Sierra Spring Event: World In Conflict
There are two things in the gaming world that will often cause me to shudder: hearing the line 'I'm not a Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft fanboy but' or the news that a Real-Time Strategy PC game is getting ported to the consoles. While I may never be rid of the former, what I saw of World in Conflict: Soviet Assault at Sierra gave me hope that the gaming world may close to finding a cure for the latter. Soviet Assault is basically an add-on to last year's PC game World in Conflict which did fairly well in the reviewer and awards circuit in 2007. The new content on the PC side is mainly new missions that allow you to experience the game from the Soviet side of the battle; however, the big addition is that the game will also be releasing on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The biggest reason for concern with the trans-platform operation that is going from PC to console on the RTS game is that you are basically having to replace a keyboard and mouse with a limited number of buttons on a controller; nevertheless, from what I played of the game, I really think they have done something right in how they handled it. The nitty-gritty of my 'bout with the controls for the game, other impressions, and some screenshots are after the jump.
One of the first things I was told when picking up the controller to play the game is that the reason why the game lent itself better to being ported to the console is that the camera system for the PC game was very similar to the camera system for a third-person shooter, more or less. As I played with the analog sticks and fiddled with the controls that they told me, I noticed that I really did have complete control of how much I could see and what angle the camera was at, which was very helpful when trying to micro-manage individual troops or macro whole squadrons. Speaking of squadrons, they also set up the D-pad to allow you to place troops into different squads and then with a quick touch order them to do your bidding, two quick touches and you camera centers on the squad. For most of the rest of the game, they've taken a 'one button does all' approach and tried to map most of the actions you need on a regular basis (attack, move, regroup) to just one button on the control pad. Other than that some of the other buttons are used to issue more specific commands and the shoulders bring up some of the menus to order special units and attacks. From the 10 minutes or so that I got to play with the game on the console, I was able to do a decent job of maneuvering around where I needed to go and watch all the action all using the game controller.
All that said, keyboard and mouse are still probably better, but the console controls don't really cripple the user like they have in other RTS games. At the same time the game's graphics have ported well to the two game consoles and the game looks just as crisp and as clear as it does on the PC. Speaking of PC, the Soviet Assault game actually allows the player to play the original campaign through the eyes of the Soviet army this time, allowing the player to get a different perspective on the events happening in the original game. The console versions of the game will include everything from the original game and also the new Soviet add-on missions. They've also updated the multiplayer in the game with head-to-head and team-based battles that can happen in their Domination, Tug-of-War and Assault game modes. In the multiplayer battles each player on a team can specialize in the different roles of as Infantry, Armor, Support, or Air specialists to help give more depth to each player's role on a team.
As a whole, I was greatly relieved to see the controller setup for the console versions of the game and to know that Massive and Sierra are striving to continue to grow the great PC game that is World in Conflict. Players can expect to see this content coming to the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 sometime this fall, and I was told that the PC version of the content would probably cost less than a normal expansion would for a similar game, so those that have already invested in the franchise needn't worry about price gouging.
PixelPoet
Posted to Video Games on 29 April 2008
Other stuff like this: massive entertainment, pc, playstation 3, sierra, swordfish studios, world in conflict, xbox 360
