"Act of War promises incredible graphics and cinematic design, but how's the actual gameplay?"

It's a common argument in the video gaming world that a great story can make a game great even if some of the other features of the game are lacking. The same is said for great graphics, great gameplay, and great sound – these factors can all carry a game on their own. Still, there are few games that come to mind where this idea can actually be presented. Atari however has generously provided us with an easy-to-reference example with their latest RTS game, Act of War. The story for the game was written by top author Dale Brown and remains gripping throughout, even as the gameplay falters and missteps at some basic turns.

In Act of War, the future is grim. America is at war with terrorists, the troops are spread too thinly, and terrorists attack civilians in broad daylight. September 11th was just the beginning of many terrorists attacks that have increased in severity. There's even been a nuclear attack on one of the world's largest oil companies. In response, the US Government has organized a new fighting unit to target and respond to the growing terrorist threat.

This new team – the Task Force Talon – is dispatched throughout the world (into cities such as London and San Francisco) to eliminate any threats. What makes this plot even more gripping is that it's fully acted by a cast of professional actors and actresses. While that may not sound incredibly innovative, the actors aren't just voices – they really act it out, like what you would see in a movie (though there are some CG cutscenes for explosions and stuff). The entire game is scripted out like this and it works really, really well.

The game opens up with your troops dispatched to London. A huge oil meeting is scheduled to take place, but tension is high. There are hundreds of thousands of protesters and they're very pissed off about the rising costs of fuel and the lack of concern about the situation by the big oil conglomerate TransGlobal Energy, who is the only one not buying oil at over $80 a barrel (but is presumably charging at the same rates as the companies that are).

People are also a little upset by the fact that the president of TransGlobal Energy cut spending on development of alternate fuel sources and that he controls most of the oil market. So, as you can imagine, tension is high. Certainly, adding American soldiers into the mix is a lethal combination and soon, bad things happen. Gunfire spurts out of the crowd and chaos soon erupts. The head of TransGlobal Energy hops into a limo and disappears through a mass of protesters that are running for their lives.

You're then put into control of the troops. At first, you can't add troops into your unit and instead have to plan how you'll use each of your troops effectively. For the most part, I chose to clump them all together and have them attack head-on and I suffered limited losses. During the rest of the missions, you're given full control over the amount of troops that you'd like. During one of the earlier missions during the “Battle for San Francisco” portion of the game, I was required to destroy surface-to-air missiles that had been placed by the Golden Gate Bridge by the terrorists so that my US planes could bomb the terrorists that were hanging out on the bridge itself. Instead, I tried to take the bridge myself. The game reminded me that it was “suicide” to try it, but I did anyway and I kicked ass just storming them head-on.

The biggest problem that I had with Act of War is that I never felt any real sense of urgency. Sure, terrorists will attack your base sporadically, but usually they aren't in strong enough waves for you to suffer any causalities. Meanwhile, you're pretty much free to create as many units as you'd like. The only resource in the game, money, flows in pretty steadily. Most of the time I earned my cash by capturing troops, which isn't necessarily the most reliable method of earning cash because you have to hope that your troops don't kill everyone and you can capture POWs after the battle, but as long as you don't attack every living thing with armor and use infantry to battle your enemies, you'll be able to make quite a bit of cash. You can even increase the amount of money captured terrorists are worth through upgrades. It's a pretty unique system that's easily more interesting than selling goods at markets or cutting down forests.

There are quite a few different units to unleash onto your opponents, but a lot of times just making one or two types and unleashing them onto your enemy in a massive wave works better (or at least more easily) than combining forces. In multiplayer games though, this strategy no longer works. You'll have to effectively manage your troops (you can play as the US Army, Task Force Talon, or the bad guys, the Consortium, in multiplayer) if you want to win. In urban environments, you can scatter your troops throughout buildings to be able to chip away at enemy troops on their way to attack your base, and the right troops in the right locations can really turn the tides in your favor.

Besides having a stellar storyline, Act of War also has a really awesome graphics engine. Explosions look absolutely phenomenal and all of the troop animations look great too. The urban environments are expansive and most of the buildings that you can take over also can be blown up and lit on fire. Some of the best graphical touches are that tanks can roll over trees and streetlamps, which I liked a lot. While the actors do a good job at telling the story, they aren't perfect, but I like crappy action movies, so the poor accents of the voice actors only made the game's storyline more entertaining for me. If you're not a fan of that you might not appreciate it as much as I did. The orchestrated score will please just about everybody though.

At the end of the day, Act of War is a pretty RTS game that's a lot of fun to look at and listen to but regrettably doesn't feel as complete as some of the genre's best. There are some AI path-finding issues that crop up in some of the cities that hamper the game, as well as a couple of bugs here and there, even after the patch. However, it's most definitely a great step for the genre in terms of storytelling that will hopefully be properly mimicked and expanded by another developer or in a sequel. Even if it isn't perfect though, Act of War is a game that you should pick up, and when the book comes out this summer, you should pick that up too. The advanced copy I got of the book is just as gripping as the game is.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/15/05