BlueSmoke - Review : State of War

		Date	: Feb 9th, 2001
		Genre	: RTS
		Developer	: Cypron Studios
		Author	: Jin-Ning Tioh

As you all know, Dune was the inventor of the strategy genre. Since then, many strategy hits have been made, among them the Command & Conquer series and any number of others. Unfortunately, there have been many games which have been rated as average, and even more as failures. State of War happens to fall in the average category, the type which you would pull out of your shelf if you happen to have a slow Sunday. Let's take a look at the background of the game, shall we?

After years of conflict and strife, the leaders of the world have finally agreed to combine the world's various armed forces into a single military unit. This soon led to the declaration of the nations of Earth as the United Federation of Seven Continents (U.F.S.C.). Their first threat began when a gigantic meteorite zoomed in to the direction of Earth. The Federation responded with several nuclear warheads aimed at the asteroid. As a result, the threat was eliminated. Seeing the need for greater protection, the Federation's brightest scientists and programmers produced "OVERMIND", an intelligent global defense system. OVERMIND controlled 22 major military bases around the globe located beyond inhabited areas to act in case of a crisis. Thus, no war machine was ever controlled by man since then. Little did the federation know, an influential religious cult known as Beho-Sunns had been downloading all sorts of information on OVERMIND unknowingly from it's cult members, which included lawyers, doctors, engineers, programmers, politicians and people from all walks of life. It was then the cult tried to hack into OVERMIND. They failed due to the firewalls set in place to protect OVERMIND. However, OVERMIND was badly damaged in the virtual assault and was temporarily pronounced offline. Beho-Sunns on the other hand, wasted no time in taking over the now defenseless military bases, turning them to their own uses. That's where you come in. You have the responsibility of commanding the remaining bases to launch a counter-attack on the cult. That is why the Federation has declared... a State of War.

The warfare for State of War is relatively simpler than Red Alert II in many ways. First off, there is only one goal in the game - conquer the enemy base. Second, the only units that can be produced are various sorts of tanks. That's right, no spies, no nukes, no psychic troopers and no chemical warheads to look out for. However, the only way to upgrade your factories is through your advancer. Once the process has been completed, your factories will no longer produce light units but instead will only produce medium or heavy units. Also, once a building has been converted or a turret destroyed, a small quake will happen. Don't worry, like the cloud effect, this can be turned of if you find it annoying. Lastly, most of the warfare will take part in mostly non-urban combat zones around the globe, including the Artic and the Colorado Wilderness for the most part.

If anything, the multiplayer experience for State of War will be quick and furious, since units are produced endlessly. The only way to gain any kind of a solid foothold would be to slowly and painfully take over your opponent's factories and fortify them with turrets. However, if you somehow found a way to quickly takeover most of the neutral factories in the game first, then defeating your opponent should be a piece of cake. In short, the game will either let you lose badly or win a decisive victory.

The graphics for State of War is decent, but doesn't come close to rivaling Westwood's Red Alert II. However, the cloud-cover effect is pretty cool, giving it a sort of atmospheric effect. Don't worry, if you feel that this effect is obstructing your view, you can either reduce the number of clouds or just turn it off completely. Unfortunately, the main menu for the game has that desperate-to-be-high-tech feeling, and of course, the FMVs in the game would have been excellent if not for the lack of quality and sharpness in it. Also, the in-game interface although simple, at least has the benefit of being easily accessible. First off, the voice of the operator sounds like Granny in the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons. And I thought I saw a putty cat! Then, there's the sound effects and music department. The music and sound effects are decent, but are comparatively lower in standard when compared with Westwood's Red Alert II. In short, nothing spectacular in this department either.

If you're looking for a strategy game that at least holds some bang for your buck with low system requirements, then State of War is worth your time. However, if you're looking for the latest and greatest, then I would suggest going back to Red Alert II for the time being while waiting for Blizzard's next big hit, Warcraft III. Either way, happy hunting! Enjoy the screenshots.