But when traveling, they slide across the terrain as if they were skidding on ice, often moving at weird angles. The engine is strictly 2D, but the animation allows units to move as if they were polygonal: They're not fixed to specific directions, and they can even turn over or fly through the air when they explode. Only aircraft fare well in this game because they're modeled after distinct real-world airframes. Even at the tightest zoom, infantry units are little more than dots. Vehicles tend to be the boxy generic equivalents of plastic army-men toys. Many of Real War's units are virtually impossible to distinguish, especially when they're selected and a thick cloud of health bars and experience icons obscures them. Even at the closest zoom level, infantry units seem tiny. Topware Interactive's 3D real-time strategy game Earth 2150 took a similar approach with more success because the buttons were bigger and they used the same 3D models from the game engine. They're hard enough to make out because they're so small, but even the artwork is indistinguishable there are vague drawings of trucks, buildings, lumpy colors, and other less-than-helpful stuff that doesn't look like anything on the map. But the buttons are tiny pictures about 25 pixels wide crammed into a small box. This means you won't have to scroll around the map to find something. The basic idea behind the interface is admirable at the bottom of the screen, there's a button for every unit and building. There is no speed adjustment, and the game moves so quickly that your army can quickly scurry out of control. However, because the number of depots you can build is limited, Real War minimizes economic micromanagement and lets you focus on your military units.Īnd you'll definitely need to focus on your military units, because Real War's interface, artwork, and unit AI are an utter nightmare. Theoretically, you have to protect your helicopters from enemy attack, but they're invulnerable if you simply build your depots against the map edge. For each depot, a helicopter periodically flies in from the map edge and unloads "supply" into your reserves, which can then be used for building units and structures. Instead of harvesting resources like gold or ore, your "supply" is automatically generated when you build supply depots. It also forces you to use a combined-arms approach, since you can't focus solely on one type of unit. This puts a limit on the size of your army and how much you can expand across the map. There's a limit to the number of each type of unit and structure you can build. There are a few interesting angles Real War takes from the traditional real-time strategy conventions. Near the end of the build tree, you'll find weapons of nuclear, biological, and psychological warfare. Power generators give you the energy your buildings need to function, and supply depots give you the resources you need to build units. You can upgrade your buildings to unlock new units. You start with a headquarters and then build land, air, and sea command centers to unlock the basic units. The campaign missions tend to have specific objectives, while the skirmish games are last-man-standing slugfests to the finish. You can choose the single-player campaign of 12 linear missions or a skirmish game. The two sides are the US military and the generically named terrorist organization, the Independent Liberation Army (which begs the question, "If they're independent, from whom do they want to be liberated?"). It's a typical real-time strategy game featuring modern weaponry rather than fictitious sci-fi or fantasy armaments. Real War is entirely conventional in many ways. Dropping leaflets on enemies can actually make them flee. And considering its subject matter-the US military going abroad to battle terrorists-it's also an example of colossally bad timing. Like most of the games that tried to ride Westwood's coattails, this is an example of amateurish game design at its worst. Real War is a throwback to the days of those horrible real-time strategy clones that followed the success of Westwood's Command & Conquer series.
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