This review originally appeared on Reviewcenter.com in 1999.

Force 21 is far from your normal real-time gtrategy game. You don’t have a base where you begin — mining resources, building buildings, which in turn allow you to build certain units. No, it’s nothing like that. Force 21 doesn’t try to be that. It’s something much better.

Force 21, set 15 years in the future, has you in the middle of a war. I know that you may be thinking, “Oh, no. Not another futuristic WWIII scenario” but this actually seems to be possible. China, thriving off of its economic boom in the 1990s, has become short on natural resources and raw materials. On the other hand, Russia, economy falling from the breakup of the USSR in the 1990′s, is almost on the brink of collapsing. China, taking advantage of this, invades the Republic of Kazakhstan, for much needed materials.

“NUKE “ËœEM” is what you’re probably thinking, but that won’t happen. Apparently, missile defenses have been researched so much, that nuclear weapons have become obsolete. The only practical way to fight is by conventional warfare. China, obviously having the advantage over the tumbling Russia, was predicted to barge their way through the Russian army no problem. But the United States of America, trying to get in the middle of it, sends some forces into the area, hoping that they may dissuade China from invading. China decides to attack anyway. That’s where the game begins.

You can either choose to be the invading Chinese army, or the defending US army. Either way you decide to go, you have complete control over 16 different platoons from each army. These platoons are made up of tanks, surveillance, recon, helicopters, artillery, APC’s and electronic warfare units. In some missions, calling for air support is also permitted.

Each side has 15 missions in the campaign, with a briefing before each one, showing you the objectives. Next, you look at what units you are going to bring into the fight. You are also given approximate locations of where the enemy is. As nice as this can be, don’t set up an entire attack based on it. Always scout ahead. The enemy is prone to move around the area.

After all that is done, you are now in the game. You will find your units sitting nice in pretty in front of you. If you have ever played a RTS before, then you already know the basic commands. The only frustrating part of the setup of the game is that you can’t just click on a tank, or any other unit, and order it to do something. If you want to move just one unit around, you must separate it into it’s own platoon. While this is not a big thing to do, just a drag and drop, it gets quite annoying when, in the heat of the battle, you need to move just one unit around. Unlike most RTS games, you just can’t see anything on the map by clicking there. Your point of view is what the commander of the platoon would see. An interesting twist in the game is that requires that you do more recon than in other games.

Now, the grits of the game. The sound is quite good, but the voices of the units get repetitive real fast. The sound detail and quality make you feel like your there, but to take advantage of it, you’ll need a good set of speakers. The graphics in this game are absolutely superb. The detail of each unit is incredibly realistic, which add to the total realism of the game. Explosions are well done, not cheesy looking like a lot of games do. One of my only complaints with the graphics of this game is the distance that you can view off into the horizon. There always seems to be a layer of fog, limiting your visibility range. Sloppy work there takes away from the playing experience. I mean, if you were sitting in a tank, on relatively flat land, I would think that you would be able to see a little further than a couple of hundred of feet. Other than that, kudos to Red Storm on the realism.

The replay value of the missions is not the best, as the missions are mostly the same time after time, the only difference is the exact location of the enemy units.

The single player experience may be the best part of the game. Due to the unpopularity of this game (caused by a bad release date) there is a very small multiplayer base to play against. This is too bad, because this is the kind of game that’s really fun to play with a group of friends. The fact that there is hardly anyone to play with is very odd, seeing as how both Mplayer and Microsoft Gaming Zone support play for the game.

Overall, Force 21 has enough to satisfy both the people who like to sit down and play a realistic war game and those who just want to blow shit up. The ease of play is what really makes this game work. Also, I found absolutely bugs in this game, which is becoming more and more rare these days with companies over hyping games, then throwing crap programming in a box just to get it out.

Turn to page 2 if you want to see how the game ends. We also have a cool game demo available for download.

Mezmer Games’ turned based war strategy game Legio is a fusion of RTS and the board game Chess.‚  Weird? Not really, but possibly confusing.‚  So why don’t you feast your eyes on the debut trailer for the game below, it can’t hurt. Unless.. nah it can’t.

Legio takes place in a mythical fantasy world where warriors, magicians and monsters battle for dominion over the space. Harsh right? Just make sure you come out on the winning side.

