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Ground Control II: Operation Exodus Preview

Sweden's Massive Entertainment is readying the sequel to the fast-paced strategy game Ground Control--and it could be one of the most promising strategy games of 2004.

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Three years ago, Swedish developer Massive Entertainment created Ground Control, an exciting real-time tactical combat game that let you command high-tech military units on an alien world. Ground Control differed from traditional real-time strategy games because the emphasis was on combat rather than on collecting resources and building a base. Instead, the game let you fight battles, equipped with futuristic tanks and artillery. The best players found that success in Ground Control didn't come by "rushing" your enemy immediately with tanks, but by properly employing realistic tactics. The developer is now hard at work on the sequel, Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus.

Like the first game, Ground Control 2 will let you command a futuristic army.
Like the first game, Ground Control 2 will let you command a futuristic army.

We recently had the chance to see what the developers in Sweden have been working on for the past year. We discovered that with Ground Control 2, Massive is fine-tuning the formula--overhauling what didn't work, enhancing what did, and throwing in lots of new stuff, including a powerful graphics engine that really delivers the sense of battling it out on a lush, alien world.

Ground Control 2's single-player campaign takes place 300 years after the events in the original game and is set on the planet Morningstar, home of the Northern Star Alliance. The NSA is fending off an invasion by the evil Empire of Terra, but things aren't going well. You play as Captain Jacob Angelus of the beleaguered NSA, and it's your job to command the forces in the field and turn the tide. The story takes place over 24 missions, and while there are three factions in the game (the playable factions of the NSA and Empire, as well as a yet-to-be-revealed third faction), senior producer Jose Aller explained that the campaign won't be split between the various factions, as it is in most real-time strategy games. Instead, Aller said that the campaign is geared toward telling a superior story with surprising twists and turns.

The new graphics engine seems quite impressive and capable of rendering a wide variety of different types of terrain. We were given a tour through a dense urban setting, complete with gutted buildings and even abandoned café tables on the sidewalk. Stars twinkled overhead, and gusts of wind blew clouds of dust down the streets. Massive seems to be trying to include an impressive amount of detail on everything, including units. You can now zoom in your view very closely on individual soldiers and discern faces and facial features, which Massive felt was important because it should hopefully give you more of an emotional attachment to your units.

While we were touring the new urban setting, Aller showed us some of the new gameplay features. For example, infantry can now garrison themselves inside buildings for a defensive advantage and improved line of sight. You can even designate which windows you want them to look out of, so you can spread a squad out to cover all four sides of a building or concentrate them against a single side for added defense. You'll also be able to place snipers into taller buildings and have them act as forward observers in addition to picking off enemy infantry. In another example of adjusting your units to increase your line of sight, we were shown how tank commanders can sit up out of their turrets for added visibility. But in that position, they're more vulnerable to enemy fire--so when the shells start flying, you can also order them to button up inside the tank. However, they'll suffer slower targeting times due to the limited visibility inside the turret.

The sequel will have highly detailed units, like these infantry troops.
The sequel will have highly detailed units, like these infantry troops.

While the maps will be about the same size they were in the original game--that is to say, quite large--they're going to be better designed. It certainly helps that the graphics engine can render more organic-looking landscapes now, full of trees, buildings, and even waterfalls. These aren't all just for show, either; forests have tactical value because you can hide infantry in them to ambush passing units. Weather will play an important role as well, since different conditions can affect units in different ways. Lightning storms disrupt electrical supplies, snow impacts movement speed, and rain hampers visibility. And weather conditions can also change within the course of a mission--another element of strategy you'll have to consider.

Ground Control 2 will let you control upward of 100 different units in battle, a marked increase from the original game. Massive is working on a new control interface that will make it easier to maneuver units around the map--for instance, units will be able to assume specific formations, but they'll be able to correct their ranks for any difficult terrain. The artificial intelligence will also be smarter. For instance, the AI will know when it's outgunned and will pull back when warranted. We saw an example of this when an infantryman jumped into a gun turret and started hammering on the enemy, who quickly pulled out of range of the turret.

In the original Ground Control, you selected which units you would use before a mission. You would start your game with some of those units, but others arrived as reinforcements during the mission. Aller explained that this feature didn't always work out well, because you had to determine which forces would be best against your enemies sight unseen before the mission even began. For instance, many players would leave behind antiaircraft units thinking they wouldn't need them, only to later be pummeled by air strikes. As a result, players ended up taking a trial-and-error approach to playing and replaying missions until they figured out the right formula. This issue has been fixed in Ground Control 2, and the strategic process of choosing the right army has been enhanced with acquisition points. You earn acquisition points as you seize key locations and accomplish mission goals. You can use these acquisition points to requisition specific units, which are delivered via dropship. Interestingly, you can also choose to use the points to upgrade your dropship into a valuable air unit, instead. So instead of just being a spawning mechanism for new units, the dropship is now a fully controllable unit that you can use to scout locations on the map or to provide heavy air support. However, if your dropship is shot down, you risk losing your ability to commission reinforcements later on.

The game will feature expansive maps to explore and conquer, plus a level editor to make your own maps.
The game will feature expansive maps to explore and conquer, plus a level editor to make your own maps.

Massive plans to have support for up to eight players in multiplayer games or up to four players in a cooperative game. All 24 single-player missions can be played cooperatively over a LAN or the Internet. The exact number of multiplayer maps that will ship hasn't been finalized, though the developer also plans to include a level-editing tool so that players can build their own maps. The game will also have a single-player skirmish mode in addition to the campaign. Currently, Massive expects that the game's system specifications will be in the neighborhood of a 700MHz machine with a 16MB video card.

Even at this early stage, Ground Control 2 looks extremely promising. We'll have more details on the game as we approach its release date in 2004. For now, watch our video preview, featuring exclusive footage of the game.

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