E3 06: Aggression: Europe 1914 First Look

Buka Entertainment gave us a peek at its upcoming PC strategy game, Aggression: Europe 1914. Contrary to what the title may imply, Aggression isn't just based around the first World War--you'll be able to control either Germany, England, France, or Russia from 1910 to 1950 and attempt to lead your nation to domination in Europe. The game is very similar to the Total War series in that it has an overarching strategy component where you view the map territory by territory and manage your production and diplomacy. Each of the four primary nations has unique strengths. The Germans have the best technology, for example, while the Russians benefit from having the largest population to draw from. Each nation can also ally with other nations like Italy, Spain, Hungary, and Turkey to help you in your quest for domination. You'll control individual cities where you can develop your technology in a huge tech tree that stretches from early firearms and no armored vehicles, on up to nuclear weapons.

When there's a conflict, you can choose to control your troops directly in a tactical map view that will show destructible environments with what seemed to be well over 100 infantry and vehicle units onscreen at once. There are special hero units that command each of your armies, again with their own special powers and bonuses as they lead troops into battle. Aggression also offers flying units once you develop aircraft, and you can call in artillery support or airstrikes on the tactical map as well. The most impressive weapon of course is the nuclear bomb, which causes a massive swath of devastation on the battlefield.

Though all we got to see was a series of noninteractive movies on the game, what we did see of Aggression: Europe 1914 was impressive, so we'll be keeping an eye on the game, which is very early in its development cycle. Expect the game to finish sometime in mid to late 2007.