Legio is looking to be a solid RTS that won’t replace your Chess board, but will challenge you and your competitors in numerous ways, all in the name of pure war-based fun.

Electronic Arts today announced a consideration for the more frugal gamer by rehashing the price point on the ambitious BattleForge PC title, dropping the going rate from $49.99 to a more approachable $29.99.

Phenomic Producer Michael Krach of the EA held studio responsible for the exciting RTS remarked as such regarding the price drop:

“BattleForge is a specialized RTS which has so much more to offer to the players whether they are straight up RTS fans or collectible card gamers. The battles are becoming more epic as the players’ skills are advancing; there has never been a better time to get into the action on BattleForge.”

The new pricing structure, according to EA, is effective immediately, but a free demo, for those now more inclined is also available and ready for download here.

Square Enix today announced a partnership with strategy game aficionado Wargaming.net to bring a brand new World War 2 title to the front by the name Order of War.

The single player campaign has two distinct options; either take part in historically based events as American vs. German troops on the western front, or German vs. Russia on the eastern.

Order of War plans to separate itself from others in the genre by featuring the most large-scale, brutal, and intensive war scenarios ever created.‚  Except for, you know, the actual war.‚  Gamers will be able to control ground troops, artillery, tanks, and aircraft, altogether generating the greatest “cinematic intensity” as Squenix puts it, the genre has ever seen.

John Yamamoto, president and chief executive officer of Square Enix seems uber excited about the new game when he says:

“ORDER OF WAR offers Square Enix an exciting opportunity to enter this hugely popular genre, and is a strong proposition for our first western-developed release. With its cinematic intensity, hugely realistic battles and historical accuracy, the game looks set to whet the appetite of any war-gaming fan.”

Blue Dragon Plus, published by Ignition Entertainment, is a fairly entertaining and very, very long combination real time strategy and role-playing game for the Nintendo DS. Developers Mistwalker and Brownie Brown did a good job of addressing elements from both strategy and RPG genres, providing lots of maps, abilities and combat units for the strategists, and plenty of stats, story-motivated gameplay and back story for the approximately one-bazillion party members for the RPG-ers. Unfortunately its combination of the two genres falls flat overall, ultimately leaving you with un-innovative, though technically sound gameplay. Blue Dragon Plus boasts a story campaign of over 30 hours, which is a lot of time to spend hunched over your DS, and to really appreciate it, you would have to sort of meet it halfway and show it a certain degree of patience.

Blue Dragon Plus is the sequel to Blue Dragon, a 2007 RPG for the Xbox 360, and its story picks up a year after the events of that game, with very similar premises. Shu, a generic spiky-haired anime hero must set out to save the world from certain doom in the wake of the destruction wreaked by purple-skinned super villain Nene through the course of the first game. For those returning to the franchise, a good chunk of the heroes and villains in this game are familiar faces from the original, and for those newcomers, everybody’s talents and place in the story are explained at length and easy to pick up. The most relevant common element are the Shadow powers the characters have, which are big animal spirits that each party member can summon to unleash special abilities in battle. Shu’s manifests itself as a big, blue dragon-hence the game title.

The game takes place on a big mechanical space cube infested with hostile mecha-robos programmed for wanton destruction. Shu and company must investigate the old technology on this cube and shut its down while preventing the robots from escaping and bombing their home city. Also, Nene comes back to life and you get to fight him all over again. There are twists, turns, friends become enemies, enemies become friends…a fairly standard RPG story.

Progression through the game is broken into two parts: individual combat stages and a map screen connecting all the stages and showing how your parties move around between them. The combat stages are where the RTS elements come into play, and generally where the story unfolds, and the map stage is where all the RPG stats tweaking, character adjustment and item organization happens.

Because combat is RTS-style, every combat encounter is a wide stage with a pre-set number of enemies against the members of your party, the number of which changes according to the story and to your adjustments. Now, as anybody who has ever fallen victim to a Zergling rush will tell you, there is strength in numbers in any RTS game, and what this means for Blue Dragon Plus is that there are a lot of playable characters (up to 16 at times). This is mitigated some as the story forces you to split your party up into 2-4 groups to explore different areas of the map, but while a good group size is three or four party members, if the story leads two groups to combine, you can suddenly have 9 characters in a crowded hallway all trying to be part of the boss battle and all getting in each others way. ‚ At its best, its like watching a 16-bit 3 Stooges routine, but at its worst, your best attack units will not be able to reach a monster because they’re stuck behind your healers who are on the front lines for some reason, taking all the damage.

