The last game shown to me
by CDV was a very early look at a game called War Leaders. The game will try to
give players the ability to play an RTS with or without all of the heavy
handedness sometimes associated with RTS games. You know what I’m talking
about. Battles that seem to last forever, having to replay the same sections
again because of an accidental wrong click of the mouse. These things happen
and we know they do.
The demo shown of War
Leaders had two different sections, one being the typical RTS battles and the
other being a game board type of environment. The game board setting reminded
me of Risk in a way since you could see the countries and could also see your
units displayed by different pieces (ex. Tanks). If you want to move to a
different country you just simply point and click where you want to be. Now
this is where you as the player have the option to either play the heavy RTS
section or let the game do it for you.
If you want the computer
to run the battles for you then it can be done. You could play the entire game
without ever having to play through a battle or watch a battle. All of it can
be controlled by the computer. But if you want to play the battle than be
prepared for what could be a game of attrition by physics.
The battle section really
wasn’t ready to be shown but the demo did show off what the graphics engine will
be capable of handling. The graphics looked great but the showstopper was the
physics. Items and buildings would crumble realistically and debris was left
scattered everywhere. The debris could also be used to damage the troops as
well as an added bonus. Barrels of gasoline were sent flying through the air
and the explosions just didn’t happen once. The barrels kept exploding as they
expanded farther and farther away from the initial blast zone. Pieces of the
barrels were sent flying through the air and even sticking into the ground. Of
course this was an early demo so all of this could still change.
Once again this was a
very early demo of a game that isn’t due to be released until probably sometime
in 2007. If the game lives up to the hype of the demo then we could be in for
another great RTS game. Oh did I happen to mention that it was a WWII RTS game?
Nope, hmm…..well it is so I guess by 2007 the WWII RTS genre will still be
chugging along.
