Friday, September 19, 2003
Warfare Incorporated 1.0 Review
Posted by Kevin Remhof in "SOFTWARE" @ 11:00 AM
If you’re like me, you can’t get enough of real-time strategy games. Thanks to Handmark, we now have another excellent choice for our Pocket PCs: Warfare Incorporated. Read on to see why this should be on your short-list of games to buy for your Pocket PC.
Warfare Incorporated 1.0 is another top-notch game from Handmark. It's an easy to play Real Time Strategy game with a style of its own.
Basic Overview
As with most RTS games, the object of Warfare Incorporated is to gather resources, build up an army, and destroy your enemy. Pretty straightforward but Warfare Incorporated has some interesting ways to keep you busy.
The game starts off with you as Andy Whitmore, Mining Operations Trainee for the ACME corporation. You are sent off to mine the planet Icarus for Galaxite. As usual with scenario based games like this, all hell breaks lose and the enemy attacks. This is when things get fun.
Figure 1: Each mission starts off with a briefing from management on what you are to accomplish. You don't always have to follow orders, as you'll soon find out.
One of the best things about this game is that it is very approachable. It's easy to pick and play. You only have one resource to collect - Galaxite. You don't have to worry about wood, food, gold, iron, and oil like the PC game Rise of Nations. This makes it less of a resource management game and more of an action game. It also simplifies the interface which is crucial when playing on a small screen.
Game Modes
You can either play Story or Challenge or missions in the game. The Story mode is a set of 14 missions which get harder as you go along. In them, you will work your way up the ACME food-chain as you mine Galaxite and crush your foes. Along the way, you’ll learn about the alien culture of the planet and its mysterious technologies. These missions are a lot of fun. Some follow the standard collect, build, destroy strategy. The game does a nice job of keeping things interesting. Most missions have at least two goals to accomplish. Once you complete them, you are often given other goals. One of my favorites starts with you helping the enemy. They then turn on you and you get to wipe them out.
Figure 2: When ready to go, you get to pick either a scenario-based story mission or a challenge mission. Both with challenge any RTS fan.
The coolest thing in the Story mode though is once you find the planet’s Replicators. These allow you to replicate any unit at a discounted price. But, the enemy can do the same. So, you need to protect the Replicator and its trigger points.
Figure 3: Here you can see a replicator ready to spawn units. Bring on the clones!
Others give you direct control of Andy. He has a sniper rifle and regenerating armor to help you live a little longer. It’s very similar to missions in Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Others give you a squad of Corporate Raiders which you use to take over enemy buildings. These alternate missions add some spice to the game and make it a lot more interesting.
Figure 4: If you look close, you'll see Andy is selected and is kicking butt... wait, his health is really low.
The Challenge missions are stand-alone scenarios without a common storyline. These let you show off your skills in the game. What’s nice about these is that when you’re done, you’re done. There is no underlying story - just pure RTS goodness. It would be nice if there were more of these since only six are included in this release.
Warfare Incorporated 1.0 is another top-notch game from Handmark. It's an easy to play Real Time Strategy game with a style of its own.
Basic Overview
As with most RTS games, the object of Warfare Incorporated is to gather resources, build up an army, and destroy your enemy. Pretty straightforward but Warfare Incorporated has some interesting ways to keep you busy.
The game starts off with you as Andy Whitmore, Mining Operations Trainee for the ACME corporation. You are sent off to mine the planet Icarus for Galaxite. As usual with scenario based games like this, all hell breaks lose and the enemy attacks. This is when things get fun.
Figure 1: Each mission starts off with a briefing from management on what you are to accomplish. You don't always have to follow orders, as you'll soon find out.
One of the best things about this game is that it is very approachable. It's easy to pick and play. You only have one resource to collect - Galaxite. You don't have to worry about wood, food, gold, iron, and oil like the PC game Rise of Nations. This makes it less of a resource management game and more of an action game. It also simplifies the interface which is crucial when playing on a small screen.
Game Modes
You can either play Story or Challenge or missions in the game. The Story mode is a set of 14 missions which get harder as you go along. In them, you will work your way up the ACME food-chain as you mine Galaxite and crush your foes. Along the way, you’ll learn about the alien culture of the planet and its mysterious technologies. These missions are a lot of fun. Some follow the standard collect, build, destroy strategy. The game does a nice job of keeping things interesting. Most missions have at least two goals to accomplish. Once you complete them, you are often given other goals. One of my favorites starts with you helping the enemy. They then turn on you and you get to wipe them out.
Figure 2: When ready to go, you get to pick either a scenario-based story mission or a challenge mission. Both with challenge any RTS fan.
The coolest thing in the Story mode though is once you find the planet’s Replicators. These allow you to replicate any unit at a discounted price. But, the enemy can do the same. So, you need to protect the Replicator and its trigger points.
Figure 3: Here you can see a replicator ready to spawn units. Bring on the clones!
Others give you direct control of Andy. He has a sniper rifle and regenerating armor to help you live a little longer. It’s very similar to missions in Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Others give you a squad of Corporate Raiders which you use to take over enemy buildings. These alternate missions add some spice to the game and make it a lot more interesting.
Figure 4: If you look close, you'll see Andy is selected and is kicking butt... wait, his health is really low.
The Challenge missions are stand-alone scenarios without a common storyline. These let you show off your skills in the game. What’s nice about these is that when you’re done, you’re done. There is no underlying story - just pure RTS goodness. It would be nice if there were more of these since only six are included in this release.