The combat is a pretty basic point-and-click system with the stylus. Characters will automatically engage nearby enemies with a physical attack, and the player can activate more powerful Shadow abilities. These abilities need to be recharged between uses (so you can’t just spam over-powered ones) and are type-sensitive, (so, for example a ground type attack is more effective against flying type enemies). The system is pretty intuitive, but the game still does a thorough job of walking you through the finer points of RTS combat, even giving you tips on how to arrange your units in battle and which ones to pair together for optimal results.

These beginner tips and simplicity of the combat system mean that Blue Dragon is really more an introductory-level RTS game, and doesn’t have some features more advanced players would expect. The stylus isn’t the most precise instrument in the world, and will often select the ability or location just next to the one you were trying for, which, mid-battle, can be a little frustrating. Also, there’s no way to influence a characters point-to-point movement, which means occasionally a unit will decide the best way to get across the map is to wander through enemy territory, unintentionally leading all your enemies right to the rest of your party. And, if you are gearing up for a fight, there’s no good way to ensure that the first person who reaches the battle isn’t your low-defense healer and not the high-defense attack unit it’s supposed to be. The gameplay isn’t rigorous enough that these missteps ever become a real problem, or cost you more than a few HP before you correct them, but they do limit the quality of the RTS elements to a point so that the novelty wears off long before 30 hours have elapsed.

There is a sharp contrast between the amount of time the game dedicates to introducing the player to the fairly simple RTS combat system (a tutorial and most of the opening few chapters) and the arguably much more complex stat and item system (almost none: read your manual). There’s not necessarily anything there that is new to any RPG player, but it’s a familiarity the game assumes of its players, sort of like it’s an introduction to the RTS genre specifically tailored for RPG fans. Items can only be equipped in the map stage in-between combat, which means if you forget before starting a fight, you can back yourself into an unpleasant corner, but once you do start playing around with stats modifiers, healing and attack items and mixing and matching types of party members for streamlined combat, it’s hard to stop. Like any good RPG, there are a slew of stats to be built up (though when there are 16 characters in play, this can get maybe a little out of hand) and plenty of items that can boost your weaker areas, and even unlock shadow abilities of a different type to round out your party (healers can learn powerful attack spells, etc.).‚  There are also plenty of opportunities for exploring the map and power-leveling in between story missions, and, if 30 hours of story and a zillion playable characters aren’t enough, there are side-quests a plenty and the option to construct robotic party members with parts you find on the map. So, if you are the kind of gamer whose favorite thing to do is wander through the tall grass in Pokemon, endlessly capturing and levelling up, you’ll find plenty to play around with here.

Blue Dragon Plus isn’t a bad game; it’s just that at times there’s too much of it. The story relies too heavily on our interest being hooked from the previous game, and it’s difficult to really develop a character well through dialogue boxes, let alone when he or she has to share the stage with 12 to 15 other players. The RPG and RTS elements are for the most part pretty solid representations of the two genres, but the game doesn’t do anything creative with them beyond just throw them together (which was innovative two years ago when FFXII: Revenant Wings came out, but is now just sort of copy-cat). There are some good elements here, and if you have 30 hours to kill, there are certainly worse ways to do it, though there are definitely better ones too. The $30 price tag seems reasonable given just how much game there is here to sink your teeth into, but do some soul searching first, and make sure you have the patience for it.

Real time strategy games have become the forefront of my video game thoughts in the past year.‚  Maybe, just maybe this will be the year I venture away from my warm and cuddly first person shooters and branch out to this more strategic genre.‚  Released over the summer, the new Sid Meiers Civilization proved to be a resounding success and with the imminent launch of Halo Wars, complete with Mythic Map Pack in the LCE, I would be silly to not try one of them out.

So it comes as no surprise that Stardock Entertainment and Ironclad Games today announced the release of “Entrenchment,” a content rich expansion to “Strategy game of the year,” Sins of a Solar Empire.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment is available via Stardock’s digital download store Impulse for $9.95, provided you own the original.

