Joystiq impressions: World in Conflict
Think of a real-time strategy game session as a bell curve. At the lower end is the beginning, when there's a lot of resource-gathering and scouting. In the middle and the higher portion, there's lots of action. As the battle winds down, so does the action. Massive Entertainment's World in Conflict was described to us as a strategy game with the lower ends of the bell curve cut off, and from what we saw at the Sierra suite, it's a pretty accurate description.
The story of World in Conflict is based in an alternate future where the Berlin wall didn't fall and the Cold War went hot. At the beginning of the battle, the player is given 6,000 in currency that can be used to purchase and deploy troops. Once a troop is destroyed, its value is returned to the player for purchasing more troops, keeping the intensity up.
%Gallery-4917%
The PC build of the game used controls akin to a first-person shooter, with the WASD keys for moving the camera and the mouse for pointing / rotating the camera. According to the developers, this was so the game would be more accessible to non-strategy players. Unfortunately, our playtest with the control system on a PC build proved cumbersome, and while we probably would have gotten used to it after a few missions, do they expect FPS gamers to find the traditional point-and-click that hard to adjust to? No word of whether there will be an option to use a more traditional control scheme.
The hot new feature of the year, terrain deformation, rears its cratered head again. Gun fire and missiles left minor holes, while a nuclear warhead left a very noticeable pit in its absence. The game looks gorgeous, with a deep level of zoom available. The final game is expected to utilize DirectX 10, and while we didn't see it in this build, we were more than impressed with the current visuals.
The trailer we saw revealed Alec Baldwin as the game's narrator, and showed a fierce battle outside of a Burger King. Between this, Fight Night and their own lineup, the fast food giant is showing its in-game advertising-enthusiast side yet again. We couldn't help but laugh a little.
The plan is for 23 maps (approximately 40% in the US, 30% in Europe and 30% in Russia) and 14 missions. Each match is expected to take 35 to 60 minutes. Though the game is coming out for Xbox 360 as well, there is no plan for cross-platform play; the PC version will support 16-player games, whereas its console iteration is only shooting for 8-player matches. Though the campaign only lets you play as the US and NATO, multiplayer lets you take play as the Russians.
Even with our issues with the controls, World in Conflict shaping up to be a fine entry in the strategy genre. The game is due out in September for the PC and "later this year" for the Xbox 360. An open beta for the PC version is currently being run.
