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One of the first 3D real time strategy games, offering a quite new concept. Instead of gaining resources and building your units using them, this game starts with a standard number of 'money', which can be spent on new units. With these units you can attack the enemy’s base, which is nothing more than a 3D-card effect which glows up and rotates (a colored black hole where the enemy units come out of). When this is defeated you'll proceed to the next mission. When your units die in battle you gain the money you paid for them back and you can get them to the enemy base again. It takes some time to construct them so in this time you're weaker than the enemy for a while, and that's all where the game is about. The 3D action pits you against three human opponents over a LAN or the Internet, or lets you be the best you can be at 30 missions in two solo-player campaigns. The UN has selected two arms manufacturers as finalists in the race to build high-tech robotic weapons to fend off an impending alien return to Earth. Mars is the battlefield of choice since the conditions provide the ultimate test range with an abundance of mines, canals, alien artifacts, and wide-open spaces. It features more than 120 types of robots to build and destroy, light sourcing, terrain morphing, bump mapping, puzzles, and background animations, as well as support for native 3Dfx and Direct3D acceleration modes. Options include playing for either the Red Star Robotics or Terraflux corporations, normal or advanced difficulty levels, saving after completion of a mission, and a host of customization controls such as scrolling speed, rotation, zooming, display, and volume settings. Multiplayer action is limited to a pure deathmatch format but offers nine battle maps. The host sets the parameters including the amount of money and which robot components are available, as well as the usage of Alien Boosters (speed, firepower, range, frequency, shield, camouflage, attack, and defense). Though the storyline is as simplistic as the AI, real-time strategy elements make it exciting during actual bouts. |
