If there was an objective to achieve then you had to do it with the troops you were given at the start of the mission. Ground Control was entirely free of time-accrued resources. Other games escalated technology in this way too - Warzone 2100 most notably - but Ground Control was the only one that seemed to demand escalation from you, the living, breathing real-time tactician.īut there's something else that both Ground Control II and World In Conflict failed to do: and that was to resist the allure of resources. Suddenly you were thinking about placing spotters ahead of the main force, of genuinely scouting in case your lightly armoured force was going to be intercepted, and covering important units from air attack. Ground Control really was all about the lay of the land, and it was the first of the 3D RTS games to really make that concept work for you, the player. Such as with the titanic artillery pieces which had far greater range from on high, and with the spotter scouts who could see further the higher they were positioned ahead of your force. These lessons continued throughout the game. Hit them hard, then come back for the kill. You soon learned to think laterally: driving up to over-looking hills and pounding fortified positions from above was always a better option to start the game. Against a timed objective, with your limited resources, you'd enter deep water rather quickly. The game's second mission taught you that a frontal assault on an enemy base was going to be possible, but slow. It wasn't just about about channeling you towards objectives (although it did do that) it was also about delivering tactical advantage (or disadvantage) as you played. Not only that, but it was a game that genuinely used terrain in making futuristic warfare interesting to navigate. It was a game that made the most of the clarity of its simple, beautiful terrain. While other RTS games had half the screen covered in their ornate interface packaging, Ground Control had a translucent map and a couple of floating buttons for your units. Initially I think it was the way that Massive combined minimalistic presentation and 3D visuals that impressed me. Nevertheless, I couldn't help thinking, when reviewing the World In Conflict single player campaign, that Massive had missed a trick or two from their original game. It still has a sense of style, but it certainly lacks the high-end bombast and gameplay timing of the more recent game. I got to see how it has aged well graphically, despite the relative lack of detail and the low-res 3D, while it hasn't aged well in terms of pacing and production. Playing it again in 2007 was an interesting experience. This exquisitely unassuming game first trundled onto my PC in June 2000 and ever since I've been waiting for a worthy successor. With Massive Entertainment's spectacular World In Conflict causing some big ripples in the slow depths of the real time strategy I found myself once again contemplating its sci-fi ancestor, Ground Control.
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