World in Conflict

What if the Berlin Wall did not fall in 1989? Rather, what if the USSR had decided not to go gently into that good night and instead unleashed World War III for a winner-take-all fight to the finish? Such is the premise behind Massive Entertainment’s World in Conflict, a real time strategy game that attempts to capture the destructive fury of a global conflict with battlefields that stretch from the shores of America to Russia itself. Needless to say, that’s a tall order to fill, one I doubted Massive could achieve. After finally getting my hands on World in Conflict, I am happy to say that I was wrong.

World in Conflict puts the gamer in the shoes of one Lt. Parker, a soldier that has the lot of finding himself smack-dab in the middle of the major battles of World War III. His war story is told via World in Conflict’s single player campaign. The campaign game is of your fairly standard type, i.e., a series of increasingly challenging missions designed to introduce the player to the basics of gameplay, something it does reasonably well. Each mission is introduced with a strategic map and a situation report narrated by Alec Baldwin(!). Following this, there is one of those pre-rendered scenes that advance the narrative plot and introduce the basic objectives of the coming fight. Finally, there are still-life illustrations that serve as a backdrop for emotional dialogue between soldiers on the frontlines and their families back home. These copious graphical elements of the single player campaign do help to bring some depth to the storyline, but as with most games, I found that it all added up to little more than your typical narrative framework mainly geared towards advancing the gameplay.

There have been some complaints concerning the brevity of the single player campaign. Granted, it does not seem as lengthy as other titles, but I found it of sufficient length. After all, World in Conflict is really about multiplayer action. However, I do agree with complaints concerning the ease of the campaign. Played at a ‘normal’ difficulty setting, the campaign rarely caused me to break a sweat, and this is coming from a guy who is anything but a hardcore RTS player! If you fancy yourself to be the military genius of RTS titles, you might want to kick things up a notch with a higher difficulty setting.

Single player gameplay largely revolves around the standard “capture and hold point X” approach that is found in many RTS titles with one important distinction: there is no base building. Hooray! I have always found base building to be one of the most annoying aspects of the RTS genre and I am glad to see it is finally gone. Instead, World in Conflict cuts to the chase by giving the player a set of reinforcement points he can use to purchase units from the four military classes: Infantry, Armor, Support, and Air. Points are invested, that is, you get them back as units are destroyed in battle. The trick to World in Conflict is to use these points to build a force that is suitable to the task you are attempting to accomplish, be it the capturing of command points or providing fire support to other units as they struggle for them.

An interesting aspect of World in Conflict is the Tactical Aid panel. This panel contains all sorts of weapons to unleash upon your enemies, from airborne infantry to artillery strikes and tactical nukes! To use a Tactical Aid, you need to have the sufficient amount of TA points, which are accumulated by capturing command points, repairing friendly vehicles and by killing the enemy. Since TAs are powerful, they have a strong influence on gameplay. For example, I once witnessed the Soviet enemy storm a town with an irresistible wave of T-80 tanks. What to do? Call in an airstrike, of course! A few canisters of cluster munitions resolved that problem nicely! As can be inferred, Tactical Aids can drastically affect the outcome of any battle, adding a nice amount of complexity to what otherwise might have been your standard “get there firstest with the mostest” RTS. Likewise, since TA points accumulate slowly, the decision to use them or save ‘em for something bigger (like a nuke) is a constant factor to be weighed.

Graphically speaking, World in Conflict is one of the most impressive titles I have ever played. I have never seen a game bring the destruction of modern warfare to life in such wonderful detail. Everything on the World in Conflict battlefield can be trounced: buildings, cars, fences, streetlights, even the ground itself! Added to the destructibility of the terrain, the weapons systems are rendered with glorious realism. Napalm strikes, cluster bombs, tank buster strafing runs – everything in the game leaves a unique footprint. Furthermore, this visual realism gets all the sweeter when zoomed in. The detail incorporated into the individual vehicles and structures is striking. From graffiti on the walls of buildings to the accoutrements of infantrymen, it’s all rendered with wonderful realism. Now, mind you, these details are present on my Quad core PC running an Nvidia 8600 GTS, but even on my five year old PC, the graphics were impressive (although there were frame rate issues on that PC). The game is so visually stunning that I highly recommend that all players save a replay of one of their battles and view it later…it’s like watching a big budget war movie that the gamer helped to make!

