Posted July 09, 2009
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 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.
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.