Shattered Union E3 2005 Impressions

Today at the 2K booth, we had an opportunity to take a look at an up-close demo of Shattered Union, PopTop software's new turn-based strategy game that takes place in a future America, after a new Civil War splinters the nation into a number of smaller regions, each controlled by different factions. Here are our impressions of the title.

Now, you don't need to say much more than the words "turn-based strategy" to pique our interest; this mode of gameplay is sadly underrepresented in today's mainstream gaming environment, although titles like Silent Storm still give us our requisite thrills and chills from time to time. Shattered Union looks like it has the potential to fill many of our desires in such a game. Our demo started off with the computer-generated intro sequence to the game, which showed some of the backstory behind the title. Over the space of a few years, ending in 2013, a series of events take place in the US, beginning with the establishment of martial law. Eventually, Washington, DC is the victim of a full nuclear attack, sparking the fragmentation of the entire nation. Texas and California declare their autonomy, there's a Yankee faction that dominates the Northeast, and there are even European peacekeepers that get bogged down in the country, who wind up controlling territory themselves. Suffice it to say, everything's pretty screwed up, and it's up to you to put things back in order.

So far as gameplay goes, wargame grognards will be pleased to know that there is indeed a hex grid overlaid on the map, although this option is indeed switchable if the hexes are, for some reason, offensive to you. We didn't get a chance to see too much of the gameplay, but the bits we did see looked pretty impressive. Since the map represents the whole of the United States, it's somewhat abstracted, with large cities, such as San Francisco, represented by only a dozen hexes or so. Speaking of San Francisco, our demo player happened to be playing in Northern California, and after learning that GameSpot is stationed in San Francisco, he responded by launching a devastating nuke on the city. The city itself was detailed enough to spot the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, both of which were busted by the explosion. The entire area was also covered in radiation, which, of course, would have damaged any units that entered the zone after the explosion.

Of course, no turn-based strategy game would be complete without a bit of diplomacy, and indeed it appears that your reputation will affect gameplay in some ways. If you get too nuke-happy, you may encourage the other factions to gang up on you or use their own nuclear arsenals in response, for instance.

We didn't get a chance to see some aspects of the game, such as the unit-versus-unit combat, but we hope to have more details on the game soon. So be sure to keep an eye on GameSpot.