interested in subsequent games. Unfortunately, you are not given a lot of leeway in deciding how large your universe will be: the smallest galaxy size consists of forty planets. At least Sins of a Solar Empire let you have small maps in addition to the disturbingly large offerings, but AI War arbitrarily restricts you to large maps and long games. The objective of each game is the same: eliminate the AI from the map. This can obviously take quite a while with the large map sizes, so expect one complete game to last on the order of fifteen hours. Games also include secondary objectives that are completely unnecessary: of course you are going to steal alien technologies and attack planets. The game has a set of tutorials that teach the basics of the genre and an intermediate campaign that takes place on a smaller, ten planet map; AI War does not come with a manual, but the in-game help is extensive enough for strategy veterans.
Because AI War is a large game, having an interface that allows you to access all of your important units and structures. Thankfully, the interface in AI War is almost completely fantastic. There is a list of buildings along the bottom of the screen and a list of units along the right side of the screen. Clicking on an icon in either list selects or zooms in on that particular object: nice. Accessing other planets is also relatively easy using the galaxy map (TAB key), where all of the planet links and a graphical summary of which planets have ships on them are depicted. You can also issue move commands from the galaxy map, provided you have selected your units prior to pressing TAB. The galaxy map does get crowded with a lot of irrational connections between planets, but that’s more of an issue with the map size restriction I stated earlier. You can tag planets with an importance rating, providing a one-glance assessment of adjacent worlds. There are also another couple of nice additional interface features: infinite queues that do not erase when you are short on resources (essential for the high unit counts in the game) and a simple option to have all units travel at the slowest maximum speed of the fleet. AI War could have failed miserably if the interface wasn’t up to the task, but it thankfully is more than sufficient.
The first step to any galactic empire is resource collection, and you have a number to acquire here. All of them are straightforward: metal and crystal (where have I heard of those before?) are mined from asteroids with a clear indication of where they are located on the game map and area minimap by placing a harvester building. Energy comes straight from power plants you build. Knowledge comes from each planet you control, but it is finite so you must expand in order to gain more powerful units. You can also gain control of enemy advanced research stations: getting one of these lets you unlock a new ship class. Knowledge is spent on research, which consists of upgrading existing ships to a better class (from Mark I to Mark IV). There are over twenty classes of ships, including anti-armor, armor, autocannon, bomber, bulletproof fighter, deflectors, electric shuttle, ether jet, eye bot, infiltrator, micro fighter, munitions booster, parasite, sniper, space tank, spider, teleport raider, and vampire claw. You will only get access to ten classes during a single game, which is great from a variety and management standpoint, leading to more strategies and less of a fixed, static build order. A lot of games can feature a large variety of units or customizable ones, but the ships present in AI War do offer a degree of strategic variety rarely matched in the genre. To be fair, most of the types in each class are simply linear upgrades, but the roster of military hardware is nonetheless impressive. Plus, Astro Trains are just plain weird (trains? in space? whatever!). You have a population cap for each unit type, so you do still need those lower level units to be upgraded in order to be effective: you can’t just spam a single effective unit. I don’t know if there is an in-game justification for this limitation, but it doesn’t really matter as it’s an effective mechanic. This does not mean, however, that battles in AI War are small: end-game confrontations can easily number into the tens of thousands, especially if you are playing with a number of human allies. The game seems to do a good job handling all of this at once, taking advantage of dual-core possessors by sticking the AI procedures on the other CPU. You are also given a suite of economic and defensive structures to defend against incoming enemy raids. Since the AI will (usually) predictably spawn from wormholes, you can surround them with an assortment of mines, turrets, and tractor beams.
With a game called AI War, you had better have quality computer opponents, and AI War delivers. You get twenty-six (I can count!) distinct styles of AI, including heavy defender, raider, bomber, stealth, spy, turtle, and planet assault. Each of these will present a different strategic challenge, increasing the replay value of the game as a whole. You can choose specific enemies to combat when you create a new game, but you are also allowed to randomize the choice at a difficulty level to keep you guessing. Unlike most (all?) games in this genre, AI War does not have the AI play by the same rules as you; this unbalanced nature actually works quite well and makes for more interesting gameplay in the end. In this sense, AI War plays more like an enhanced tower defense game, where you must defend yourself against incoming alien raids, although you’ll have to expand and take their planets as well in order to succeed. Doing so introduces the scalable difficulty of AI War: the AI becomes harder based on how much you have beaten them. This means that you will don’t actually want to completely destroy an enemy planet if you don’t need to, as it will motivate the computer opponents to become a more effective foe. AI War is still a difficult game, to be sure, especially if you increase the initial strength of your targets.
