"Just another great RTS"

Act of War: Direct Action is a Real-Time-Strategy game made by Atari. It was recently released. Each section will have a score out of ten. I'll get on with the review.

Graphics: 10/10

The graphics in this game are incredible for an RTS. Water and glass reflections are excellent; you can even zoom in and see infantry's faces! When a building is destroyed, you can watch it burst into flames and blow up, and the fire is really convincing too. You can see infantry's weapons unlike Command and Conquer Generals, where they carried grey colored sticks. Overall everything is detailed very very nicely. The cutscenes before and after campaign missions are also excellent (no the Russian guy does not look like he's dislodging something from his teeth).

Sound: 9/10

This is also excellent. Each unit has a unique sound, and the explosions sound realistic and sharp. However it gets a 9 because sometimes there are explosions followed without sound, like the Falling Star super weapon, you can hear the first explosion, then its gone.

Story: 10/10

This story is believable and isn't completely covered in mystery like in Half-Life 2. Basically, oil = money and terrorists want that money (well I'm not sure, I haven't completely finished the game yet). There are also some twists and turns that come out of the blue. The story isn't hard to understand, nor is it cheesy. Overall an excellent story with no flaws.

Game play: 9/10

The game is balanced as far as I can tell, however the AI is really dumb sometimes. The AI being average is the only flaw. There is also a unique POW capturing system, where you can capture wounded enemies and get money, and if you have a POW camp building, they will give you periodic paychecks. Other than that, this is basically the same as all other RTSes, build a base, build a force, go go go!

Buy or rent? Buy, the multiplayer community will definitely grow, and it seems pretty good right now. Act of War: Direct Action is a great game which shouldn't be missed by any RTS fan.

Oh, one more note, you need a video card that supports Pixel Shading if you want to play it, otherwise the game won't run (Nvidia Geforce4 MX440 or any cards under it can't play the game, sorry). By the way, the green box looks really really pretty :P.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/05