news | reviews | articles
| World in Conflict @ Malmo, Sweden | // article |
| I started playing PC games in the late 1980's and in particular Real Time Strategy (RTS) games. I've played a number of game modes, ranging from resource gathering to advanced warfare but the attraction of strategic combat has always retained my attention. Over the years a number of attempts were made to define the genre of RTS but for some reason, developers always focused the gameplay on resource gathering before enabling the player to engage in combat. Out of all of the RTS games that I've played, I've always got slightly bored with the game-play after the first few hours because instead of getting directly into the action, you have to gather a vast amount of resources before you can wage war on the enemy. However, during the buzz of E3 2006 Massive Entertainment and Vivendi Games announced World in Conflict and so far, it looks like a new breed of RTS is emerging. Since World in Conflict won an award at E3 2006 I've kept my ear firmly next to the gaming grapevine for more news about World in Conflict, mainly because when you first notice a game that craves attention you want to know and find out as much as possible. In the early hours of Monday 26th February 2007 I discovered that I'd be attending the European press briefing of World in Conflict at Massive Entertainment's offices in Sweden. I headed over to Heathrow airport to catch a flight over to Copenhagen before taking a train from Demark to Malmo, Sweden. As soon as we arrived in Malmo, we checked in to our plush hotel overlooking the city before joining the developers for a rather late dinner. We learned that we would be going to Massive Entertainment's offices on Tuesday morning for a presentation and hands on time with World in Conflict. Upon entering the offices we immediately noticed the lush designer furniture littered throughout the reception area of the Ikea styled offices. After a brief respite we were ushered into a lush meeting room, kitted out with a large screen projector and numerous doodles on the walls. The meeting room was packed with journalists from across Europe, eagerly awaiting information on Massive's new game. Martin Walfisz, President and Founder of Massive Entertainment began the presentation by providing a detailed insight into the company. The company had previously developed Ground Control, Ground Control 2 and is due to celebrate it's ten-year anniversary this April. Bruce Hack, CEO of Sierra Entertainment was in attendance and mentioned that World in Conflict is going to be a major title for the publisher when it is released later this year. Once Bruce had wrapped up his speech we were introduced to Magnus "Soundboy" Jansén, who would be our guide throughout the presentation. The lead designer began by covering World in Conflict's single player story by explaining that the game is based in the year 1989 and tensions between the world's superpowers are running high. During the event we were able to get some hands on time with the single and multiplayer game modes. We could only play one level of the single player game but were also able to play against the developers in an 8 vs. 8 multiplayer match across two maps. In terms of the maps, they are quite large and the ability to use the 'mega map' to get an overview made the level feel massive. Overall our time with World in Conflict was sincerely stunning. Stay tuned to News0r because we'll be providing extensive coverage on World in Conflict all week. | |
| << review index | |