There isn’t much micromanaging required in guiding your forces to victory, a good thing considering how many units you’ll be controlling at once. Units will automatically attack incoming enemies, but your troops will not move to bring AI units into range if surrounding ships are attacking: a slight annoyance. In the end, it’s a matter of bringing the right mix and amount of ships to the enemy stronghold in order to take down the typically stout defenses. You can bring along a mobile ship producer to assist with reinforcements, although if you didn’t bring an adequate amount initially, you are screwed anyway. As I have alluded to earlier, AI War is a long, long game. The slow pace of the game involves a significant amount of waiting around for ships to move and things to get build (although the first issue is more significant). You can accelerate the simulation speed (using the + and – keys), but the game is more uncontrollable then, so you are kind of stuck with your fifteen-hour-long games. I don’t think a lot of people will be able to handle the decidedly relaxed pace unless you are accustomed to drawn-out strategy games. I think have smaller maps would be a much more desirable option. The intermediate campaign has only 10 planets, so why can’t I have something between this low extreme and the 40 for the normal campaign? It seems like an arbitrary limitation to me, and it keeps AI War from appealing to a wider audience.
IN CLOSING
Although not for everyone, AI War clearly has enough well-designed features to make it a notable strategy game. The AI types are quite varied, and I like how they become more difficult as you destroy them; this not only introduces an adaptive difficulty level, but also introduces some strategy of not attacking unnecessary AI worlds. A lot of RTS games tout HUGE EPIC BATTLES (this is typically shouted), but AI War does deliver massive encounters that can easily consist of literally tens of thousands of ships. The unwieldiness of controlling this amount of stuff is partially negated by the excellent interface: accessing all of your ships, buildings, and planets is a straightforward process that’s usually one or two clicks away. AI War is really designed for cooperative play, mainly due to the extreme map size; while the game does allow for saving a game and resuming it later, it does not browsing for Internet games, allowing only for direct IP contests and those over LAN. I would also like to be able to adjust the map size to something smaller; some people just don’t have the time to spend fifteen hours conquering forty planets at a minimum. Giving the user more options is always a desirable feature. Because of the large maps and generally slow pace (which can be slightly adjusted, but fifteen hours is fifteen hours), I feel that AI War will ultimately appeal the most to expert strategy gamers. You can speed things up somewhat using the “fast and dangerous” mode, but AI War still offers long games for strategy veterans and those with a lot of time to invest. If you fall into that category, the sheer variety of strategies AI War boasts will draw you in: the twenty ship classes (not types, classes), randomly generated maps, range of defenses, and the diversity of behaviors the AI opponents exhibit mean replay value for this game is quite high. If you can get past the massive nature of the time involved and the size of the game, AI War has enough depth in several areas to satisfy strong strategic cravings.
The Good: Challenging and multifaceted AI that increases in difficulty as you become more powerful, extremely large battles with lots of varied units that promote strategic variety, ample interface designed to handle a large scale, procedurally generated campaign maps, cooperative campaigns over a LAN
The Not So Good: Long match lengths on huge maps with a slow pace, no Internet server browser
What say you? A deep cooperative real time strategy game for veterans of the genre: 6/8
MY POORLY WRITTEN INTRODUCTION
Hey look! Another space strategy game! Yes, I might be able to officially change the name of this site to Out of Eight Space Strategy Game Reviews, although then I would miss out on playing some truly awesome games. Our bi-monthly (it seems) space RTS comes to us this time in the form of AI War: Fleet Command, a game where you command a fleet in a war against the AI. I know, they could have made the title of the game more clear. Here the focus is on engaging the incoming AI hordes and taking over their planets, mainly because they lack table manners and smell funny (so, they are Irish, then (please direct all hate mail here)). Needlessly insulting cultures aside, this game has a couple of unique features that might be intriguing to the strategy gamers among us, namely the AI and the large unit counts. How does AI War stack up? Good thing I am about to tell you!
