One of worst parts of E3 for journalists is that we very rarely get a chance to get our hands on all the games we'd like to play. There's simply not enough time and too many titles to see. That's why it was a rare pleasure when a scheduled visit to Vivendi afforded us the opportunity to try out World in Conflict, an alternate-history RTS from Massive Entertainment, the creators of the Ground Control series. Even better, my time coincided with that of several IGN editors, which meant that not only would I get to play, I'd get to paste a couple of the guys from our sister publication. The day was looking up.

The basic premise of World in Conflict is that in 1989 the Soviet Union, facing certain economic collapse, launches a sneak attack on the U.S. and Europe. As we were ushered into the room for our four-on-four match, the Massive Entertainment guys asked which side I'd like to play. I told them that as a registered Republican, I didn't think I was allowed to play the U.S.S.R., so they graciously allowed me to defend the Land of the Free (TM) against the ruthless Commie menace.

Our map was the small middle-American town I had seen during my earlier look at the game. The first thing that happened when we started playing is that each team member had to choose a class. While any player can choose to deploy any available weapon, players get a discount for the preferred units in their class. I chose to go with armor; my teammates went for air support and infantry. As we advanced on the town, I coordinated strategy with my teammates. In our first game, we went straight for the heart of the town, trying to capture the strategic positions spanning the single bridge that crossed the river. Every strategic point we captured netted us an increase in the command points we could use to call in reinforcements, and we progressed quite well for a while. Then the IGN guys called in a nuclear strike at the heart of the town.

Putting aside the morality of nuking an inoffensive American hamlet, I found that nuclear explosions in the game are just cool. The graphic effect of the nuclear fireball and the massive dust cloud that follows is extraordinary. There's even a graphic effect that causes static to blur the screen when the camera in within the radioactive danger zone. Unfortunately, that also seemed to be the end of our offensive. Suddenly, we couldn't seem to catch a break. I dropped a napalm strike on the forest near the Russian drop zone only to find that the Russians had already built up a formidable force in the area and cut my small group of tanks to pieces.

The most important part of my play experience was that I got a chance to really get a feel for the game and came away excited by its prospects. Despite being over a year away from release and only in pre-alpha state, World in Conflict already seems quite solid and stable. The game plays out like a simplified, streamlined version of an RTS. There aren't that many unit choices and each one seems to have a clear, obvious purpose. In fact, the speedy feel makes me think the game takes as much inspiration from an action game like Counter-Strike as it does from classic real-time strategy titles.

The class system also works to really define a player's role in the game. If you're playing as an air marshal, you know to hover over your tanks and provide fire support. If you're playing the tanks, you need to spread out and capture strategic points and not make yourself a target for an air strike -- or a nuclear explosion. It's an interesting system that seems to foster teamwork really well. The short play times also work. A complete game of World in Conflict only took 12 minutes.

There were still some sticking points, however. Massive seems to really like a free-floating camera that's controlled by the WASD keys. It used this system in the Ground Control games and it doesn't seem to have changed much. World in Conflict, however, is a much faster-paced game and I frequently had a problem wrestling the camera around to where I wanted it when my units were being attacked. I also had an issue with telling my units apart. Despite there being only a few different types, there wasn't much visual difference between a light, medium, and heavy tank. Fortunately, with the game over a year out, the Massive team has plenty of time to tweak these things.

As for me, I was still trying to figure out why the American resistance was collapsing. All I could think while watching the Red Menace overwhelm us was "What would the Wolverines think?" I had let down America. Then I looked to my right. My partner in the game was IGN's Editorial Director Tal Blevins. I had been betrayed by a Fifth Columnist! As the game ended and I looked over the scoreboard announcing our defeat, I was left with two specific thoughts. The first was pleasant anticipation for when the game gets released in Q2 2007. The second was for my "teammate." I wondered where Joe McCarthy was when I really needed him.

Source: pc.gamespy.com

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