E3 Day 3 Plus 1

by Jim "Twitch" Tittle

Article Type: Trade Show Report
Article Date: May 24, 2002

NovaLogic

Delta Force: Task Force Dagger
If you like up to the moment 3-D games on the current events in Afghanistan then TF Dagger is for you. It is a first-person combat sim and you can lead one of ten Special Forces units actually "in-country" right now. You can be: SFOD-Delta, Marine Recon, 2/75th Rangers, SEAL Team 6, Canadian JTF-2, SFOD-SF Viper Team of the Green Berets, SAS 22 Regiment of the UK, SASR from Australia, USAF CSAR Pararescue or even CIA Special Ops.

Map

Securing a hanger

The locales, missions and goals are not dusty history. They were on TV news yesterday. You have 30 appropriate weapons plus equipment relative to the unit you are with, including pistol, machine guns, auto-rifles and even rocket launchers. There are sniper rifles to reach out and touch someone too. Night vision optics paints the world a cool green for night missions.

Night vision optics

Great sniper optics

As you move through these 25 new missions you will see that this is an accurate shooter where it’s often one shot one kill realism at work. Yes, you can empty a magazine on one bad guy but that’s not necessary when all the correct ballistics have thankfully been applied as they have here. Long-range kills are especially true to life with you being able to take out enemies without the need to be on top of them and risk death since you don’t have unrealistic “health” meter like the kiddie games do. This escalates the immersion since you have to be on you toes and strategize your moves at times and not just walk in blasting.

You can all in air strikes from the proper aircraft in Afghanistan now and get recon from unmanned aerial vehicles for you map. The scenarios vary enough with missions in buildings too so you’re not one dimensionally just busting bunkers and caves all the time.

A mission editor allows you to have even more latitude in the game and 10 new multiplayer maps are included so you can play online on NovaWorld.

Get ready since this title will be in stores June 25th!


Delta Force: Black Hawk Down
The next Delta Force chapter in the first-person series is due in October 2002. There will be X-Box and PC versions. Like TF Dagger, Black Hawk Down will require modest system specs with a P III 500MHz adequate to run full 3-D. With a new game engine this title looks great. The outside world is highly detailed—paint peeling off textured walls of buildings and every frond visible on palm trees.

Rooftop position

Eyeballing the streets below

But the environment isn’t the main thing, it is the gameplay and Black Hawk Down gives a nice variety. There isn’t just one theme at work here. It’s not a one-dimensional mission mirroring the actual events in Somalia though that, of course, is present. There will be 20-30 separate missions surrounding the main theme. You can play the role of a grunt and disembark your helo to go into action, but you can man the MG while in the air and beat up a variety of targets.

If that’s not enough you can fire the weapons mounted on APCs and Humvees like the big .50 caliber MG. And paralleling the actual personnel involved there will be snipers. In fact the game emphasizes long-range kills throughout though there is the spine tingling interior action of what's-around-the corner?

Environment is highly detailed

The development team is changing some present weapons after having had discussion with some Special Forces chaps involved to be historically accurate. For one, no puny 9 mm pistols. Real-world warriors used .45s.

Like TF Dagger, you can speed up and slow down the action, as desired. Of course a mission editor is to be included and multi-player that may support 30-50 players will be present.

CDV

American Conquest
Tired of modern war RTS? This 2-D/3-D title is really going to turn you obscure history buffs on and RTS strategizers as well. How about 60,000 combatants with all of them on screen at once? This is ambitious in scope in that it commences in 1492 with the arrival of Columbus and goes through to 1830!

Single-player mode will give you campaigns, single missions and historical battles with all the participants including Spanish, French, English, Aztec, Incan, Mayan, Algonquin, Huron, Delaware, Pueblo Iroquois Confederacy, and the future United States. Yes, that means you can range all over North and South America. Campaign mode features all the same warriors in six different campaigns with 12 missions in each. You will see named historical leaders throughout.

American Conquest is a different RTS

You’ll have 160 different buildings and 200 varieties of vegetation to mess with in the map editor and mission builder to keep you long occupied and multi-player can accommodate 7 strategists. Some battles team up indigenous warriors with European ones to mirror history and all types of weaponry wielded by the actual combatants will be present.

You shouldn’t get bored with this soon. Look for it at the end of 2002.


