War of the Worlds
- January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST
Mars attacks�and nobody cares
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This thrilling and influential scenario is given a 3D treatment in the glorious introductory cinematics of Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, a real-time strategy game inspired by Wells' novel. featuring a grand voice-over by the late Richard Burton (who narrated Wayne's 1991 musical version of War) and propelled by a bombastic orchestral score, War of the Worlds has as absorbing a beginning to any strategy title as I've seen in recent memory. The Martians have landed, and now it's up to Her Majesty's Royal Army to repel them and their terrifying technologies.
That's when the game runs completely out of steam.
War's central conceit is clever: It can be played from either the human or the Martian perspective. The opening cinematics change to reflect the two perspectives on the fight, as does the entire game interface-the austere, wood-paneled human interface giving way to a glitzy, arcade-style interface for the aliens.
The problem is that this game, at heart, involves a very generic and uninventive real-time strategy. As soon as the campaign proper is under way, you'll find yourself faced with tired "What do I want to research first?" and "What do I want to construct first?" situations. The research build-list for each race is a disappointingly mundane series of advancements-minefields, self-propelled guns, and submersibles for the humans and drones, bombarding machines and telepath training for the squids. The research and build functions are never a source of inspiration and serve only to give the player something else to do.
Combat is similarly disappointing. When opposing forces enter the same region on the 30-territory strategic map of England, the scene shifts to a detail of the isometric battlefield and the game becomes just like any of a dozen other real-time slugfests.
Some fun bits do sneak into strategic gameplay, such as the need for the Martian invaders to farm human blood from conquered territories. The Martians can also infiltrate human command posts, unveiling secret information about research progress. The humans try to counter with technology research that might help them stave off the aliens�and remember that in the novel, we only won because the Martians didn't count on the common cold virus stopping them dead in their tracks.
But the high points of WotW get dragged down by boring junk. You have to lay foundations for anything you build: in fact, construction projects absorb so much time and attention that it sometimes feels like the Martians have invaded England just so they could play SimCity. So much time is spent on manufacturing and research that the war seems almost secondary. The game should have focused more heavily on the dynamic and cinematic possibilities of war between pre-mechanized earthling armies and a colossal foe straight out of our worst nightmares.
This gripping scenario isn't put to much use, and unfortunately what's left is just a run-of-the-mill strategy game.
