In the year 2419 war has been outlawed on Earth and has moved to the stars. Across of colonized worlds the Mega-corps fight endless battles for control of desperately needed land and resources. Two competing corporations have gone to war over a distant world.
You thought that this battle for Krig-7b was just another brushfire war in the long standing dispute between Crawen Industries and Order of the New Dawn. But this time it would be different...
Your reputation as a brilliant military tactician and fearless leader has not gone unnoticed. Your employer, Craven Industries has chosen you to command an army of ground and air forces begin deployed to the distant world of Krig-7b. Victory is your only objective.
This pack includes the original Ground Control and the expansion Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy.
This game has been patched to the latest official version: 1.11
Multiplayer notice: Because WON.net is no longer operating, playing over the Internet is no longer possible. Playing through a LAN is still available.
Age requirements: ESRB Rating: TEEN with Animated Blood, Animated Violence.
Minimum system requirements: Windows XP or Windows Vista, 1.8 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM (1 GB recommended), 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 7 (compatible with DirectX 9 recommended), 4GB HDD, Mouse, Keyboard.
The to-be future of the RTS genre
(by
gbarules2999)
When I first grabbed the original Ground Control off of FilePlanet for free (which was holding promotions for their sequel) I was a little biased. I had StarCraft, and that was enough RTS fun for me until I could get a copy of Dawn of War or something a little more advanced. Against all odds, this has been only the second RTS game to ever captivate me beyond the tutorial, and the... full review first RTS I attempted to beat.
The first awesome thing about Ground Control, even to this day, is the graphics. You can tell me it's a seven year old game, you can tell me that it looks a little humble in places...more often than not, this game has impressed me with well made details and worlds without blogging my cruddy computer down. The fully rotatable camera works wonders at letting you see your units up and personal in their battles...or high up to get a Supreme Commander like view. And technologically the game looks nice; there are some absolutely stunning art design stuff done here to give the game a loud, powerful feel, even at its age. Grenades and artillery shells still look awesome when they come down and slam their opponents to smithereens, and you can put your camera right in the front seat.
I was able to turn on most of the features with my machine "of the future," like shadows on absolutely everything, treadmarks from nearly every vehicle, sun-slot flashes, along with some other snazzy little touches here or there. But that's the great part: you can just turn everything off and get a nice, smooth experience with the game, no matter what your computer specs are. So while it's older but still nice looking, it never gets in the way of what makes it really good: the gameplay.
Think Advance Wars on the Game Boy Advance. Now take away unit creation, and make the game super deep and a lot more complex in the way the units behave. Not make the whole thing Real Time and you have Ground Control. Granted, it does not have any resource management, but that's the best part: all you have to do is worry about your units, right there and then. You guide your units to do whatever they need to do at that moment on the battlefield, be it kill or capture.
Except that it's not your units, it's your squads. You don't just grab one dude, you grab his whole extended family: Ground Control treats, like Advance Wars, units as part of a squad, who do everything together. This is nowhere as bad as it sounds, and the only issue is getting over the "I want to micro manage" instinct that most longtime RTS players will have. Relative newbies to the genre will feel right at ease, and it will actually make the process of learning much easier, with the campaign and tutorial.
The game has a very well done tutorial, as a matter of fact, and it pays off. After you learn to control and wield all of your machinery, you are thrust within a 30-mission campaign, which is fairly well done and weighted for your experience. The first few missions will give you a sense of security as the game ramps up, giving you more puzzles to think when you control your squads with extra power. This also ignores the GOG.com-included expansion pack, which has been unavailable for years until now.
What else will you not find up to standards? Other professional reviews have mentioned pathfinding as an issue, and I disagree. Again, I'm jaded from StarCraft, but as a light RTS gamer I see no issue with how the units move...they all got to their designated spot within good time. The enemy AI is also fairly decent, though a bit of a pushover on the easiest level compared to other games.
The only issue I had personally (with the original game, mind you, not GOG.com's) was with the audio, other than the music is too low to hear it at first. Crank it up and you will hear an impressive array of army-goes-to-battle tunes, which suit the game enormously well. The voice-overs are well done for the most part, though some of the accents are obviously fake and get in the way. Nothing terrible, though; this isn't Deus Ex or anything.
And if the game isn't enough that it's good and pretty, it's also long. With LAN-perfect multiplayer, a 30-map campaign, and a few downloadable skirmish maps, you can play this big boy for a long time, with the map editor as well (not included). It's perhaps standard to have limitless amounts of gameplay in a RTS now, but GC pulled it off.
Ground Control pulled a lot of stuff off, but you've heard me rant enough. If you're deliberating whether to throw yet another debt on the wallet, jump on it and grab this game. You will NOT be sorry.
WOOW! One of my beloved strategies finally on GOG!
(by
igor8472)
I don't which off I should start. I love this game! It's IMO one of the best non-base building RTS'es released. I still have gold edition release with mousepad.... full review
When games was realeased, presented very refreshing aproach to RTS genre. Developed by Massive Entertainment, which by the way produced second of my favourite strategies, World in Conlict, game was released almost ten years ago but games is still fresh. Producing the game, Massive focused totally on element of combat in RTS genre so you don't have to gather resources or build anything. Mission must be finished with units you have got from start.
Graphical side of game is awasome and even today is defending itself very good. Nice textures of terrain, very good detailed player's units. With good modelled fog and nice lense flares from sun games looks like real terrain photos. As one of the first games used Transform & Lightening found on first (and current of course:-)) GeForce cards.
Units controlling in game presented also fresh approach at time games was released. Units are pre-grouped in squads which simplifies menagement. Basicly thera are 3 main types of units: aerodynes, terradynes and infantry. Each main type of units has sub-types like fighters & bombers, scout terradynes or heavy ones, combined with different types of chasis (hoover, caterpillar track).
Each mission is started by brifing with 'talking heads' dialogue, presenting objectives and most important followed selecting units for the mission by you which are arriving in one or more dropships. Some player may think "I bring heaviest terradynes and the mission is mine!" Sorry, it's not. Few Aerodynes end your units end in big fire... So wise management is advised, mission succes and their easiness depends on units your choose...
Mutliplayer is also are where we must congrat Massive for their job. Because you have limited number of units that are thrown to battlefield via dropships gameplay and strategyis similar to shooters. Multiplyer in game is client-server based. Teamplay also avaiable.
What can I say for finish.. Again I love this game. It's absolutely marvellous. I bought it an hour ago instantly when I saw it was released on GOG and I had jaws wide open little moment :-). Can't wait to finish this review and start playing. Now I hope there is chance for Homeworld in GOG cat. too...
gbarules2999)
igor8472)
robertreynolds)