As if the final frontier weren’t expansive enough, you’ll now have an extended variety of tools and locations to wage war with in the depths of the universe.

Entrenchment will feature a plethora of new content including starbases, defense upgrades, a new defense technology tree, mine fields, and hundreds of enhancements to gameplay and graphics.

Stardock President and CEO Brad Wardell had this to say about the expansion:

“After careful planning and implementation, we’re confident that Entrenchment brings the concept of updates and expansions to a new echelon for PC gaming as well as create an even more thrilling Sins of a Solar Empire experience.”

The news keeps getting better as Ironclad, developer of Sins, is promising additional content later this year focused on enhancing diplomacy features in the game.‚  Diplomacy, what a great concept, maybe at least in video games we can get it right.

Sins of a Solar Empire on Impulse

About Stardock and Ironclad Games:

Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment Ready for Action

- First Micro-Expansion Now Available on Stardock’s Impulse Digital Download Platform -

PLYMOUTH, Mich., Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ — Stardock Entertainment (http://www.stardock.com/) announced today that the micro-expansion to Ironclad’s Strategy Game of the Year, Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment, is now ready for download on Stardock’s digital download platform, Impulse. Fans that have the original Sins of a Solar Empire installed on their PCs can now purchase the title for $9.95 at http://www.impulsedriven.com/ .

Entrenchment adds a host of new features including starbases, defense upgrades, a new defense technology tree, mine fields, and hundreds of enhancements to both the gameplay and graphics of the game.

“We’re excited to release the first follow up to 2008′s strategy game of the year,” said Stardock CEO and President Brad Wardell. “After careful planning and implementation, we’re confident that Entrenchment brings the concept of updates and expansions to a new echelon for PC gaming as well as create an even more thrilling Sins of a Solar Empire experience.”

Developer Ironclad plans on producing additional micro-expansions to Sins of a Solar Empire over the next year. The next one is scheduled to enhance the diplomacy features of the game.

For more information about Stardock please visit http://www.stardock.com/, for more information about Sins of a Solar Empire, please visit http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/ .

About Stardock

Stardock is one of the world’s leading developers and publishers of PC games and desktop software. ‚ Its PC games include Sins of a Solar Empire, the highest rated and best selling PC strategy game of 2008 as well as the critically acclaimed Galactic Civilizations series. Its desktop software includes Object Desktop, WindowBlinds, and a host of other programs for customizing the Windows experience. Learn more about Stardock by visiting http://www.stardock.com/ .

Let’s get this out of the way up front: I don’t play RTS games. I know what you’re thinking: “Hold on a second, author of these Halo Wars demo hands-on impressions, Halo Wars is an RTS, and if you’re writing this article, you must’ve played it! Gotcha!” All right, so you got me-I did play this one. But I still wouldn’t know a Zerg rush from a royal flush (poker is another game I tend to avoid).

Though the battle-hardened RTS gamers among you may question my suitability for this assignment, I’d like to contend that my inexperience makes me the perfect man for the job; after all, as a Halo-playing console gamer, I’m the target audience. If I could be turned-well, I wouldn’t be a powerful ally. But my conversion would bode well for the game’s chances of succeeding on a platform which has represented a formidable proving ground for RTS games in the past.

After downloading the 1.4 GB demo and navigating past an extremely prominent seizure warning (does Ensemble know something I don’t?), I found myself gazing at the soothing blue tones of a Halo menu screen, as remixed monks (or monk impersonators) chanted with abandon. Because I’m the methodical sort (and an RTS n00b), I made a beeline for the tutorial option, which was divided into “basic” and “advanced” sections. The former provided instruction in, well, the basics: unit selection, movement, and attacking. The latter forced me into the deep end, introducing me to the harvesting, “expo,” and research mechanics which normally send me running for the nearest shooter, platformer, or RPG.

Halo Wars’ controls are fairly intuitive. The left joystick controls the camera; leave the cursor centered on one of your units, and the camera will move along with it. Individual units can be selected with the A button, and the left bumper selects all units. The X button is context-sensitive, and can be used to mark destinations, attack enemy units, and salvage supplies from conveniently situated crates (where would gamers be without them?), depending on the cursor’s location. Y controls special attacks-grenades for foot soldiers, a “ram” attack for warthogs, and the like. If “preserve your own base long enough to destroy the enemy’s, and occasionally blow up other stuff,” proves too complicated an assignment for you to recall, you can press the Back button at any time to call up your objectives. “Leader powers,” accessible via the D-pad, allow you to call upon the UNSC flagship, “Spirit of Fire,” for an orbital bombardment. D-Pad commands also allow you to jump quickly to the opposition base, or to your army’s leader.

