Article Type: Review
Article Date: November 15, 2001
There are some interesting things going on in the world of real time military strategies as of late. Three-dimensional scenery and units are now the norm, and there seems to be a shift from sci-fi units and altered realities toward real-life military units. One recently released simulation has them both, and does it in an extraordinary manner. When is the last time you were able to fire up a game straight out of the box and have it run flawlessly? I know it has been a LONG time since I had one run this well straight out of the CD case.
Setup
Installation went well, although it took a bit of time as it makes a massive 600 MB footprint on your hard-drive. Double-clicking on the icon of a glowing mushroom cloud brings up a setup program to test video modes, and sound calibration for voice. Once this chore is accomplished input of the CD-key is required. A backup burn is also not possible, as this software is doubly protected.
Once setup, a few video modes flip across the monitor, and when resolution comes back, a sign in screen, of sorts, is presented. Firing in a new name allows access to the main choices menu.
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Make your choice!  |
Gameplay
Hmmm… Campaign, Skirmish, Multi-player, Editor, oh yeah, a full-blown editor comes standard with this bad-boy. OK, I went on into skirmish mode, as I usually do with a new RTS—I like to kick the tires, so to speak. Skirmish mode allows folks to have try out all the bells and whistles without encountering the hierarchal build restrictions found in the campaign.
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| Skirmish options abound. |
The skirmish modes of mayhem include Cash Limited, Destroy All Buildings and Tech War. Choose the starting parameters for cash, your unit's other limitations, and one of a few dozen maps. Nationality options are USA, Soviet and Iraqi forces. Go USA, as I always say, hit the start game icon, watch the belt of ammo increase in length as the mission loads, and we're off. A treat for the eyes awaits you!
Richly detailed 3D elevations and expanses greet the eye. You'll see winding roads and buildings nestled into the rolling countryside. Military vehicles types are easily recognizable as their shapes are very similar to their real world counterparts. Atmospheric effects like snow, rain and even lightening are also modeled. There is a true day and night cycle that can actually have a tactical effect by allowing units to sneak by each other under the cover of darkness.
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| Explosions look extra crunchy at night. |
There is no single piece of military hardware that has an overwhelming advantage, so there's a nice balance. For instance, the M109 Paladin artillery pieces can do some serious standoff damage to buildings and fixed emplacements, but tracking moving objects give them fits. If even a lightly armed combatant gets in close, the M109 is all but defenseless. So there are counters on both sides to everything. If you concentrate on any one aspect too heavily, you will pay the price when the opposing force comes knocking.
Campaign
After having had a taste of the units and scenery in skirmish mode, I fired up the campaign. The storyline is of Iraq, and other oil-rich Arab countries, cutting the supply of oil off from the rest of the world. This doesn't sit too well with the US or Russia. Military action ensues to secure the industrialized world's lifeblood, Black Gold.
I, of course, chose the US side, and proceeded through the four tutorial missions, which are very well crafted to show the different aspects of resource gathering, supply of your units, grouping, and war-fighting. From there, a full mounting of the campaign. The campaign follows a predictable logic: you start out with limited types of machinery but have the ability to spend resource dollars derived from pumping out oil and time researching new innovations. Your machinery upgrades range from upgrading Hummers from mere M-60 machine guns to mortar capability, up to stealth units and even nuclear capability. Even nuclear missiles have a counter in the Patriot-like Anti-Ballistic Missile defences.
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| Sneaking a nuke through. |
The first of two US campaigns plays out with fairly simplistic goals and available vehicles. There are no soldiers or airmen running around here, which works for me, as I rarely used them in other titles that do have them.
After completing the five missions of the first US campaign, I clicked on the second and was told by the game that one must first complete the first Iraqi campaign. Huh? I thought I had? Wasn't last campaign in Iraq? Wrong.
The storyline is structured in such a manner that you must take on the persona of Iraqi terrorists terror-bombing various sites in the US to proceed. This would seem to me to be the main reason for delay of release in the US. Politically insensitive, but it is just a game, so I proceed through them.
There is a lot of rhetoric spewed in these briefings, but the story leads from smuggling trucks into the US at the Texas border up to the stealing of a nuclear warhead from an arsenal in Colorado. This sets the stage for the rest of the US campaign that is structured around the retrieving of the nuclear weapon from the fictitious terrorist organization led by the "Jackal".
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| Tanks in the tunnels. |
From the sandy hills of the Middle East, to the snowy mountains in Russia, even into underground tunnel systems (sound familiar?), you chase this miscreant. All the while, new systems are available to research and deploy. There are no naval units, save a speed-boat or two used to get a hero down a river, but the land and air units have good depth and can each contribute to the war effort in their own manner.
Graphics
Scrolling in, out and in the full 360 degree view can be breath taking, and advantageous for determing lines of sight for weapons. There are even UAV like cam-copters that can feed target data to your artillery who then fire over a mountain and devastate fixed defenses in beautifully rendered detonations. Two-dimensional screen grabs (which can be gathered in the installation directory with the press of the print screen key) just don't do this simulation justice. Motion on the 3D battlefield is a thing to behold.
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| Note the tracks and exhaust plume. |
Artificial Intelligence
The AI is no slouch either. In most RTS's, you can build some cursory defences and then wait for the enemy to come by. Once you know their route you can bolster the area, then add some repair units and forget it. In WWIII: Black Gold, if the AI sees an area is defended, they will probe around and look for another opening and strike there. As Raidor from the WW3:BG forum writes, "In WW3 the AI was trained by 6 Beta testers and 2 Programmers playing all day and changing the scripts and routines for 7 months." He then challenges anyone to beat the AI on expert.
Custom Missions
One other area I wanted to touch on briefly is the editor. This is not a DOS-based affair that only a programmer can decipher; this is a WYSIWYG environment with as much detail (or as little) as you'd like. There are tools that will automatically create the terrain textures and elevations, and others you can fill in square by square. All the hundreds of vehicles, buildings, roads and other objects can be inserted. I look forward to the community's mission and map contributions that will surely come as a result of this beautiful built-in mapmaker. Heck, I've even been dabbling with it myself, though I doubt I'll do anything that compares with the stuff I've seen from others for such games as Total Annihilation and Red Alert to name a few.
Debrief
So, there you have it. The real deal, the full package: an RTS that the Reality Pump folks can be proud of. The entire way through multiple skirmishes, the whole US campaign, and even tinkering with the editor, I didn't experience a single crash, anomaly, lockup or any other unfortunate event. It looks great and has a compelling story (even if you must stoop to being a terrorist) and no bugs that I can find. If you're looking for a good RTS this is a wise choice as it really seems to have it all.
WWIII: Black Gold
