Z:
Steel Soldiers Preview
It's
all about claiming territories...
A silence comes between
two great war machines of MegaCom Corporation and TransGlobal
Industries after over 500 years of war. Meantime, the
narrow-minded Captain Zod desires to have his renegade troops
shoot down an enemy cargo ship in the De-militarized Zone only
hours away. What will I do next to maneuver my mischievous
plan to conquer this territory? This is something you think
about when you are playing the sequel to the 1996 strategy
game by Virgin Interactive.
Z: Steel Solders has a
very thick detailed storyline that doesn't focus on the
serious side of things. It's a witty epic adventure in an
action combat strategy game. I enjoy games that make me feel
life isn't always so serious. Why do I play games in the first
place? To enjoy life away from work and burn off stress. This
is one reason why I became a Command and Conquer addict back
in 1997. The game gave me something to look forward to when I
would come home every day from work. I dealt with people all
day long. Stress builds up when you work with various picky
customers. With that said, I do see something about Command
and Conquer in this game. One aspect is how you have a new
focus of spending a majority of your time conquering
territories with a flag rather than building a base with
defenses.
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Conquering Territories
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The flags are split in
different sections through out the maps. There isn't just two
like you'd get in a typical capture the flag type of game
though. There are many flags that centralize in these areas.
The object is to have your unit walk up to these flags and it
becomes your area to work from. This doesn't mean you will
always get to keep this territory though. It's a good idea to
constantly keep monitoring areas you have claimed or you'll
have the enemy grabbing them back.
Graham Sergeant
was showing Z: Steel Soldiers at the Electronic Entertainment
Expo this year at EON Digital's booth. I asked him about the
conquering of territories. If the enemy can keep claiming the
territories back, what's the way to get away from there being
a super long game in multiplayer mode. I despise game matches
that last over an hour and a half. He told me that the more
territories you claim, the more power you have. With you
having more power, the enemy becomes much weaker than you and
can't build certain things. The game seems very balanced from
this management system on power.
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Comic Style Storybook Intro
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The Comic Style
storybook introduction movie has a funny outline. Very much
like the comics back in the mid 1980's when you wanted to play
as the character you're reading about! Something I miss about
many strategy games is the 3d aspect. I see some games look 3D
but the camera doesn't allow you to move freely around your
base as you'd hope for. In this game you're able to scroll
around freely on the map, with the zoom in or out and rotation
function.
The small square menu
in the lower right corner displays a compass. When you are
being attacked in another territory on the map, this screen
flashes to that location for you to monitor it while you are
still clear on the other side of the map building structures
or possibly fighting in another location. Sort of like having
eyes behind your head. When starting the game it's a good idea
to search the map for a radar structure. Once it's found your
unit needs to walk up to the flag to claim the territory. When
this happened the mini map that had static on it was activated
for viewing.
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Tell me more!
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