Innovative RTS multiplayer
And so on to the multiplayer where you can pretty much forget all the tactics you’ve honed in the single player campaign. Now you’re not playing against the AI anymore, you’re playing against other people and what a devious bunch of gits they can be at times.Where the multiplayer game of World in Conflict differs most from the single player campaign is that you don’t control all the forces on your side. You don’t even control the full range of units available to you in the single player. Much like Team Fortress, you pick a role to play, armour, air, infantry or support and then, so the idea goes, you integrate your efforts with others on your team playing different roles.
Click for larger imageThe idea is simple, if you’ve got a guy playing as infantry or armour, maybe you should go in the air role and give him helicopter cover… or he could do the same for you if you’re playing as infantry and he can back you up with his tanks. Or perhaps you like the idea of long range engagements, so play as artillery and wait until someone has scouted out enemy positions and then bring in the explosive rain for them.
But in practise, as we’ve seen with other games where you have to co-operate with your fellow gamer, how this works out is often in the lap of the gods as to whether you get a team that works together or end up with just a bunch of guys who all go off and do their own thing. The Battlefield series suffered heavily from this ‘lone wolf’ approach and it still does today, so picking decent servers is critical.
Click for larger imageYou can play on your LAN but online is where most of us will be and for this purpose there’s the Massgate portal to help you chose a server and play a game. There are several different MP modes available, the main ones being Domination, Assault and Tug of War. Domination is all about holding control points, Assault sees you taking turns attacking and defending and Tug of War is fought over one control point in a King of the Hill style battle.
To work as a team is essential or you’ll just get your arse handed to you on every round and the best way to avoid a whupping is to talk to each other. To that end there’s full VOIP support which, even on my lowly 2meg connection with the tactical nuke going off, was crystal clear and lag free. In fact, having played the multiplayer beta, I was very pleased on how smooth World in Conflict played as it used to suffer terrible lag once a nuke was launched but in the final release I’m pleased to say it was as smooth as Kiera Knightley’s backside.
Click for larger imageAlready there’s a strong online following and provided you get yourself on a server with like-minded players, you’ll have an absolute blast… What would be interesting for the future with World in Conflict is to have an overall world map where certain games contribute to a real-time, persistent frontline, much like we’ve seen with IL2 flight-sim series. World in Conflict is such a satisfying online game, when played properly with teams working in a cohesive fashion, that this’d add loads more depth and make players feel like they were really achieving something other than winning a skirmish here or there.
In summing up, that legal caveat on most games warning that the game experience may change with online play is nowhere more true than in World in Conflict, it’s a whole different game online and one that can be incredibly good fun… as long as you don’t end up playing with a bunch of selfish berks.