Author: scharfschutze
Type: PC Game
Released: 2000
Designer: Massive Entertainment
Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
Genre: Real-time strategy
Like Sierra’s flagship game Homeworld, Ground Control was a game that should have redefined the real-time strategy genre. Instead, poor quality control and bad customer service relegated Ground Control to the status of “good to have, if you can get it”. It was truly a tragedy, because Ground Control stands out in my mind as an excellent example of what real-time strategy games can be with just a little imagination.
Ground Control takes place in the year 2419, on the distant planet Krig-7B. After the devastating Sixteen-Minute War of 2093, all war on Earth was banned, and thus warfare moved to the far-flung colonies of the various Earth-based corporations. To top it off, all the corporations are constantly at war with the Order of the New Dawn, a religious order that was responsible for restoring essentially all human civilization after the nuclear winter caused by the Sixteen-Minute War, but has in recent years been relegated (at least in popular perception) to the status of a useless religious cult. On Krig-7B, the Crayven Corporation has attempted to take control of the planet, only to run into completely unprecedented resistance from the “Dawnies”, as the Order’s soldiers are often called. At this point, you, playing as somewhat disgraced Crayven Corporation Major Sarah Parker, take command of a small force of soldiers in an attempt to push the Dawnies off the planet.
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As previously mentioned, Ground Control possesses several elements that should have made it a revolutionary game. Several of these elements have since been incorporated into newer RTS games, but I have yet to run into a game that incorporates all of them. The first element you, the player, will run into when playing the game is the lack of production. You do not produce ANYTHING in Ground Control. The number of units available in any one mission is fixed by two variables: the place in the campaign (or settings in multiplayer), and the number of dropships you have available (more on that later). This concept of no production is not unique to Ground Control (Bungie Studios’ Myth series did this long before GC came along), but it has an enormous effect on gameplay. The next concept you run into is the idea of configuring your own squads. Before each mission, you can modify your squads in several fields. When you begin a campaign, your first squad is a Marine squad, with no special weapons or equipment; in later missions, you can give that squad infantry mortars, anti-tank rockets, med-kits, and more, or you can turn that Marine squad into a Jaeger squad (snipers/special forces), which possess its own special weapons. All squads are handled in the same way, and you can have four different “classes” of squads: Infantry, Assault (i.e. TANKS), Support (artillery, AA, etc.), and Air. You can also tell your squads to configure themselves along four different lines: Balanced (all fields are equalized), Offensive (speed is sacrificed for firepower), Defensive (speed is sacrificed for armour), or Recon (armour is sacrificed for speed). These fields are highly important; you must choose your squads’ configurations based on the battle you intend to fight.
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Once you’re finished configuring your squads, you load them up into dropships for deployment to the battle zone. This is the next major concept that affects gameplay. Each dropship can only carry four squads, and at the beginning of the game, you can only use one dropship, limiting you to four squads. Later in the campaign, you can use up to three. This means that, at no time during the game can you command more than 13 units. I say 13, because you can deploy 12 squads and you always have access to your command vehicle. This is the next unique concept. Unlike most RTS games, where you sit far away from the action (i.e. at your computer), Ground Control puts YOU in the middle of the fight. Your command APC represents your command base, and if it is destroyed, you die and fail the mission. The Command APC can fight (sort of), but its chief advantage is the fact that it can repair units that are nearby. Unfortunately, it can’t heal itself, so you have to be careful with your APC. As its name implies, it can also carry two or three infantry squads, allowing you to carry your infantry alongside a major advance, only to dump them out as soon as the shooting starts.
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Deploying your forces to the battle zone puts you and your soldiers in the middle of a fully 3-D rendered landscape, with mountains, hills, plateaus, and folds in the terrain. Ground Control eschewed fixed, overhead gameplay for a fully 3-D environment complete with a completely player-controllable camera. You can zoom out to the fullest to get a better idea of the size of an enemy base, or you can zoom in close and watch your tanks tear infantry to pieces. You can swing your camera up to track aircraft, or down to watch vehicles, and you can rotate the camera through a full 360 degrees. And, to top it off, shadows on the landscape actually make your life a lot easier – or harder, if your enemy is the one in the shadows.
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The missions of Ground Control are fast-paced and well-designed, with many varying missions and objectives. The first three missions are just a taste of the missions available: the first mission is a commando assault on a communications station; the second is a rendezvous/rescue operation with a Dawnie defector; and the third is a coordinated assault between your unit and another team on a heavily fortified base. The two factions are well-split; the differences between them are best described by analyzing their basic infantry unit. The Crayven Corporation Marine is far more heavily armoured and only slightly slower than the Order Crusader, but the Crusader’s laser gun is far more damaging than the Marine’s mass-driver assault rifle; essentially all weapons between the factions are divided along the same lines, with the Order going for firepower while Crayven Corp. prefers armour. As well, the Order has a monopoly on anti-gravity technology; all their vehicles hover across the landscape, making them faster but lighter than Crayven’s treaded war machines. In the air, Order vehicles are lighter, faster, and more manoeuvrable but less well-armed and armoured than Crayven Corp.’s aerial weapons.
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The chief problem in Ground Control is the fact that, for many reasons, Massive Studios offloaded any customer service responsibilities onto the publisher, Sierra Studios. Also, it seems that, mere minutes after finishing Ground Control, all emphasis shifted to Ground Control II: Operation Exodus; as a result, customer service became lacklustre at best. Chief among the problems with Ground Control is the fact that, on Windows XP, the briefing conversations stutter as if the CD were scratched – a problem not shared with Windows 95 and 98. NOTE: running in compatibility mode does NOT fix the problem; the game just won’t start. As well, multiplayer is a major problem, and patching the game leads to far more problems than it solves.
The graphics in Ground Control are worthy of hyperventilation, that’s for sure. Almost everything, from infantry to buildings, are fully rendered 3-D objects; similarly, the terrain is also fully rendered, with rises, folds, mountains and valleys. The visual spectacle is only slightly diminished by the somewhat blotted nature of the texture sprites on most objects; they aren’t as crisp as they could have been.
Effects: 9.5/10Ground Control’s effects are just as good as its graphics. Guns recoil as they fire, bullets streak towards their targets, spent cartridge cases are sent flying by heavy machine-guns, and moving Crayven vehicles leave distinctive tread marks across the landscape. The unit speech, while relatively limited compared to, say, StarCraft, does not fall into the trap of the original Command & Conquer – that is, the soldiers don’t say much, by they at least sound like human beings. The characters that play out in briefings (when they aren’t stuttering) are all well-done and give you quite a feel for the characters’ personalities.
Gameplay: 9/10Very few (if any) elements of Ground Control’s gameplay are problematic. The command system could be smoother, but the somewhat clunky nature of the “behaviour menu” realistically doesn’t cause much in the way of trouble. The game plays like a dream.
Replayability: 7.5/10Although there is technically a map editor for Ground Control, it is not a very effective tool, and limits the replayability. Also limiting this category are the crappy customer support, the absolute uselessness of the patches, and the problematic multiplayer. The game itself begs to be played over and over; there are just several problems that make that difficult.
Overall: 9/10Ground Control truly should have been a revolutionary game. So many of its game elements were unique, and they combined to make a unique game that stands out for those who have had the pleasure to play it. I only hope that gaming companies take note of the problems caused by crappy customer service, and adapt to ensure that they do not fall into the same trap.