I got this game as a gift from my parents quite a while ago when our family just bought a computer, and well i wanted to try a strategy game, and my parents bought Capitalism 2, and what a game that was.. well first, very complex, sure it has tutorial, and a good one, but you will have to sit some time reading and learning how to play, but when you'll finish i think you won't be disappointed especially if you are interested in economics or want something more serious than a common tycoon game. Now it is quite old and graphics aren't good at all judging by modern standards, but it is only game i know which you can really call a real business simulation game.
Ground Control is a strategy game from Massive Entertainment, the developer, which now works with World in Conflict series. So why Ground Control (GC) may be special enough for you to buy it? This game has great graphics. When I launched it on my old computer it surprised me, i was amazed, the game was spectacular. All environment, effects, models looked fantastically. And the game ran really smoothly. My heart stopped beating for a second, I was just zooming in and out the camera to look how really good the game looks. And if you ask me, Ground Control is still a good looking game. It‘s system requirements are very small so you can run this game on quite an old computer to get all what it delivers. The sound in GC is good. I liked the over voice in the game, it‘s very clean and clear. Dialogues are very well made and though they are in a shape of conversation between talking heads, I really liked listening to them. But the music isn‘t that good in this game and I forgot it quickly, yet the good point of the music is that it is not disturbing. It just "exists", so you can overpass it while playing. Ground control is an easy to learn game, because the controls of the game are very good, so you can handily manage your units and camera movements in one time. The game is friendly to new players. Three tutorial missions will tell you the basics about the camera movement and unit control, familiarize with an interface and give some useful advices to you. If you have played some games from RTS (Real Time Strategy) genre you will quickly understand how everything works here. The most important thing is that the Ground Control is all about the tactics. There is no base building or resource management in it. So if you have played only those real time strategy game where the gameplay consists of four basic stages(in my opinion): building a base, harvesting resources, making units and destroying the enemies, Ground Control will show you a quite different gameplay, where tactics and your decisions are the most important in the battlefield. Well if you are not sure about buying this game, you can try a demo, which can be downloaded from "The Massive Ground Control" download page. Of course you can download full Ground Control for free from www.fileplanet.com or www.reloaded.org , but just don‘t forget, that in the Good Old Games package you‘ll also get Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy expansion, which isn‘t released as a freeware so it‘s really worthy.
