> Bringing Real-Time Strategy out of a Real-Time Slump

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Ground Control
Massive Entertainment/ Sierra/ PC/ PS2


And to think this was almost considered a Battlezone clone!

A little known fact around the offices of the Electric Playground is that I have a Bachelor of Science in Genetics [Editor's note: It's not that we don't-know Sean has a genetics degree, it's that we don't-care]. I have taken a countless number of courses dealing with both hereditary and acquired disorders and disease. So perhaps it was fate that I was given the task of taking a look at all of the latest strategy games at this year's E3 as there is no doubt in my mind that this genre has picked up a serious infection. I have chosen to name this newly discovered infection the RBRMRV: Really Big Resource Management Rut Virus.

Everyone who enjoys these games knows the RBRMRV symptoms: Start with a unit, click on a resource, gather the resource, stockpile the resource, make another unit and repeat throughout the scenario while trying to manage all of your different units through an ever increasing number of fast action combats. Originally it was a pretty cool concept and led to some great strategic battles in both single and multiplayer games. Well, a new century has arrived and it's time for RTS games to purge themselves of the RBRMRV and move on to some new territory, provide gamers with some new challenges and finally stop rehashing the same concept over and over again. Luckily, as I waded my way through the non-stop flow of RBRMRV victims at this year's E3, I came upon a cure and its name is Ground Control.

I like to call the active agent of this new cure "unit management" and it removes the strategy requirement of endless resource gathering from RTS games and replaces it with a new and more interesting level of game play. You begin with a single unit of marines and acquire more units with each new mission as well as keeping surviving units from previous tours of combat. This leads to a whole new form of strategy, as not only do you want to successfully complete your missions, you also want to complete each objective with a minimum number of friendly casualties.

This "unit management" becomes even more intriguing when you consider the fact that your different squads gain experience with each mission. As your squads increase in experience they gain access to special weapons and can be altered into different units depending on your strategy. You can then further customize each of your units in each mission by selecting their purpose within the mission (offensive, defensive, maneuver and recon). After making your way through all of these choices you enter a mission and then further customize your units through action commands, allowing you to control formation, movement, fire options and so on. Ground Control provides a great depth of strategy to its gameplay without a peon or harvester in sight. More importantly, this unit survival from mission to mission results in you caring about some of your squads, and suffering a feeling of loss when one of your veteran, multi-campaign and decorated squads dies while following orders.

Ground Control is also special because it contains what I like to call the "oooh whats that?" gaming factor. "Oooh whats that?" games are those games that look so nice graphically that people walking by the computer stop and say "oooh….", well you get the point. Ground Control is so beautiful to look upon that it can cause some serious problems in the game play as you end up stopping to watch your artillery barrage while the rest of your squadrons are getting beat up by enemy forces. Yet the developers weren't happy with just making the game look incredible, the graphics of Ground Control have a strategic effect on the game play. Units can hide in shadows, marines can take cover in underbrush and enemy aerodynes can use the sun to mask their approach from the sky. Graphics that look incredible and are functional, what more could you ask for?

The story line, mission variety and overall long term interest value of Ground Control remains to be seen as, despite my best strategies, I could only get away from the show with the demo. However, it has been a long time since a RTS game has kept me glued to my computer screen for three hours without realizing it was way past my bedtime. Ground Control may have lacked the glitzy E3 presentation of many other RTS titles last week but more importantly it lacked any signs of the RBRMRV and is definitely a strong contender for your uninfected gaming dollars.

-Sean Miller

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