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Ground Control ROCKS! email me limpbizcuit@stupid.com

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 27
Date: May 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the best RTS games I personally have ever played. I signed up for a beta multiplar cd, and guess what, I got it. I've been playing the multiplayer version, for over a month now. I just recieved my pc-gamer and inside was a full campaign for Ground Control. I opened it up and played it. If you have enough monitor to put it up to 1024X860 or whatever, I recommend you do. With that much resolution, the game is so realistic. Sierra did a nice job on the sand, sky, infantry, and even the trees, look real. You can get a wide range of units, ranging from a infantry soldier, to the best tank or even a bomber/fighter. I recently beat the demo, and one mission is excepsionally fun. You get artillery, and the graphics rule on explosions. If you zoom down you can see your guys blasting away. It's an incredible game. There are also special weapons you troops can get, infantry/mortar launchers, tanks/rockets. If you have a strond stomach(kinda) zoom in on the enemy troops, and then attack them with artillery, it's kinda bloody. This game is really good, I would recommend it to all, good singal player, and multiplayer. If I could have I would have given it 100 stars!

Ground Control is the best 3D RTS game of all time!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: May 15, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Last week I purchased the PC Gamer magazine (June '00) issue and in it it brought a CD with demos and it had a world exclusive of Ground Control! I was all hyped up and immediately left the bookstore after purchasing it and went home to play it! Once I got home, I played the demo for 2 hours straight! I still haven't beaten the demo because the third real mission is pretty tough. Anyway, I recommend that anyone who likes action purchase this game. It comes out on June 2! Don't be lead out onto not liking it because it's a 3d real-time-strategy(3D RTS). I don't care much about RTS but once I played this one, it blew me away! This is the incredible action-packed sci-fi 3D RTS game I have ever played and believe me, I have played hundreds of PC games and own alot of them too. You can bet that I'll buy it once it comes out! You definitely should too! You can see what you're missing by downloading the demo in massiveentertainment.com, or much easier, buy the PC Gamer June '00 issue in your local newstand and/or bookstore.

Incredible real-time tactics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: May 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Rather than the following the standard RTS formula of 80% resource management mixed with 20% battle tactics, this game follows the precedent set by the Myth series. You choose from a selection of units before the mission, along with a number of different configurations and equipment packs. You may choose to equip your infantry squads as stealthy, far-sighted Jaegers, or you might decide to outfit them as slow, powerful grunts. Special equipment including deployable sentry guns, explosive or armor-piercing ammunition, and vision-enhancers is also available. You must also choose which squads are necessary for a mission, since space on the dropships is limited. Control is at the squad level, with sizes ranging from 1 heavy artillery cannon to 8 marines. Proper coordination of different units is necessary for success. Your artillery might have enough firepower to turn the enemy into a smoking crater, but without proper scouting it becomes useless. This game also does what few other RTS games has ever accomplished; it successfully implements chain of command. Keep your Command APC safe, or your troops will be completely ineffective.

The graphics are good but not particularly distinguished, and the controls are reasonably simple, including all the standard elements of RTS (hotkeyed groups, formations, etc.) and adding a few nice touches, such as the ability to set a squad's movement and firing styles (rush blindly ahead firing at anyone who shows his face, or advance cautiously and sneakily to the enemy rear). The effects of high ground, rear and flank attacks, and suppressive fire are also well implemented.

I'd recommend this game to Myth fans, as well as to anyone who enjoys the strategy elements of RTS more than the resource management aspects.

This Game is Great!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: May 29, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is the greatest game I have ever played since Half-Life. Sierra Studios has done it again! They have produced the best game in along time...The game has Excellent graphics and the Gameplay is very intelligent with all different camera angles. You can even move up to your army and see them under attack or can sit back and watch the battle. I think this game was a very smart idea because it allows the player to believe that he actually is in the battle or he is watching it.. the game difficulty is good... I have the demo.. This game is really good and I personally will tell everybody that reads this message to buy it. If you do buy it you will be very pleased with your decision.

Revolutionary

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 05, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I have played the demo of this game for a couple hours. This is great because I would usually finish a demo in about one hour. This game revolutionizes the RTS by giving the player almost full 3D 360 degree control of his/her view. You can watch your siege on an enemy outpost from any view. You can watch your men fire upon others. The surroundings that appear around your men are stunning. You can take full advantage of the territory by hiding in the shadows of hills or behind trees. The missions are simple in this demo but I am sure that will change in the full version. The controls are not difficult and the learning curve is almost 0. But incredibly (usually games this good would have steep learning curves) it is a very interesting game. Sierra did a great job with this game.

Not quite ready for prime time.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: June 08, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Like many of the other previous reviewers, I bought the game because the demo was outstanding. I'm finding in practice that the game really doesn't measure up, however.

To Ground Control's credit, this is probably the best 3D land-based RTS game to come out yet. However, it still doesn't manage to escape from a lot of the shortcomings of its fellow 3D RTS's.

The nature of 3D RTS, at least so far, seems to be that units are more 'realistically' proportional to the terrain. While that may be nice on paper, in gameplay what it translates to is that you spend hours moving your units from one place on the map to the other, because they're so small in proportion to the terrain. In fighting battles, you're obligated to zoom out to such an extent that each unit is only a blip of a few pixels on your screen--not much fun to watch or look at while directing the troops.