Sudden Strike II
The 2-D continuation of the title to part two holds some neat features for RTS fans. You can choose from 40 missions in five campaigns and fight as Russian, Japanese, American, German or British. It will take a learning curve, of course, especially since you’ll need to train your eyes to the nationality of the troops in play at first since the screen doesn’t zoom. Over all this is fine since most of us play with one setting giving the greatest view scope possible.

C-47 shadow with paratroopers

B-17s over jungle

You will see over 250 units on the fields of battle. The four-level gameplay tweaks hardcore history some but not so as to lose the accuracy as you control, planes, boats, trains, armor and infantry. Individual soldiers can be directed.

Formidable armored train

You must manage supply lines and can capture and use enemy vehicles throughout seasonal weather like rain and snow over a wide geographic area. You can destroy about every object on the screen, even trees to get a clear field of fire.

Mission generators and map editors will be included so look for this in the by Fall 2002.


Blitzkrieg
Sudden Strike II should keep you busy until mid 2003 when the 3-D Blitzkrieg debuts. This looks good. Though it’s far off, some details have been set, though they could change on the plus side. There are 23 missions set in three campaigns running in Europe and North Africa with the Russian, Germans, French, Italian, Polish, Finnish, English and Americans to choose.

Stuka at work in summer Europe

Close up of Maus

Vehicular and ballistic mechanics should be historically accurate beyond Sudden Strike where a German 88 mm gun will produce more damage or larger ground crater relative to an Allied 75 mm. And you’ll have about 200 vehicles to maneuver around more than 250 objects and buildings with 40 infantry types, including snipers, one all sides.

Even a 262!

You’ll be able to strategize from 1939-1945 moving men, armor, trains, boats and aircraft around the screen. Like most RTSs you’ll have to do recon and manage supplies from the rear in scalable difficulty settings. You’re AI warriors will gain experience as they fight too.

North Africa

There will be 12 speeds of play to slow down or speed things up. Of course there are map and mission/campaign editors for you to play with throughout seasonal weather with rain and snow. Like Sudden Strike, you can build bridges, lay mine, and dig trenches. Shadows are present as planes fly over or clouds obscure part of the sun and time of day affects size and angle.

European winter

This looks to be a legitimate combat sim kind of RTS title—lots of objects, historically accurate, varied terrain/weather and proper vehicular AI.

Simon & Shuster

Real War: Rogue States
OK, this ranks a bit lower on the list of RTS titles to get you excited. If you played Real War you’ll like this continuation but it is using the same engine and graphics have not escalated. They were pretty good before and effects like exploding objects do make good visuals with lots of pixels used.

Your two combatant factions can be played with 12 missions each and new units are added to the adequate list of before. There are even tactical nukes and new effects are still being worked on. Again, your troops will get smarter as they gain experience.

An good feature is one that allows you to build units and direct them to attack a target without further ado. They’ll build up then automatically go and do what you told them. There are many and varied orders that can direct the action of you’re AI units too. This gives you a large range of strategies to employ.

The map is fully zoomable so you can watch supply trucks come from the off-screen rear area and unload their supplies as the crane articulates and moves them. Present are 12 levels of play difficulty with land, sea and air units controllable. You do building of structures and must construct a balanced camp base to do well so you’ll learn what works and what does not. For example you’ll need generators to supply power. Larger bases need more. Of course you have to balance the resources cost to do it all.

You should enjoy this even if you didn’t have the original title. There’s a lot to do with lots of pretty good AI action unfolding. It’s unique in that it employs modern vehicles and equipment in a plausible, fictional storyline if you are not a historical nut. Be aware that the vehicles and equipment do have accuracy relative to their real-world counterparts.

You can build missions, and maps to extend the fun. It should be out in September 2002.


WarBirds III
You gotta like online air combat to get this one. The eight off-line training missions are about all there are. But for a small price you get the basic disc and for $25 a month you get unlimited fly time. The map for off- and on-line is good showing elevations and can be accessed in a semi-transparent mode so as not to miss what’s going on in front of you.

While the graphic modeling of the aircraft exteriors looks fine the cockpits look European Air War-ish, which is to say dated. The flight models and weaponry are scalable and users of previous versions have stood by their guns that they are extremely realistic on hard levels. You can still compete on-line in an easy flight model till you gain experience.

