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| Air support is often a sight for sore battle weary eyes | Buildings add another dimension to the battle |
Galactic Assault - Prisoner of Power, a game you may previously have heard of as Inhabited Island aims to bring both high specification visuals and re-imagined play mechanics to this well worn game type. It was therefore with some glee that we heard the thud of a preview copy on the Strategy Informer doormat the other day. The game is developed by Wargaming.net and slated for a release in quarter three of this year, so the time is ripe for a juicy little preview.
Although video game’s narrative is often little more than an excuse for the ensuring action, Galactic Assault (as we'll call it) provides a story that sounds pretty intriguing. This may well be because the game is based on the novel "Inhabited Island" by the Strugatsky brothers. You take on the mantle of Maxim Kammerer, a young man enlisted in his country's space exploration program. Unfortunately for him, a recent mission sees him shot down and crash land on a planet that is recovering from a savage nuclear conflict. Dusting himself down, he finds himself in the territory of the Unknown Fathers, a country ruled by a network of mind control transmissions. After somehow destroying the Centre (Central Broadcast Station) and largely defeating the Land of Fathers army to the North, he discovers that the inhabitants now face the mother of all collective hangovers and more dangerously fall into a state of coma. This paves the way for various factions attempting to seize power; Khonties, Barbarians and the Insular Empire. Each race possesses and develops distinguishable technologies, leading to the presence of vastly different heavy armoured units, transport units and aviation units on the battlefield.
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| View the world from any angle | The battle takes to the skies! |
The game itself presents the action in three dimensions much like its real time strategy equivalent titles. You can pan, zoom and title the map to your hearts content. These controls are easily accessible via the usual mouse or keyboard combinations. As you play through the first few levels tutorial pop-ups and direction talk you through the basics of control. It seems to be a well thought out system, with plenty of screen space available to the main action, whilst also providing the tactical and overall battle information that will be critical to your success. One of the nicer features of the environment is the day/night cycles that you pass through. These are not only graphical effects but the failing light also have an effect on your field of vision and firing range. You really get the sense of being plunged deep into a strange and alien planet and battling for survival, hard pressed on every side. The world is rendered in vivid extraterrestrial landscapes with weather conditions adding to the dark/light cycles to breathe life into the experience. The combination of rural vegetation and tundra and the thick haze of exhaust that hangs over the steel technology of war are certainly very evocative.
As you play on through the game you learn your way around the Galactic Assault revolutionary tactical combat system that offers more than 70 different units, each rendered in high definition detail. As the battles unfold you learn to make better use of the environment and your particular surroundings to ensure victory in each encounter. The realistic battle system enables you to employ camouflage and fog of war to take your enemy unaware. Additionally, you can make use of tactical techniques such as return/opportunity fire, mine laying, fortifications as well as the additional movement provided via land and air troop carriers. As you would expect there are specific technology trees for each of the races, to enable you to upgrade equipment and troops as required. All this action can then be dissected at your leisure in the post game theatre that replays the most exciting or deplorable parts of your campaign.
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| Seafaring also plays its part |
Overall this is promising to be a worthy addition to the tight knit turn based genre. Wargaming.net seem to be right on target with this so far, and if their previous titles are anything to go by, such as Massive Assault, this is going to be an essential addition to your strategy war game collection.