The game’s streamlined control scheme is designed for ease of use, and, given the limitations of the Xbox 360 controller, it mostly delivers the goods. However, I did have a few complaints. Even with the rather generous radius surrounding each actionable item, I experienced occasional difficulties in selecting the objects I meant to select; unfortunately, if you intend to attack an enemy unit, and miss by a millimeter, you’ll send your unsuspecting, unprepared proxies directly into the line of fire. Path-finding didn’t seem to be an issue, except for one instance, when I ordered a contingent of Locusts to obliterate a legion of Marines, only to watch them concentrate their fire on a rocky outcropping between the two.

Rather than mapping the zoom level to a button, Halo Wars consigns this setting to the start menu, making it difficult to gain a different perspective in the heat of battle. At the default setting, camera movement is somewhat jerky, but its scroll speed and “stickiness” can also be adjusted in the menu.

Despite Ensemble’s lofty claims about Halo Wars’ handling, I don’t believe that it measures up to the precision of the traditional mouse-and-keyboard arrangement. The absence of a click-and-drag feature (which somehow made its way into Mech Platoon on the GBA) limits the player’s ability to divvy up his or her forces. Although the right trigger enables sub-selections (a feature which the tutorial fails to mention), I found myself most often using employing either one unit, or all of them. The lack of an option to build units without placing the cursor on a base, or to have newly constructed units join the fray automatically, rather than loitering outside of the barracks, also hurts the game’s flow.

Upon entering a level, you’ll find yourself situated near a base, or a likely location for base construction. A few button presses later, you’ll have a large central building, multiple supply pads, a reactor, and a barracks, all airlifted from orbit or assembled from scratch-the United Nations Space Command doesn’t believe in getting estimates and hiring contractors. Selecting new units, buildings, and technologies is accomplished through a circular menu system, which seems quite natural after a brief adjustment period. The Covenant base features a radically different design aesthetic, as one might expect, but functions in much the same way.

The main campaign takes place 20 years before the “Halo event,” and pits human and Covenant forces against each other on the surface of Harvest. A lengthy opening cinematic sets the scene, providing a glimpse of the carnage which the conflict has already engendered, as well as a new AI hologram, Serena, who has Cortana beaten handily in the looks department. The demo’s two playable missions, which provide roughly half an hour of gameplay, charge you with rounding up scattered survivors in an effort to retake a vanquished base. After the conclusion of each level, a mission summary recaps your performance, awarding a medal based upon your completion time, damage accrued, and havoc wrought. More detailed statistics offer information tailored toward helping you identify weaknesses in your game, not unlike Halo 3′s post-match summaries.

The demo also includes a skirmish mode, limited to a one-player showdown (with deathmatch mode locked) against an AI opponent on the “Chasms” map. You probably won’t want to play it more than once.

Visually, the game shines-packed with detail, the landscape of Harvest looks just like a Halo environment should. Bases bustle with activity, featuring flashing lights and hovering transports, and the exteriors of damaged buildings and units convincingly reflect their conditions. Warthogs move just like warthogs, which only served to remind me how much more I’d prefer to drive one than control one from afar. Weapons sound like they should, and the orchestral score picks up at all the right times, though the voice work is somewhat lackluster.

The Halo Wars demo may have made me pine for a lengthy Halo 3 session, but it also heightened my previously feeble sense of anticipation for the game’s March 3^rd release. Ensemble’s parting effort appears on track to deliver an experience over which RTS veterans and console shooter fans can bond, which should add to the popular franchise’s already impressive legacy.

Edit: Thanks to JadedTarget and Jason for throwing a rookie a bone in the comments below. Also, thanks to William, who emailed me with the news that holding A and moving the left joystick around controls the click-and-drag function I was pining for. The moral of this story is: don’t believe anything I say when I’m talking about an RTS game. With those concerns addressed, though, I’m certainly feeling more optimistic about the Halo Wars experience. I just hope there’s a more detailed tutorial in the final build, or one humdinger of a manual.