The demo person, unfortunately, could sell aluminum siding to Indians with teepees and was more intent on his own repertoire of dialogue spewing forth than answering specific questions. But we did find out that WarBirds III is playable on PC and MAC with 55 planes to choose from with sea and land vehicles present.

There is a WarBirds: Korea with the pertinent aircraft of the conflict and something called K.I.C. A.S.S. with 10 different armored vehicles that can be sued against human or computer opponents. There is a WWI title called Dawn Of Aces 3 available too with a coming futuristic scenario called ShockForce based in the 23rd Century on Mars with 1,000 players on line possible. Go to their website for more info on these.

WarBirds III and the others do look like pretty worthy evolutions for dedicated on-liners. There seemed to be a bug of sorts on the off-line demo for no matter how many rounds some enemy planes absorbed they didn’t go down or even smoke. (Editor's Note: This may have been a function of the off-line practice mode). Others must have registered pilot hits and corkscrewed down.

Activision

Medieval: Total War
This looks to be another interesting RTS apart from 20th Century warfare. It spans about four hundred years in the medieval era for something completely different. It’s doesn’t look that far along yet but what we saw is encouraging and hopefully it will be out by August 2002.

The player can build eight armies of up to 10,000 total men. Included are all the appropriate weaponry and equipment of sequential eras. As gunpowder is invented early firearms and cannon are incorporated. Crossbows and long bows along with swords and axes are wide spread throughout along with horse-mounted knights.

What was excellent about Medieval: Total War was the scale of the figures accessible with a superb zoom feature. There’s no mistaking forces here with their vibrant battle dress and white/red mouse pass over feature to identify units as friend or foe.

Buildings and terrain are top notch graphically but the great part about all the RTS titles is that extreme machines are not required to display and run them. Most will work with 5-600MHz and some even with 16 MB video cards and 128 MB RAM. If you got more power they’ll look and do better.

There are mission editors to add to a multi campaign feature with many missions to play as time moves along to the next episode all based on historical events. Multi-play will be incorporated with an undetermined number of possible players.


Star Trek Fleet Command III
The new, third incarnation is in a nutshell, if you’re not familiar with the series, like Star Trek: Bridge Commander played off the bridge, if you will.

Galaxy class in action

It’s era is “Next Generation” with Patrick Stewart and the other actors giving voice support to the title. You can play Federation, Romulan, or Klingon in campaign or single action mode. With 25 ship types. The ships are customizable within limits. You can’t capture a Romulan Warbird and incorporate it cloaking device on you Federation Galaxy class but what you can do will not throw off balance of play.

The graphics and on-screen interfaces are top notch and as good or better than Bridge Commander’s as you wage battle viewed from the outside of your starship. It’s almost like the RTS Star Trek: Armada genre but with a huge scale size of vessels on screen and though less of them for manageable control and situation awareness. Multiplay allows a unique on-line experience with this style of game.


Elite Force II
For first-person action Elite Force II looks stunning with its eight races in a storyline that has the “Voyager” crew captured and on board a Borg Cube. Of course your job is to free them and take out as many Borg drones as possible with your 13 weapons of dual-fire mode capability.

There are 11 environments from the interior of the Borg Cube to planets surfaces and even outside on the hull of ships. There is a wide variety of terrain to appease you as you move through many episodes and missions. The total are is 150 percent larger than Elite Force.

The AI is reactive and has a full range of reactions to any given player move. There are some huge and nasty Borg to confront rendered in great detail. Certainly effects are many and dazzling with a new cadre of weird Borg figures from the more humanoid to the mechanical.

A pair of the milder enemies you'll encounter

The weapon effects on targets seem so much more plausible than the blood and guts first-person titles out there. There’s no faulting historical accuracy or weapon and equipment for truth since its all fiction. The objects do draw from the TV and movie series we all know and weave in and out of them.

Strategy is involved where one must use, say, their tricorder to disarm locks and force fields so it’s not continual blasting. Each episode has the original actors narrating as the story line and objective video runs telling you what to expect next. Details on multiplay that will be included are not finalized.

It should be out by early 2003.

Another E3 On The Books

So, there you have it. RTS titles have made the biggest leap since last year much to our benefit. Everything at the show was not possible to cover in the time given but the products previewed here tend to be akin to COMBATSIM readers interests and only the best are detailed.




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