Graphics, sound, interface, multiplayer

There's no denying that Ground Control II is a beautiful game. It is as capable of rendering units and combat as it is of scenic mountain vistas or ruined cityscapes. Effects are impressive, particularly the water. Massive Entertainment seems to have developed its own shader effects for water, which have turned out beautifully. The water reflects and refracts light in quite a believable fashion.

The game's sounds are quite strong; the effects are crisp and clear. Units all have unique weapon sounds, acknowledgements and even movement effects. The only sound effect oddity we noticed is of infantry walking surprisingly loudly - almost like Imperial walkers. Where the sound falls flat is in the voice acting department. It's not particularly atrocious, but the mismatched accents and poor delivery by non-major characters can be jarring.

The interface is a real disappointment. The camera is completely under the player's control but requires constant adjustment through no fault of the player. It's easy to set up a good angle that would work on most of a map or at least the local battlefield, but the game loves resetting the camera to default position. Any time a gamer finds himself double-tapping a group key to select and move the camera to that group, the camera will change position. Also, should you happen to use the mini-map to move fast across the game world, you'll quickly learn (and learn to hate) the glitch that the game engine doesn't compensate for elevation differences when the camera is moved via the mini-map.

Multiplayer is done through (ugh) GameSpy Arcade or MassGate (which refused to work in our review copy, though we've heard no complaints about it) but is otherwise the most impressive aspect of the game. For starters, co-op missions are available. Any of the singleplayer missions can be done with a friend, and of course there is team vs team multiplayer - up to 8 people. Unfortunately only 10 maps are provided, though at least they are quite large and interesting.

As with singleplayer, the goal is to capture the control points to get acquisition points with which you buy units. This neatly does away with the traditional base building aspect of the RTS genre but in reality GC2 is still all about the economy. Since more APs are rewarded the more control points are owned, the initial part of the game is still a huge land grab. The number of units, which is quite small in singleplayer, can get overwhelming during multiplayer. Our 2GHz review machine with a 256MB 5950 Ultra ground to a halt during two particularly massive battles as what must have been well almost 200 units were slogging it out on one screen.

GC2 does strike a nice balance between the needs of economy and action, but the multi-front battles that develop can get very overwhelming. If anything, the game's action is too fast and hectic to be completely enjoyed. There's always a fight going on - your opponent sent in a small group to probe your defenses in one area, assaults another completely, and is constantly trying to air transport units in behind your lines. As with the singleplayer, we think that the multiplayer would work much better if the control points had a linked-node system similar to Onslaught in UT2K4. Not to eliminate multiple fronts, just to keep the action reasonable and prevent annoying gameplay tactics like contesting control points with a single unit, moments after a huge army left it.