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Although AI War is a 2-D game, the graphics have features of three dimensions in them that is especially noticeable when you pan the camera. It’s a weird change in perspective as the foreground moves more than the background does, but the result is a more visually stimulating package than a strictly 2-D space game. Unit icons are in 2-D, however, and they are small but show slight variations in designs of the same kind and some of the more exotic ships have some neat blueprints. Even when fully zoomed in, though, things are still quite small, so you’ll be starting at a gigantic mass of icons most of the time. This also means that the visuals for battles are understated, with small pixels for each weapon type, although the missiles have a nice smoke trail effect. Still, nobody will confuse AI War with a higher budget space strategy title. The sound design consists of battles that sound like extremely small fireworks are going off and a classical music arrangement to accompany your mass xenocide. None of the tutorial instructions are voiced, but I didn’t really expect them to be. Overall, AI War is a slight step above your typical independent space-based strategy game in terms of graphics and sound.
ET AL.
AI War is a real time strategy game where you and (hopefully) a couple of friends take on an enemy force. Despite this focus on cooperative play, AI War does feature Internet-based play (using a known IP address) in addition to local area network gaming. This means you need actual friends in order to enjoy AI War to its fullest, as the game lacks multiplayer matchmaking. Now, I doubt that AI War would ever have the audience required to have constant ongoing online matches (especially considering the long game lengths) to warrant a server browser, but you can theoretically meet people on message board and subsequently play with them (common in the wargaming community). AI War does allow you to save your progress and resume at a later date, so you don’t have to complete the typically fifteen-hour-long matches in one session. AI War has procedurally generated random maps (over 13 billion combinations! Count them all!) that offer enough variety and mystery to keep you interested in subsequent games. Unfortunately, you are not given a lot of leeway in deciding how large your universe will be: the smallest galaxy size consists of forty planets. At least Sins of a Solar Empire let you have small maps in addition to the disturbingly large offerings, but AI War arbitrarily restricts you to large maps and long games. The objective of each game is the same: eliminate the AI from the map. This can obviously take quite a while with the large map sizes, so expect one complete game to last on the order of fifteen hours. Games also include secondary objectives that are completely unnecessary: of course you are going to steal alien technologies and attack planets. The game has a set of tutorials that teach the basics of the genre and an intermediate campaign that takes place on a smaller, ten planet map; AI War does not come with a manual, but the in-game help is extensive enough for strategy veterans.
Because AI War is a large game, having an interface that allows you to access all of your important units and structures. Thankfully, the interface in AI War is almost completely fantastic. There is a list of buildings along the bottom of the screen and a list of units along the right side of the screen. Clicking on an icon in either list selects or zooms in on that particular object: nice. Accessing other planets is also relatively easy using the galaxy map (TAB key), where all of the planet links and a graphical summary of which planets have ships on them are depicted. You can also issue move commands from the galaxy map, provided you have selected your units prior to pressing TAB. The galaxy map does get crowded with a lot of irrational connections between planets, but that’s more of an issue with the map size restriction I stated earlier. You can tag planets with an importance rating, providing a one-glance assessment of adjacent worlds. There are also another couple of nice additional interface features: infinite queues that do not erase when you are short on resources (essential for the high unit counts in the game) and a simple option to have all units travel at the slowest maximum speed of the fleet. AI War could have failed miserably if the interface wasn’t up to the task, but it thankfully is more than sufficient.
The first step to any galactic empire is resource collection, and you have a number to acquire here. All of them are straightforward: metal and crystal (where have I heard of those before?) are mined from asteroids with a clear indication of where they are located on the game map and area minimap by placing a harvester building. Energy comes straight from power plants you build. Knowledge comes from each planet you control, but it is finite so you must expand in order to gain more powerful units. You can also gain control of enemy advanced research stations: getting one of these lets you unlock a new ship class. Knowledge is spent on research, which consists of upgrading existing ships to a better class (from Mark I to Mark IV). There are over twenty classes of ships, including anti-armor, armor, autocannon, bomber, bulletproof fighter, deflectors, electric shuttle, ether jet, eye bot, infiltrator, micro fighter, munitions booster, parasite, sniper, space tank, spider, teleport raider, and vampire claw. You will only get access to ten classes during a single game, which is great from a variety and management standpoint, leading to more strategies and less of a fixed, static build order. A lot of games can feature a large variety of units or customizable ones, but the ships present in AI War do offer a degree of strategic variety rarely matched in the genre. To be fair, most of the types in each class are simply linear upgrades, but the roster of military hardware is nonetheless impressive. Plus, Astro Trains are just plain weird (trains? in space? whatever!). You have a population cap for each unit type, so you do still need those lower level units to be upgraded in order to be effective: you can’t just spam a single effective unit. I don’t know if there is an in-game justification for this limitation, but it doesn’t really matter as it’s an effective mechanic. This does not mean, however, that battles in AI War are small: end-game confrontations can easily number into the tens of thousands, especially if you are playing with a number of human allies. The game seems to do a good job handling all of this at once, taking advantage of dual-core possessors by sticking the AI procedures on the other CPU. You are also given a suite of economic and defensive structures to defend against incoming enemy raids. Since the AI will (usually) predictably spawn from wormholes, you can surround them with an assortment of mines, turrets, and tractor beams.