Likewise, the audio is notable. As with the graphics, everything sounds as it should. In fact, the sounds of combat are so realistic that after awhile you can tell what weapon was used without even seeing it in action. In addition, if you zoom in on an individual unit, you are treated to the chit chat of individual soldiers and crew members. I have found this to be both humorous and a great way to get the latest gossip on the progress of the war.

The heart of World in Conflict is found in its multiplayer aspects. Now, I am one of those poor souls who are often found contentedly playing against bots even though the game contains a robust multiplayer component. I can’t help it; I rather play against a polite AI opponent than against some RTS pro who wins the game before I even realize what has happened! Well, World in Conflict has created a unique team-based approach that goes a long way in alleviating this fear. In this game, you can have up to eight persons on a side, all working together to defeat the enemy with each team member needing to assume a distinct role from the aforementioned branches of service. This effectively removes the crushing one-on-one component of multiplayer gaming (although you can still set-up such matches). I have found this system to work remarkably well. Heck, I would even go so far as to say that this is one of the very few titles where multiplayer participation is a must to truly enjoy everything World in Conflict offers! It is a blast (pun intended) to have eight players all working together to achieve a victory. As World in Conflict places such a premium on team cooperation, it offers two methods to facilitate ‘strategery.’ The first is VOIP, which is included in the software and available to anyone with a mic. The second is a handy series of hotkeys to issue terse commands, from “I’m going here” to “I need anti-air!” Regardless of how you do it, World in Conflict demands coherent and intensive team cooperation to achieve victory, something I find to be very refreshing in a gaming world populated by glory-hungry lone heroes.

The gameplay maps are diverse, from fighting for control of urban Seattle to the frozen wastes of Russia, with all of them being rendered in exquisite detail. It is important to note that the maps utilize different types of gameplay. On some maps, players must seize command points, on another the goal is to push the forward edge of the battle area (FEBA) forward by seizing three linked command points. Lastly, there are maps that use a system where teams take turns assaulting and defending command points. I found these variations on multiplayer combat added spice to competitive gameplay.

Massgate, Massive Entertainment’s online portal, offers a nice amount of features for diehard multiplayer gamers. In addition to awarding medals and military rank for online achievements, Massgate also tracks a host of rankings, from high scores to the total number of enemies killed. Also, clan leaders can create private chat rooms to discuss pre-game strategy. Another cool feature is the ability to upload a team avatar that will appear on all your units in game. Clearly, Massive hopes World in Conflict will become a dominant force in the competitive multiplayer community and has done everything to facilitate this goal.

What is wrong with World in Conflict? Very little, and certainly nothing that future patches and expansions won’t alleviate. I do find the number of units, sixty in all, divided amongst three factions (America, the Soviet Union, and NATO), to be limited. Also, World in Conflict’s touted “broadcast tool,” a robust set of features that will give gamers 'telestrator' functions, has not yet been implemented but is expected to be released a part of an update in the near future. Finally, some units could use balancing, but nothing is terribly out of whack. In fact, I think World in Conflict is probably one of the cleanest releases I have played.

Speaking about expansions, I think one of the most exciting aspects of World in Conflict is the potential for expansions. After all, when you have a game that deals with World War III, the possibilities are limitless. New units, maps, Tactical Aids…anything is possible. I fully expect World in Conflict to grow by leaps and bounds over the coming years, providing a near limitless selection of scenarios for Cold Warriors the world over.