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A good, fast-paced strategy game that should appeal to traditional RTS lovers and more impatient gamers alike.

Act of War is Atari's latest Real time Strategy Game. This title is based on Dale Brown's novel of the same name which will be available June 2005. It takes place in the near future and showcases today's latest military machines as well as a few currently fictional, futuristic implements of destruction.

The premise of this game being that a terrorist group known as The Consortium is attempting to sabotage the global economy through a series of attacks on oil refineries and other oil company related targets.

Enter Task Force Talon: a top-secret military unit which uses the latest in high-tech toys to attempt to thwart this Consortium. This tactical tug-of-war takes the player to a variety of locations from San Francisco to Egypt, providing a good variety of level layouts and terrain.

Graphically speaking, Act of War provides good looking, large environments loaded with detail, although the models are noticeably low detail- especially when the camera is even slightly zoomed in on them. This is initially disappointing, but becomes understandable later in the game when the number of units on screen at any given moment increases dramatically.

This usage of low polygon units allows the game to be playable on a wider range of PCs, but doesn't let newer machines stretch their legs. Ideally Atari would have provided both high and low polygon models and provided a choice in the options panel.

When it comes to sound, Act of War does a decent job. The voice acting, sound effects , and music are all good and nothing sounds out of place, but nothing is notably great either.

The single player campaign follows Task Force Talon as they traverse the globe battling The Consortium. Depending on the level, the battle may include local police officers, the US army, or just the TFT's own special forces.

The story is maintained through in-level voice communications and between level cut-scenes. The story itself is well flushed out and fairly intricate as one would expect considering this title is a adaptation of a novel.

The voice overs during gameplay are normally brief and to the point allowing the cut-scenes to do the majority of the story telling.

For cut-scenes, the developer decided to use live-action videos. The acting is pretty good, and the production quality is among the best I've seen in video game live-action sequences. The actors deliver believable performances and do a passable job of moving the story forward. As with the sound, there's nothing overly great about the cut-scenes, but they don't detract from the playing experience either.

Act of War eases the player into combat gently, starting with control of a small squad of troops, and eventually allowing command over large armies. The units available range widely, from various forms of troops, ground and air vehicles as well as the ability to call in artillery strikes. The difficulty ramps up at a nice even pace, with decent introductions to new technology and instruction in their use as they become available.

Offensively speaking, the layout of most levels permits multiple pathways for assaults and flanking maneuvers. Defensively, the level design provides many opportunities for cover and numerous choke points in which to lay ambushes.

This openness combined with the wide range of units available provides the player with the freedom to utilize any number of tactics for completing any objective they are given.

The objectives themselves are delivered in bite size pieces throughout each level leading up to the accomplishment of the main mission goal. The players are always well aware of what is desired of them as the objectives are clearly described and have a marker on the map to show the corresponding location.

So it is functionally sound, but is it fun? Well, yeah- it is. The game isn't the build-a-big-ass-army-and-attack-a-base type of RTS. Instead it favors multiple smaller objectives tackled in whatever order the player likes.

Intelligent play is rewarded in Act of War which allows a small team of basic units to accomplish many of the objectives presented. There are objectives that will require an entire army to complete, but these come later and are still interspersed with smaller scale objectives.

This approach removes some of the resource building intensive preparations that encompasses so much of the playing time in many other RTS games. Resources still need to be procured and there are still dependencies that need to be satisfied to allow production of all available units and buildings, but now you can actually be playing while this takes place instead of just waiting. No longer are players forced to remain behind defenses while building their entire army.

The major shortcoming of the single player campaign is that only one side is available to be played. The option to play as The Consortium is only available in the multiplayer portion of the game. The multiplayer provided by Act of War is about average for this genre- nothing more, nothing less.

In short Act of War delivers a solid RTS game that will appeal to most players. Sound strategy is rewarded and the gameplay itself is fun. With less time spent waiting, the playing experience doesn't stagnate and can be played for hours on end without ever boring the player.


Review by Nigel Grammer.