Lighthouse Interactive and Vertex 4 released update 1.08 for SunAge, their sci-fi real-time strategy game for PC. The new update adds several new enhancements, an auto-updater, bug fixes and above all, new multiplayer features.

Features in update 1.08:

• Re-balancing of several in-game units, an added enhancement given community feedback
• Multiplayer game lobby with chat functionalities
• Master server and improved online functionalities
• Improved firewall support and “punch through”
• Auto-updater functionality (future patches or fixes will be downloaded automatically upon startup of the game).
• Heavily reduced network traffic; rework of the network protocol, now UDP

Download the SunAge 1.08 patch free from Blast Magazine

About the game:

Earth is a desolate wasteland destroyed by the radiation and heat of the sun. Humankind, known as the Dome Confederacy, have been forced to retreat into shielded cities enduring constant attacks by the Raak-zun cult; a sect of religious outcasts who live outside the dome. An age long war has ensued as both races battle for the limited resources of the dying planet. Amidst the havoc, the gateway to a bold new planet is unlocked. Hope is on the horizon, but this Mecca is teeming with lethal Sentinel drones who will not hesitate to annihilate any life form that gets in their way.

Game features:

• 3 Distinct Races – Human, Raak-zun and Sentinel – each with their own units, buildings, technological advantages and disadvantages.
• Unique Upgrades – Alternate modes can be researched for all units, unlocking dual functionality for greater tactical depth.
• Graphics – Stunning sci-fi environments from vast industrial cities and devastated wastelands, to a lush alien planet. While displaying rich graphical environments and visual effects, SunAge is very playable on lower spec PC’s and laptops.
• Tactical Landscape – All units and their alternate modes are crucial to the overall strategy. Exploit weaknesses in the enemy’s network while strengthening your own connection lines.
• Formations – Squad concept combined with long distance camera views allows a large number of units to be fighting onscreen with a clear overview of the battleground. Singleplayer – 25 campaign maps with compelling plots for each race.
• Multiplayer – LAN and Online – Classic multiplayer with focus on gathering4 different kinds of resources and outsmarting the opponent in battle. 10 maps created uniquely for multiplayer mode.
• Command Queuing – Command your units to prone, build or attack where you want them and when you want them to do so.
• Indirect Intelligent Targeting (IIT) – Order your units to focus on pre-selected targets.

For more information about SunAge visit the game’s official website.

See also: Blast Magazine puts out the first preview for SunAge.

After playing a late beta of SunAge, I am convinced that the upcoming real-time strategy PC game can be a great one if the American version — due in early 2008 — doesn’t skimp on anything.

The game was originally conceived 11 years ago, the developer said on its blog. It went gold on November 21 and was released for direct download in UK, Scandinavia, Benelux and Italy December 2.

A patch came out three days later.

That’s disappointing but not surprising. I played v0.9-1 and encountered plenty of issues, particularly in point of view movement. Unlike most strategy games, SunAge doesn’t let you slide around with the keyboard arrows. You have to drag the cursor to the edge of the screen, and the map automatically moves.

That is a terrible, awful way to control a strategy game. The last thing you want to happen when you’re reaching to control your units is to have the map move around on you. Fix that. It’s a 2D strategy game. The keyboard isn’t too retro.

Getting past the controls and beta bugs, SunAge is a 2D post-modern strategy game with wonderfully crafted elements of cyberpunk, fantasy and military. Unlike early reports, the game is largely based on Earth, with an alien planet added. Earth. in an Al Gore-like prediction, is no longer hospitable for humans, who have retreated to secure domes.

You get to play as any of three races, the Federals, the Raak Zun, and the Sentinels.

“The Federacy was an organization born out of necessity. As conditions on Earth became increasingly hostile, humanity was faced with a difficult decision. Adapt, or die. The Federacy was formed, an international entity formed of many collapsing governments, to protect the remnants of a dying race,” and that’s the pseudo-noble human race you can control. Very post-mod, post-apocalyptic.

But — “When mankind retreated into the domes they also committed an act of grand betrayal – abandoning many of their peoples to perish in the toxic wastelands. But not all perished. Suffering decades of mutation and hardship, a new race was born with the instinct and brute force to survive the dangers of the wasteland: the Raak-Zun.” — They tend to look a lot like orcs.

