World War III: Black Gold

The Good
The interface is very simple to understand and use. Context help appears in pop-ups for command icons and items in the building catalog. The camera is easy to control using either the keyboard or the mouse. Each of the three armies is different. All have not only different units but different structures as well. The Americans have the best assortment of units, not to mention some of the most powerful. The Russians have a number of amphibious units, and all units and structures regenerate over time. The Iraqis have camouflage, low-cost units and kamikaze units.

The voicework in the English version is outstanding and the sound effects definitely do the job. While the music is not too varied, it fits the game well. The graphics aren't cutting edge, but they aren't bad. Each unit and structure is easily distinguished and the meshes have enough animation to make them interesting. The game has a model train set charm to it and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Single-player comes with 30 missions, broken into 6 campaigns with smacker-style cinemas at the beginning and end of each. For multi-player, there are 21 stock maps and the built-in editor allows for making more. It can be played over WarNet, which is apparently user-maintained (I haven't tried this yet) or peer to peer using Microsoft DirectPlay. There's also Skirmish mode, which allows you to play multiplayer maps against the computer.

The AI is maybe a little above average on the default level. The computer can attempt different strategies dynamically. Except for one or two particular situations, it does a decent job of countering your every move. It also shows a good amount of autonomy when units are in range of objectives when using the default orders. Offensive units attack enemy units and structures they sight, repair units fix things close to them, and even the structures call for more ammo when they run out. So you can be a complete control freak, or let your troops take care of the little things themselves.

The Bad
Although having the built-in editor is nice, it takes a lot of experimentation to make truly great maps. While it can make some very nice multiplay maps, I haven't figured out how to make true campaign-style maps and if it's possible to do so, it's not in the documentation.

As mentioned before, certain situations can throw the AI for a loop. When this happens, the AI tends to throw its money away sending its units on what amount to suicide runs. Once it becomes confused, that's that. It usually has one or two other options but it just refuses to exhaust them. This can be rather annoying in Skirmish mode unless you like easy wins.

Even with the sometimes lacking AI, the campaign game is tough. What the computer lacks in AI, the game makes up for with cluster upon cluster of defensive structures or well-placed units. I've only played the game through on the lowest difficulty and spent anywhere from 30 to 120 minutes per mission. I recommend even veteran RTS players save often. I don't personally consider this bad because I like a challenge. I look forward to completing the game on successively harder difficulties. I just think the novice player should be warned.

Also, the serial number checking can be annoying. If you want to play this game on a LAN, you might need to buy 2-8 copies to make it happen. Me and a friend tried using just his copy on his LAN and never actually got it working. We somehow got around the serial problem, but this might have caused an even greater problem. Whatever happened, we weren't successful in getting a game going. Hopefully, we won't have those problems when I try adding my machine (and my copy) to his LAN.

As far as minor gripes go, the default keys aren't always the best for what they do. Not a bad job overall, but I'd definitely recommend remapping a few. And another thing I sometimes wish I could do is subgroup units. When you group, for example a helicopter with 3 other helicopters, you can't assign that same helicopter to another group. So if you want a group of helicopters with mixed weapons, you're either going to have to control two or three groups (not too difficult, just inconvenient), or live with silliness such as ordering units within that group to attack targets that they can't actually attack or harm.

The Bottom Line
This is what the game of chess was meant to be. Unfortunately, you just can't build a game like this out of wood. Each unit has its place and time. The armies are all very different, yet very well-balanced. There's strategy, there's tactics, and there's chaos. I think the rating given doesn't reflect the time this game was made or, more importantly, how fun it is. 4 out of 5.