With a game called AI War, you had better have quality computer opponents, and AI War delivers. You get twenty-six (I can count!) distinct styles of AI, including heavy defender, raider, bomber, stealth, spy, turtle, and planet assault. Each of these will present a different strategic challenge, increasing the replay value of the game as a whole. You can choose specific enemies to combat when you create a new game, but you are also allowed to randomize the choice at a difficulty level to keep you guessing. Unlike most (all?) games in this genre, AI War does not have the AI play by the same rules as you; this unbalanced nature actually works quite well and makes for more interesting gameplay in the end. In this sense, AI War plays more like an enhanced tower defense game, where you must defend yourself against incoming alien raids, although you’ll have to expand and take their planets as well in order to succeed. Doing so introduces the scalable difficulty of AI War: the AI becomes harder based on how much you have beaten them. This means that you will don’t actually want to completely destroy an enemy planet if you don’t need to, as it will motivate the computer opponents to become a more effective foe. AI War is still a difficult game, to be sure, especially if you increase the initial strength of your targets.
There isn’t much micromanaging required in guiding your forces to victory, a good thing considering how many units you’ll be controlling at once. Units will automatically attack incoming enemies, but your troops will not move to bring AI units into range if surrounding ships are attacking: a slight annoyance. In the end, it’s a matter of bringing the right mix and amount of ships to the enemy stronghold in order to take down the typically stout defenses. You can bring along a mobile ship producer to assist with reinforcements, although if you didn’t bring an adequate amount initially, you are screwed anyway. As I have alluded to earlier, AI War is a long, long game. The slow pace of the game involves a significant amount of waiting around for ships to move and things to get build (although the first issue is more significant). You can accelerate the simulation speed (using the + and – keys), but the game is more uncontrollable then, so you are kind of stuck with your fifteen-hour-long games. I don’t think a lot of people will be able to handle the decidedly relaxed pace unless you are accustomed to drawn-out strategy games. I think have smaller maps would be a much more desirable option. The intermediate campaign has only 10 planets, so why can’t I have something between this low extreme and the 40 for the normal campaign? It seems like an arbitrary limitation to me, and it keeps AI War from appealing to a wider audience.
IN CLOSING
Although not for everyone, AI War clearly has enough well-designed features to make it a notable strategy game. The AI types are quite varied, and I like how they become more difficult as you destroy them; this not only introduces an adaptive difficulty level, but also introduces some strategy of not attacking unnecessary AI worlds. A lot of RTS games tout HUGE EPIC BATTLES (this is typically shouted), but AI War does deliver massive encounters that can easily consist of literally tens of thousands of ships. The unwieldiness of controlling this amount of stuff is partially negated by the excellent interface: accessing all of your ships, buildings, and planets is a straightforward process that’s usually one or two clicks away. AI War is really designed for cooperative play, mainly due to the extreme map size; while the game does allow for saving a game and resuming it later, it does not browsing for Internet games, allowing only for direct IP contests and those over LAN. I would also like to be able to adjust the map size to something smaller; some people just don’t have the time to spend fifteen hours conquering forty planets at a minimum. Giving the user more options is always a desirable feature. Because of the large maps and generally slow pace (which can be slightly adjusted, but fifteen hours is fifteen hours), I feel that AI War will ultimately appeal the most to expert strategy gamers. You can speed things up somewhat using the “fast and dangerous” mode, but AI War still offers long games for strategy veterans and those with a lot of time to invest. If you fall into that category, the sheer variety of strategies AI War boasts will draw you in: the twenty ship classes (not types, classes), randomly generated maps, range of defenses, and the diversity of behaviors the AI opponents exhibit mean replay value for this game is quite high. If you can get past the massive nature of the time involved and the size of the game, AI War has enough depth in several areas to satisfy strong strategic cravings.