The game uses four different kinds of ore and elements, Nitrium Ore, Plutonium, Zirkonium and Iberium Rods that let you produce units, vehicles, aircraft and advanced tech. It’s sort of like the original Star Wars strategy games where you’re seeking out futuristic materials to build your futuristic military units.

Just think of Zirkonium as chopping down trees for wood in Warcraft.

The game uses a lot of units and a traditional commander role on point.

SunAge has a good story, solid races and units and an RPG-type element with pop-in conversations and monologues that reminded me of what I used to see in Phantasy Star IV, one of the best RPG’s of the 16-bit generation. If they hold true to that — maybe some cut-scenes? — it’s a great feature.

I picked up the gameplay elements with a little effort. Grouping units together is intuitive and they will open fire on all hostiles. In my version, my units didn’t flock to a far-away enemy if I targeted it. They needed to be in range to respond to the attack command. The full version will improve on this with “combat queuing,” letting you issue batches of orders to your men. You can also formate your units in different ways depending on the enemy.

The game is 2D, but don’t get your shorts in a knot over that. The scenery elements look great and elements are detailed. There’s full voice acting and good character development as the story unfolds.

There’s some work to be done. The game is getting decent feedback on forums so far, but it is being criticized for a steep learning curve.

“This game keeps handing me my ass even in the early missions. It seems like you guys got so proficient at the game you forgot to see if us noobies could handle it,” said nailernforce on the Vertex4 boards.

I like SunAge. I think there’s room to improve it and make it ready for an ADHD American market. I also haven’t heard anything about unit or map editors yet — so we’ll have to see about mods and editing.

So let me put Lighthouse Interactive and Vertex4 on notice: You don’t get any second chances in the United States. Fix the bugs and controls before you put it out here. If the game can’t be played without some sort of bug or freeze-up, it will fail here. God dammit, you put 11 years into this one. Don’t let a month’s worth of bug testing eff it all up.

Features:

• 3 Distinct Races – Human, Raak-zun and Sentinel – each with their own units, buildings, technological advantages and disadvantages
• Unique Upgrades – Alternate modes can be researched for all units, unlocking dual functionality for greater tactical depth
• Graphics – Stunning sci-fi environments from vast industrial cities and devastated wastelands, to a lush alien planet. While displaying rich graphical environments and visual effects, SunAge is very playable on lower spec PC’s and laptops
• Tactical Landscape – All units and their alternate modes are crucial to the overall strategy. Exploit weaknesses in the enemy’s network while strengthening your own connection lines
• Formations – Squad concept combined with long distance camera views allows a large number of units to be fighting onscreen with a clear overview of the battle ground
• Singleplayer – 25 campaign maps with compelling plots for each race
• Multiplayer – LAN and Online – Classic multiplayer with focus on gathering 4 different kinds of resources and outsmarting the opponent in battle. 10 maps created uniquely for multiplayer mode
• Command Queuing – Command your units to prone, build or attack where you want them and when you want them to do so
• Indirect Intelligent Targeting (IIT) – Order your units to focus on pre-selected targets

System requirements:

• OS: Windows ME / 2000 / XP / Vista
• CPU: 1,2 GHz Intel® Pentium® III or equivalent AMD® Athlon processor
• RAM: 512 MB (1 GB Recommended for Windows Vista)
• Video Card: 128 MB 3D accelerated video card
• PC CD-ROM: 4x (or PC DVD-ROM drive)
• Sound: DirectSound compatible (Sound Blaster X-Fi series sound card recommended)
• Available Hard Disk Space: 1 GB
• DirectX: 9.0c compatible
• Other: Mouse, Keyboard and Speakers
• Multiplayer: LAN or 56K (or faster) Internet Connection

Quick hits:

Publisher: Lighthouse Interactive
Developer: Vertex 4
Platform: PC CD-ROM
Genre: Real-time strategy
Players: 1
Launch Date: Q1, 2008

Playability: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Learning Curve: 3 out of 5 stars
Sound: 5 out of 5 stars
Graphics: 4 out of 5 stars
Overall: 3.5 out of 5 stars (Based on the Beta. As Homer Simpson said to Maggie: Prove me wrong Silent Bob)

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