Even Mo' Play

Strats

The more I played Ground Control the more impressed I was. There were so many cool features that I could not help but marvel. Friendly fire, stealth, terrain advantage, and unit experience are some of the biggest ones.

Pounding

Artillery fire

One of the coolest options was friendly fire. Depending upon where your troops are, they can inadvertently shoot each other. Sure weapons like the nuke in Command & Conquer did this, but every weapon that is fired in Ground Control inflicts damage. This makes unit arrangement crucial to winning a battle. While this might not sound appealing initially it is extremely nice to know that your opponent is less likely to bombard your troops as well as his. If you're still not convinced it's a good idea, you can always turn off this option.

Are those shells in the air?

Beat down

Terrain advantage is something we have seen before in other games. As you'd expect, Ground Control bestows line of sight and range bonuses if you take higher ground. What's more impressive is the ability to hide units in some scrub or shadows. Yes, the massive terrain features like canyons, hills, valleys, and forests aren't just eye candy. They all affect how your units can function. Large shadows cast by canyons and other natural features help to shroud units from view. Even better are the trees and grasslands that can totally conceal infantry for sneak attacks. With smart use of terrain, even the lone soldier can cause much damage in this game. Heavy units can be totally annihilated by correct infantry weapons.

Loading units

They look like flys

Say It Ain't So!

Sadly there are some annoying issues with the game. The main fault deals with saving games. You can't! There is NO in game save option whatsoever. At first I was willing to let this go because the first few missions were only a few minutes in length apiece. One could literally replay an entire level multiple times within a half hour. I figured if the game was going to be like this then not being able to save wouldn't pose any problem at all. Unfortunately this isn't the case, as the later levels got to be as long as any in Starcraft or Command & Conquer. So if you screw up once you have to start all over from the beginning of a mission.

Oddly enough, this has to be the first game I have played where the cut-scenes are uglier than the normal game play. They are down right nasty in comparison. I figured if the normal graphics engine looks amazing, the movies should at least compare to this. When I sat back for the first one I was stunned. It looked like it was taken from the in game engine but lots of quality was lost along the way.