When cold war becomes hot

In 1989, the Cold War was supposed to end. But it didn't.

The storyline of World in Conflict is set in 1989 when the Soviet Union waged war to prevent her Eastern European satellites from falling. I've finished the campaign about a month ago but only found time to write a review on it now..lol. This real time strategy game draws inspiration from movies such as Red Dawn and notable PC games such as Freedom Fighters and Command and Conquer Red Alert. WiC is unlike many of the traditional RTS which requires players to build up a base, mind resources and create armies. Instead, players are assigned reinforcement points and play only a particular part in the battle. Thus, the need to coordinate with the AI in the mission is rather similiar to the idea in Call of Duty. Of course, unlike Red Alert, WiC does not contain any sort of "out-of-this-world" weapons, chronosphere or tesla coils. The units are based on historically correct military equipment used in the late 1980s such as the Abrams tank, Apache helicopter and troops using M16 and AK 47.

The campaign started off at the edge of Seattle where the Soviets were landing troops at the docks after disguising themselves in cargo ships. Then, there's the defence of Fort Teller in the Cascade Mountains to prevent the SDI to be known as a facade to the Soviets. There were some flashbacks to the European NATO campaign against the Soviets in the early days of the American colonel. And the final part is the counter attack and pushing the Soviets off Seattle. After going through the campaign, one probably wondered how Bannon could rise to rank of Captain in the first place. There's 14 missions altogether and I've completed also all the secondary objectives where they award US service medals with it. The campaign difficulty were generally easy but very fun to play. The more difficult ones are located at the last few missions especially on the one where two locations are needed to be defended simultaneously with the need to assault a base to complete the mission. Missions with specific timer on them could sometimes prove challenging too.

But 14 missions is a lil' short considering the theme has many potentials to expand other than "Seattle conquered-Flashback Europe-Seattle liberated". I would love to see more action in Europe itself and possibly the march to Moscow or something. Actually, if WiC put in more real-life cinematics like Red Alert instead of painted pictures with narration, the campaign fun factor would increase doubly.

Liberate Manhattan and Lady Liberty from the Spetsnaz (Russian Commando)!

Multiplayer in WiC is quite interesting in that it divides players into 4 different roles such as infantry, armour, airforce and artillery. So, players have to coordinate their attacks or defenses with one another. Units were very well developed, with special attacks and smoke screens. For example, the infantry has the M203 grenade barrage while airborne troops have the ability to call down light artillery strikes. Personally, my favourite unit is the Apache with its barrage of anti-tank missiles. Lol..quite fun to watch the heavy tank disintegrate with a few packet of shots.

Gameplay in WiC is quite fast paced and the need for quick decisions. It is unlike however, traditional RTS games which measures how fast you click. WiC focuses more on which kind of units you are using against the opponents, how the artillery is position and how effectively the tactical aid is being used. Tactical aids are also another fun factor in WiC. It's kinda like some sort of super weapons that helps to reduce your opponents to dust or soften a large invasion force. They are stuff like napalm strike, heavy artillery barrage, tactical nuke strike, carpet bombing
and laser-guided bombs. There's a long recharge time for these tactical aids and tactical points are needed to be earned in order to use them.

WiC is graphically awesome with the terrain battleground actually in 3D format. So, one could actually 360 the area, zoom in and out as close as 3rd person view, look up to the sky and enjoy the overall scenery. Too bad my lappy could only play it at low settings in order to get maximum efficient speed. It's kinda strange considering that Call of Duty 4 was of no problem to my lappy. I figured out that it could either be that the Nvidia 8400 is still too weak (gasp!) or that the lappy Intel processor is not as powerful as the desktop ones. But gameplay is not affected that much as long as the player doesn't zoom in too much to get horrifying polygons from the units.

Ivan got pounded heavily

Overall, WiC is a refreshing experience from the traditional RTS and encourages players to think more while playing instead of zergling rush through with a particular unit. Zergling rush tactics rarely worked in WiC since a whole battalion of a particular unit could be decimated easily by a mere few units that could exploit its weakness. However, I do wish that there would be more developments to the single player campaign. The ending of the campaign could give a clue perhaps that an expansion could be on the way.