Yes, let’s go and conquest the Americans…
Whilst sipping rather salty tea, Nick Haywood reviews this historically based RTS and wonders whether wearing a Union Jack t-shirt in Boston was a good idea…
Now it’s not often that we review anthologies, normally because we’d look at each individual game and the subsequent expansion packs as they’re released, but American Conquest is three years old and so pre-dates HEXUS.gaming by some way. So what we’ll do here is give you an overview of the core game and then, on the next few pages, look at each of the three games in this pack in turn.
So, American Conquest is an isometric RTS, based on the conquest of the Americas by us far more civilized and cultured Europeans. This being historically based, you can expect to see famous battle and engagements involving a whole range of different factions… British, French, Spanish, Colonials, Native American Indians, Aztecs and Incas… the American Conquest series comprehensively covers them all… and no sign of an Australian actor reprising his role as a Scottish warrior to yet again rout the Brits, which is nice.
Developed by GSC Gameworld, and published by CDV, the American Conquest series covers every battle and conflict from when the Americas were first discovered back in 1492 right through to the American Civil War. Being historically based you can expect true-to-life units as time progresses, seeing you start off with pikemen and swords before ending up in massive musket and cannon battles. There’s no ‘hero’ types here with super-powers and, unlike real history, no smallpox button for taking out the Native American Indians.
What you do get is GSC’s normal comprehensive modelling of troops of the era and stickling attention to detail, all blanketed by their usual extremely detailed stats and troop management, not to mention the near-infinite micromanagement of the resource system. Viewed in a 3D isometric world, American Conquest looks somewhat dated compared with more modern RTS games, but perhaps that can be forgiven by how the games actually play?
Let’s go find out.