Sloe Times

The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle. It is your killer instinct which must be harnessed if you expect to survive in combat. Your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not clean and strong, you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead marines, and then you will be in a world of shit, because marines are not allowed to die without permission. Do you maggots understand?
-- Gunnery Sergeant Hartman played by R. Lee in Full Metal Jacket Ermey

It occurs to me that I didn't really give a complete review of this game as it stands today and having played it quite a bit to this point I think it is a game that others will enjoy. First off, I unfortunately do not have any screen shots to offer. The developers have asked us not to post any since its current state and look may not be how it appears when it hits store shelves. That being said, my testing rig has a GeForce 5600 Ultra and playing at 1024x768 on light weight 15" LCD (makes taking hardware to LAN parties easier) the graphics for this type of game are pretty smooth. Currently there are still some glitches during large scale battles (5+ regiments per side going at it in one area) that cause a stutter but normal play is smooth and beautiful. Like other RTSs there's plenty of replay factor here since it's never the same game twice. However, just to take it up a knock the developers have added some twists.

The sides in the game are made up of the classic A&A combatants, USA, Great Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan. Each side has similar standard units with the ability to generate unique advanced units. For example, Germany can build King Tiger Tanks and Russia can conscript infantry (cheaper infantry option for building up Russian human wave attacks), and the Japanese can build tankettes. In addition to choosing a side, you also choose a leader. Each side has 4 possible leaders that bring different special abilities to your game. The special abilities can be temporary boosts in power for selected units, additional supplies to support your troops with, special bombing attacks that do more damage, and even the atomic bomb. There's a decent balance between the leaders so you have the flexibility of choosing one that fits your play style without feeling you'll be over powered by not taking 'the best leader.'

My past experience with RTSs have included C&C, Warcraft, and AOE. For the most part A&A RTS plays a lot like AOE or Warcraft does in terms of building base structures, researching improvements, and support being based on your bases development. Something that makes this a more strategic game than say C&C is that in general is that building nothing but the biggest units is not going to win your engagement. To win, you'll need to use combined arms to take advantage of terrain, enemy weaknesses, and to overcome a well defended base. Like AOE or Warcraft, you have building limits that dictate how many of each types of regiments you can have in the field based on the number of HQs you've constructed. Regiments are either infantry, airborne, mechanized, or armored groups built by one of 4 different types of HQs. Each HQ can only control a limited number of regiments. For example the Infantry HQ can only command a maximum of 5 infantry regiments and an Armor HQ can only command a maximum of 3 armor regiments. To field more of a given type of regiment you'll need to build out more of that type of HQ. This is generally a win-win situation since instead of having to have resource gatherers, you gain money at a steady rate based on your HQ infrastructure, town occupation, and resource utilization.

The balancing act of resources (money, ammunition, and oil) requires that consideration be used in what types of units you build, bunkers built to defend your base (AA, pill boxes, and fixed artillery), and the quantity of units you can field at a given time. If you don't manage your oil and ammunition supplies it will severely cut into your money/income levels.

The only combat type missing from the game is naval. There are some scenarios that can be built by the map editor that can give players aircraft carriers and battleships but there is no naval HQ that would allow you to build other ships. The air combat is fairly simplistic so the focus is generally on the land engagements.

That's all I can think of for now but I'll try to add to this if I think of anything else. The new Sid Meier's Pirates! Beta has kicked off and the CD should be hitting my doorstep late this week. I never played the original VGA version, but I am eagerly anticipating the swashbuckling goodness to come. :)