World in Conflict

"Explosions aplenty"

In the past few months, I've been relatively quiet when it comes to reviews on video games, but I've had time to play several dozens of different games. World in Conflict is a game of strategy that doesn't break the mold as far as the formula of get units, kill enemies, progress to the next portion. What it lacks in overall originality, it makes up for in sheer amounts of explosions and machine-lagging effects. While there are other games out there that give you more to do, more units to work with and different overall storylines, World in Conflict gives you the visual experience quite unlike any other.

The story of World in Conflict is that of an invasion of Russian forces on American soil that is strongly influenced by an old eighties movie named Red Dawn. As you progress through the story, you'll see many of the major American cities being invaded Russian forces, and you will see references to the eighties at many points. Although the story is the same basic good versus evil that we've played dozens of times before, there are some interesting plot twists, but those are few and far between with several groan inducing moments. If you're playing for a long and involved story that makes you feel as though you‘re in the middle of an engaging tale, then you're playing the wrong title.

World in Conflict has several different units as your disposal, with both infantry and mobile forces being put at your command. You do not build bases and collect resources in order to bolster your forces, but rather use command points in order to have your forces air dropped into the battlefield. Each of your units has strengths and weaknesses, but you'll find that some of the basic infantry units have the power to wipe out everything on the battlefield, so it becomes less tactful in what units you actually use. At different points of each battlefield, you will have different objectives to overcome with both primary and secondary objectives that will help or hinder your progress.

The main focus of the game play, unfortunately, is the use of the air strikes and artillery to level the opponent. Most of the game will be played mainly from directing where the called air strikes and the multiple ground artillery will destroy the enemy, with your main forces simply mopping up whatever is left. As you progress through the stages, you will find different air strikes and such at your disposal, ranging from heavy artillery guns to napalm strikes. For every kill you make, command points appear, which allow you to use more of the called in artillery and air strikes, leading up to the ever popular tactical nuke, which wipes everything out.

Once you've played through the main campaign, you're stuck with the multiplayer mode, which is more of the same with your opponent being human instead of the computer. You have three factions to choose from, with either the Americans, the Russians or the NATO forces, with the only differences really being in the air strikes they can use. Aside from that, it is your standard multiplayer free-for-all with the dazzling explosions and all out mayhem. Honestly, nothing new here that will catch your interest for more than a few games and the only wish that I have is that there had been the ability to play through the Russian campaign just to see the story from the ‘evil' side of the coin.

Commanding your units is simple, with a key mapping that takes a few minutes to learn and memorize. Drag and click with the mouse allows multiple units to move throughout the landscape and you can give different units orders by double clicking on one which highlights the rest of the same type. Giving orders to the air-drops for the re-supplying of your troops or just calling in more troops is done from an overhead map which is simple to move around on and easy to point and click. Air strikes and the artillery is also easy to use, with targeting arrows first showing the path or range of the strike and then allowing you to direct the path of the different bombing and napalm runs.

The meat of World in Conflict is the visual experience that I honestly haven't seen in another RTS in quite a long time. Explosions, land-changing craters and even the movement and detail on the vehicles and building is quite impressive. Air strikes come in blazing and the bombs fall as though you were watching a war movie and just as they hit, the screen becomes filled with smoke, fire and death. If your machine can actually handle it. With the rig that I use to play games at home, even with the specs of my machine out-matching the ‘benchmark' levels of the game, my machine lags to a near stand-still if I unleash too much firepower all at once.
Cinematic scenes and the overhead flight of the air strikes are clean and crisp, but when you unload everything you have in a localized area, its possible to actually crash the game out from too much going on all at once. With the effects are mid-level, you don't get all of the visual detail that you could hope for, but at least you're able to play the game reasonably well without your video card having a seizure. If you have any doubt, make sure you have the tactical nuke, get within a localized area, detail at full and drop the nuke and then go make a sandwich and wait for your machine to catch up with what just happened.

The music is non-existent with most of the focus on the story and the constant communications between your units and the main command force. Explosions, vehicle movements and the like are a welcoming immersion to the overall battle and it melds together nicely without having too much of any given sound all at once. The small chatter between units if you stop and listen to them is actually humorous at some points with references to soldiers sleeping with other soldiers wives and back and forth bickering. The cinematic scenes are put together nicely, and the story, while slightly bland, is written well with the voice acting somewhat believable.

Overall World in Conflict gives you nothing truly new, but does give you the visual experience that you might truly enjoy. I haven't run into a game in quite a while that has taxed my machine to the point of freezing and when the game is able to be run at full strength, I'm sure it is a true sight to behold. However, there are only a few things here that are different than other RTS games, and the visual experience alone doesn't really justify the price of the game. Lack of campaign options, sometimes lop-sided units, and with most gamers only able to play this game at mid-level graphic settings or lower, World of Conflict is a good attempt, but not quite good enough.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/23/08

Game Release: World in Conflict (US, 09/18/07)