I don't find the elimination of resource management to be a plus for Ground Control. What that ends up meaning is that there is no reinforcement available for you to build or buy; you can't simply play and have fun if you want to try different things in a mission. You have to carefully and tediously position your units so as to incur as few losses as possible. Add to this the fact that there is NO in-game saving in Ground Control, and you find yourself playing very carefully and tediously indeed.

Topping this off, there just isn't a good story happening here to keep you interested. It's mostly told through the thoughts of the two side commanders rather than through good character and dialog. The cutscenes are hands-down the worst I've ever seen--they are videos of the game engine, it looks like, and they're so badly compressed that they look like they're being streamed over the web--blocky, blurry, and awful to watch.

On the positive side, the game does look great, especially when you zoom in close to the units fighting. It plays better on lower-end systems than other games of its type, but you'll still need a blistering machine if you want to see it in its full glory.

Be warned also that it's not entirely stable. A patch was released the day after it hit retail, but not all of the bugs are out of it. One of the worst is that it will crash on completion of a mission, and you don't get credited with the mission. I've spent more hours replaying because of this than I'd care to admit.

As a former Army officer, I think there are some cool tactical things happening in Ground Control that haven't been modeled well in other games--friendly fire, fire support, formations--but in the end, when all is said and done, I have to say that the game just isn't that much fun to play.

You're getting 90% of the experience in the demo. If it really floats your boat after seeing it, then maybe you should try it. Other than that, buyer beware.

only played demo but still 6 stars!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 13, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Ive only played the demo version of this game but ive already become addicted! My parents say I buy too many games and I cant get any more(Oh man!)but if I could I would for sure buy GC. This game in a word ROCKS! Its well worth your money. And if u cant get it right away(like me) find someway to get the demo! Awsome units and the best graphics, a chalenge but still fun! Buy it.

Ground Control, a game for any 3D RTS lovers!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 13, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is simply awesome. I have played the demo of this game, and I spent about 5 hours straight! What makes this game revolutionary is that it lacks the process of resource gathering. Some players of RTS hate those pain in the neck resource gathering process, and now this 3D RTS has cut off these darn boring processes of building units, gathering resources and find suitable resource gathering site. Also, you can change your view by moving your camera 360 degrees around. This feature astonished me since you can change distance between you, and your units, from the view of up high in the air, to near 1st person shooter perspective of your infantry units. Graphic of this game is pretty darn good, if you have high end PC and even, low end PC. I liked the process of choosing which unit to bring into the battle field with you, because everything depends on what unit you choose before you start a mission, and it greatly affects the gameplay. For example, if the mission is seek and destroy, which means that you have to explore the map and destroy the objectives that are given to you. In this situation, you might want to include artillery units, and some scout units so your artillery units can attack those objectives from a far safely and effectively with scouts revealing your line of sight. I can't explain every good aspects of this awesome game, so if you want to try some good 3D RTS, this game is a must buy!!! It should be on shelves of any store in the US, so go there and buy this game now!!! Just trust me and you will have a great time!!! GOOD HUNTING!

Swedish perfection (lame joke) has never been better

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: June 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

For a couple of months ago I read in PC Gamer about a swedish game named Ground Control. I become intrested and visited Massive Enrertainments homepage and got more interested and now, some months later, I've bought it. It's absolutely the best RTS ever, the graphics are stunning, the gameplay was also and the sound effects was almost as 'perfect' as the graphics. In short words: I fell in love with it. I'm not just saying this because it's a swedish game (and I'm a Swede), this game is totally action-filled so you could believe that you're right there in the battlefield. I screamed of excitement while I wasted almost five hours per day with it, the best sound effect was when the missles from the Aerodynes flied past me. The only bad thing is that the briefing is boring and doesn't got the same perfection in the graphics as the rest of the game.

A great game that could have been the best

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 16, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game has to be the best 3D RTS to date. Even so, there is one big shortcoming that could have made the game the best RTS period. That shortcoming is the absence of an in-game save feature. This is especially annoying when you reach the later games which are long and involved. Hopefully Sierra will release an update to bring this feature into the game.

Aside from that, the game is very good with some of the best graphics I've seen and simple yet effective interface based on squads instead of individual units. This is more realistic to real war than other RTS's where you command only one unit at a time. Sound is also well done, with explosions that can be heard and good music. The visual special effects are abundant. A prime example of this is the tracks that units leave in there wake. They even kick up dust to make these tracks. Also bugs are able to be seen in tropical parts of the many missions that are included.

These range from simple search-and-destroy missions to escort missions to defense missions. With 30 of these, the game will keep you coming back for more for quite a while. In addition, extensive multiplayer choices allow many different types of games and a special drop-in feature with which you can come into an already ongoing game with your own dropships.

In closing, the best thing about this wonderful game is that it is realistic to regular war, unlike most other RTS's out there. The best example of this quality is that there is no resource gathering or base-building (except for sentry guns and radar posts, but that really isn't a base). My suggestion to you is that you go out and buy this game soon to enjoy its many merits.

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