Warzone 2100 (PC)

“One of the best, if not THE best point-and-click RTS out there. I honestly had never even heard of this game and was very reluctant to install it, but was luckily(!) eventually forced to for the lack of RTS games for linux. The screenshots, which...”

“One of the best, if not THE best point-and-click RTS out there. I honestly had never even heard of this game and was very reluctant to install it, but was luckily(!) eventually forced to for the lack of RTS games for linux. The screenshots, which usually are the first thing I evaluate a game from, most of the time don't do justice to this gem.

The buildings do look somewhat "toy"-like yes, but once you get to know the back story and especially play the campaign, you understand the meaning of the abstract colors and forms. Its sort of a blend between apocalyptic sci-fi architecture and cyberpunk feel. It could have been better, but when looked from right perspective, does its job reasonably well.

What makes this game a gem is its unit system. Think of Total Annihilation with complitely customizable vehicles. Thats right, in this game you create your own units from almost scratch. First you select the "frame", light, medium, heavy. Then the "wheels", tires, half-track. full-track, hover or fully airborne. Then you select a weapon which there are plenty to choose from, for example machine-gun, flamethrower or good old barreled main battle tank gun. You can also equipt repairers, radars or something called a command module to make the unit for supporting the main battle units. If this sounds like a lot of work for you, it really isn't. You mostly just need to design one or two units for you current game and will be using those designs for the rest of the game just like you would in any other game, just clicking a unit icon.

All this variety in design reflect also in turrets and other structures. There are almost as many turret types as there are weapons for the units, and each of those has it own strengths and weaknesses. To build one you first need to research the technology and you won't have time or money to research more than one or two "lines" of turrets so you must make choices. Same goes to units because every equipment type has to be researched.

Research and resource gathering are mostly something you don't have to fiddle with much. One button to open your current research projects and select a new one. Resource management consist just off building oil depots on oil "veins" and building energy stations to power these up. Both of the fore mentioned buildings give units of energy which are used for unit and structure building as well as for researching.

One more special aspect that I love in this game is how it handles repairing units. You can give units orders to return for repairs once they take a certaint adjustable amount of damage, and having a few repair units or repair building in your base makes sure your units don't go to battle with a red health bar. Combined with units gaining experience in combat this is something that makes tactical decisions actually feel like tactical decisions and not just a matter of how many units I need to rebuild after this attack. In this game keeping your units alive is worth it!

There is still a ton of features in this game that I haven't covered like for example counter-artillery radars, fire-directing units, commanders that give units accuracy bonuses etc. A well worth to look at for any RTS fan!



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“One of the best RTSs out there.”

“One of the best RTSs out there.”