Psssst ignore the period in the title, I don't care enough to request it be removed. >.> Music below. Spoiler Below is a gigantic rant of mine. Spoiler After posting a rather emotionally conflicted Biased and now corrected Review after my favorite game of all time got put on Steam out of nowhere, costing merely one dollar, I felt the need to inform the community here that if you wanted a game that's aged exceptionally well for 2001, while normally being up on Steam for 5$ at the moment it's 80% off and a single dollar. The game is one of the first strategy games i've played that has branching storylines and constant choices that change the flow of future and present missions, everyone can die, everyone has a name, and quite alot of Soldiers/Civilians you find have their own voice-overs, and for the most part the only character that 'cant' die, is almost always You, with surviving squad members actually taking part in missions and cinematics aswell, when I used to play it as a kid, at the age of 11? 13? I can't remember, I used to actually feel like I lost a Soldier, that one of my people had died. The Sci-fi aspect of the game will turn off some but, if you want something new and unique for such a small price, consider it, it was published on Steam by the same people who made Arma(1-3) and Day Z. It Literally is the first strategy game i've played with RPG aspects, and a critical condition system for your soldiers, so you can actually save them while they're on the floor bleeding out, assuming you happen to have a Doctor in your group, and theres a profession system, with actual experience determining whether or not a Character is able to do their job well, and you're able to change profession during mission and in the preparation stage both if you have the correct building (The game treating having the building as having the equipment, and thus moving your Squadmember into the building and then clicking 'Change Profession' is how it's done) General Militaristic aspects are in the game too, if you're on a cliff you're much less likely to get hit by gunfire, and get a much longer firing range on the charging enemies, and for tanks, bunkers, general stuff like that, although you can have a Soldier drive that spare tank in the case of it breaking down or running out of fuel, stuff being scarce afterall, an engineer would be able to make repairs inside of the tank while the Soldier would just be able to continue fighting after it broke down. Of course if you intend to take the assault or exploration group on foot at a point, a vehicle only being able to navigate a straight path and not cramped caverns or over a cliff, you'd probably want Soldiers, and every building has a Garrison system, most of them also have effects, engineers/workers repairing buildings, and soldiers usually shooting out of them. Continuing on to one of my favorite parts of the game, the vehicle building aspect. You don't just get pre-built tanks, you get parts to the tanks, what kind of treads will your russian tank have? will you compose your force of tanks from repaired american tanks, after killing the driver? will you have gatling guns, rocket launchers, or will it be a transportation/cargo vehicle? will it run off oil, or for Americans, Solar Power? This game has alot of depth, depth you wouldn't expect from a five dollar game, but then it was released in 2001 apparently. Honestly, how could I take this long to talk about and explain it if it didn't? and i'm purposely leaving out alot of details because they'd be considered Spoilers. TL;DR below. Spoiler Indepth Vehicle building system, including various attachments and a sort of Squad management as you decide who you'll leave to build/repair your vehicles while your other personnel do other jobs, various factory attachments to enable further vehicle research and parts to upgrade/alter tanks. Critical condition system for injured soldiers, they don't just die. Named Characters, a great many having their own Voice Actors and even the generic ones having their own randomly generated faces and accessories, but the enemy soldiers names loop, but not their faces, it's just something you'll have to overlook, and even the generic ones take part in some cinematics and have lines for situations they may be in, but the majority of the major parts being from the Voice Acted characters. Just about every character in the game can die, even major ones, and it alters later missions, sometimes utterly branching situations and making playing through the game multiple times worth doing, especially with hidden personnel being missed on alot of missions, and being killed by the opposite faction before you find them, stuff like that. Indepth Scientific Research system, much akin to other strategy games, eventually unlocking Sniper Rifles, Rocket Launchers, TIME SLOWING FIELDS, and Solar Powered/Hiveminded/Networked Vehicles/Turrets at the cost of precision, upgradeable/reinforceable buildings. The campaign is completely story-based, theres action, theres potential death, but the story for the most part undeterminant, it's not linear, this comes at the cost of no AI-skirmish, which is very strange for a strategy game, but a great few missions have you raiding bases after building up forces, and stuff like that. Hate it or like it, it's got quality. but it's not without faults, and I'm not going to be delusional and say it is. Incredibly convoluted story including time-traveling Russians A under-played and under-populated MP system,. but a MP system non-the-less. I'm sorry if this sounds advertisy, I just love this game. And like it should be, this is also a hub to talk about the game should anyone else be a hidden fan. Heres a couple screenshots: Spoiler .................^^^^^^^ Spoiler PS: I forgot to mention, there's a very minor and fidgity stealth system aswell, you can prone (Which makes you less likely to get hit but not likely at all to escape a heated engagement) in bushs and stuff, and on cliffs, and soldiers could completely miss you as your hiding up there. And the unique system of salvaging buildings/vehicles and de-building them so to speak into scraps to use for other things, should you feel the need to, or making use of them how is, should you not be in a position to dismantle. PS: The english voice-acting is probably the biggest con of the game, really over the top and almost downright terrible, in my opinion, but there are alot of people who're saying it's great. it's possible seeing as they're still adding stuff over Steam and it was only added this week, they may end up adding the Russian/Polish voice-overs into the game, people seem to be saying they have soul, I look forward to that if they do, Problem with that is they have to find a way to make them enable-able because the full size of the voice-replacement is around 800 MB's. Oh, and some information for anyone who owns it; Steam Achievements are being added for this game, too. If you're willing to read, and despise the VO, you can just turn speech to zero with subtitles on, that works, but I have mixed feelings, some characters have a good VO and others have terrible awful ones... And another bit of information I found out recently, if you lose a mission and click to restart from the beginning or generally don't care about dialogue, Backspace apparently skips the entire dialogue including the cinematic so you don't have to press enter rapidly to get through it. This is also a hub to talk about the game if anyone cares to, as normal and should be. Criticism appreciated, Thank you. (I'm trying to improve my general writing which is why i'm posting stuff like this, and I may be abit biased in my rant so forgive me for that and take it into consideration).
Yar Yar, First RTS game I played was Command & Conquer, I think it was Zero Hour, My favorite army was just about everyone.
I can throw some tips to try to help with the difficulty; Spoiler When it comes to setting up a defense, i'd try using a barracks with soldiers garrisoned instead of bunkers (bunkers are more useful from ontop of a hill, not really for defending an open-base), you can garrison six soldiers and each of them shoot out of the barracks, while only one can shoot out of a bunker, And I wouldn't be afraid to cheat the system (Especially on Normal/Hard, my god) because the game is hard and will throw punches in alot of the missions, I didn't realise how hard it was until I started getting further into it again, i'd go as far as setting some soldiers ontop of a hill just out of the range of tanks and soldiers and shooting them to death if you can find a vantage point, and you can change how buildings are faced with right-click, positioning is somewhat important. And apparently the American tanks are useless early-game when they aren't remote controlled, so I generally just go on foot for the most part -_-, and try make use of the uhm, spacebar pause if you can, and skimming the tips it pops up will keep you updated and teach you the game, too, but they're kind of annoying. I prefered the Russian Campaigns story-line but the entire premise of the game is ridiculous. skipping the American one into the Russian one is even harder, because they made the Russian one expecting you to have finished the American one, but the general situations you get in are just so much more fun. (I still liked the American one, though.) And another bit of information I found out recently that may save you some time, if you lose a mission and click to restart from the beginning or generally don't care about dialogue, Backspace apparently skips the entire dialogue including the starting mission cinematic so you don't have to press enter rapidly to get through it, especially useful if you want to try a mission again and go about it differently.
