CDV

CDV had two titles they were demoing this year, with their focus being on War Front, an alternate-reality World War II RTS.

War Front occurs in a world where the Germans successfully invaded Britain, but were later repulsed by the Allies. Later, Hitler was assassinated and the German state co-operated with the Allies to fight the Soviet menace. The war continues past 1945, and we see the fruits of various secret weapon projects in the later parts of the tech tree. Some of these, like the Maus tank, are based on real equipment, while others like powered armor are merely hypothetical.

The game follows the Command & Conquer style of play quite closely, focusing on action, big explosions and a fairly simple economic system. Similarities to Codename: Panzers are also abundant, especially with the art direction.

The low height camera keeps the player focused on the action and, in a nice touch, you are even able to man defensive turrets in your base from a first-person perspective. This has several advantages: increased accuracy, increased range (since you don’t have to rely on the AI) and a 50% damage bonus coded in by the game. Of course, while manning a turret, you’re not able to give production or unit commands. There’s also a 3rd-person view for various units, meaning you can see the action from just above and behind a tank as it assaults an enemy base.

Heroes of Annihilated Empires

Heroes of Annihilated Empires is the first part of a trilogy of games being developed together. Heroes is set in a fantasy realm, with four races – ice ceatures, elves, undead and “mechs” – an enemy presumably in the steampunk style. Its key feature is that it is not an RTS or even an RPG RTS, but rather RPG vs RTS.

RPG vs RTS is an interesting concept, where in a multiplayer or skirmish scenario the player chooses whether to go the RPG route or RTS route. If you choose RTS, you get to build your base, collect resources, and fight your normal RTS games. In RPG mode, things go a little differently. You can no longer build units, and control your hero character almost exclusively. He has a considerable spell repertoire and is highly adept at combat. Like WarCraft III heroes, he goes around killing everything in sight to gain XP, items, and levels. The goal is to have the game balanced so that a hero character is capable of fighting an entire army by himself and standing a fair chance of winning. Meanwhile, the RTS player can rely on numbers and his tech tree for advantages.


Leveling for the hero is quick and almost limitless, but each level offers only a relatively modest boost to his powers.

There are six resources and they are all infinite in quantity, though not all races use or rely on the same resources. Battles can end up being as much about denying the enemy his key resources, as about trying to control your own.