War...huh... what is it good for?
Over on Vivendi’s stand, amongst many very cool titles, the outstanding game for us has to be World In Conflict. Now this may on the surface look like any other RTS but there’s a lot more to it than just building a squad and gang-rushing the map… a lot more indeed.
Set for release in Spring 2007, World In Conflict is set in the late 80’s at the peak of the Cold War between Russia and the US. But instead of the collapse of the Soviet Union bringing about the world as we know it today, Russia goes on the offensive and invades Europe. NATO responds with force to then have the Russians open up a second front, advancing into the US through Canada!
Click for larger imageSo that’s the back story… but what is it that makes World In Conflict any different from any one of the other RTS games on show here? Well, we’ve got a fully destructible environment, so all the trees, buildings, bridges and everything else can be blown to kingdom come… but other RTS games do that too… so what is it that makes World In Conflict stand out?
Click for larger imagePlaying the game and being given a helping hand from Magnus “Soundboy” Jansen, Lead Designer for World In Conflict, we took up our positions on the Northern Front as Magnus showed us around his rendering of the world…
As with other RTS games, you play one of two opposing sides. In this case, with Europe being overrun, you play either as US and UK forces or as Russians. The weapons and technology in World In Conflict are based on what would have been in use back in the Eighties, plus a few advanced bits and bobs that would’ve been developed as the war progressed. So don’t expect laser firing UFOs and teleporting battle mechs, World In Conflict stays faithful to the real world.
Click for larger imageWhen you first settle down in-front of the screen the first thing you’ll notice is that you don’t have control over every unit on the map. In fact, you have control of just a very small number of units, your own squad in fact. You’re not some supreme god-like commander, you’re a field commander down in the dirt with your squad.
Click for larger imageAnd that’s the unique thing about World In Conflict, you might well have infantry, air and armour squads to play, but you can only play one type at a time. Very much in the way that you pick a soldier type in Battlefield 2, World In Conflict sees you doing the same thing. You pick a squad type and take them into battle, letting the CPU worry about other squads.
Click for larger imageNowhere does this have more impact than in Multiplayer which will support up to 16 players on the same map, all working together (hopefully) to defeat the enemy. We dropped into a multiplayer game and chose to play as armoured units. A drop down box popped up giving us a selection of mechanized units to choose from, given our current resource points cap.
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