World in conflict (PC)

I have been rather quiet lately on the game reviewing front, although in the past month or two I have bought more games than I ever have in my entire life.

World in conflict is as the title alludes, a world in conflict, World being of course, America. We fall into the story in about 1989-90. The ruskies and the 'mericans, and presumably everyone else are embroiled in world war three (The cold war heated up), at a nice safe distance in Europe. But low, on the horizon of seattles fair shores is some pissed off commies! The homeland is invaded!

I have been playing RTS games for ages. Starting off with probably warcraft II. And dude. Story lines have totally gotten better since then. Thank God. WiC is the first RTS I have played where there are actual individual people you get to know and sorta like. I found the storyline pretty awesome. The game felt very down to earth (You can zoom down that far if you wanted, but you can't see shit.)

You don't build factories and stuff in this one. Your mearly a commander of a unit of the army, ordering in your units when you need em. When they die their points go back into the pool, where it slowly gets dripped back into your usable pool. So no tedious resource gathering or the like. Just a herc or something flying over and airdropping your tanks and dudes.

You don't get the feeling your the only one in the sky. Often there are allied units flanking and helping take the village or whatever as well.

The camera is very free. You never keep it faced north like in most games, you just fling it around, swivvle it etc. If you get a bit bored you can zoom in on the tiny specks and go "oooh" at the fact they actually put detail into the tiny little troops that run around, duck, shoot, skip etc.

Overall I would say it was mint. It took me three days, on and off, to complete the campaign. So relatively short for an RTS, but apparently the multiplayer is cool to, being able to jump in on a game immediatly etc. But the CD key is really well hidden on this box 0_0. It doesnt ask you for a CD key till you try and take it to multiplayer. I guess I could use the key that came with the 10 day free trial cd that came with it.

Yea, as a marketing idea they include a trial version of the game to give to your mates. But it expires after they get hooked i guess, forcing them to go buy it.

At some point Ill probably get the expansion as well, which apparently follows the Russians and their stories. I think they could pull it off good. And undoubtedly it'l be like "gasp! The americans shot first!" or something to that effect.