Okay, now begins a whole slew of posts about every aspect of the game, stretching across the next couple of days. I'll be reviewing all aspects of the game, from the box to the nitty-gritty of multiplayer. Needless to say, I will have to engage in rigorous playtesting, but for you, my fans, it's worth the effort! Just show some love with the comments. ;)

Okay, so before I begin, I should say that I am a VERY harsh grader. For example, I failed Generals. And that was a pretty good game. Zero Hour scraped together a pass. Homeworld 2 bombed, and I barely played it. Homeworld: Cataclysm passed, getting by solely on its phenomenal single player campagin, which garnered it enough points to offset the really, really, REALLY shitty multiplayer. Homeworld, however, WON. It passed with flying colours, due to its phenomonal everything. =D

I use a very simple point system. Anything which is good gets +1, anything which is bad gets -1. Anything mediocre gets neither. On very, VERY rare occasions, something can get +2, but that's only for things which rank at the very top of their league, like a "Best in class". I try to be pretty fair with my grading, and by fair I mean if something sucks I'm going to call them on it. But if they really, really, really tried to make something weird work and they didn't quite pull if off, I might not give them a -1, just because they tried so damn hard. And at the end of every sectionj, I add it all up, and throw in an "overall", which takes into account all the things I can't quite put my finger on. That ranges from +3 to -3. Acctually, Homeworld got a +4 for overall campaign gameplay, because there were enough things that I couldn't quantify which made it all the more awesome. But anyway.

Here we go, folks. Look forward to a good week or two solid of posts. I'll probably only have time to do the box and the installer tonight, but that should keep you lot amused at least until tomorrow. =)

TO THE SKIES!!!


-AGT

That's right, folks, even the box counts. when I said comprehensive, I wasn't kidding. this doesn't just include the box, this also includes the manual and the disk and anything else they throw in there. My digital camera is out of order, otherwise I'd take some pictures for y'all to see. Maybe if you bug me I'll add them later. =P

So, first off, the box. The box is one of the new, small boxes. Right off the bat, that's a hit to the game's awesomeness. You CAN'T fit an awesome game into a small box, becasue you CAN'T fit an awesome manual into a small box, and a manual is one of the most important parts of a game. Homeworld (Game of the Year edition), for example, came in one of the good old big boxes. It was a satisfying purchase, because that thing was HEAVY. For starters, it had the game CD and all the odds and ends they throw in there (ads and product catalogs and the like), but then it also had the manual, and the Prima strategy guide. Prima makes good strategy guides, good wlakthroughs, and plenty of insight into the game. But that manual... that thing was as big as the strategy guide! And it was PACKED with fluff. None of this "Here's how to install, here's a list of units, now go play kthxbye". This hefty book, yes, book, had the entire ancient history of your people on Kharak in it. You knew EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING that there was to know about your past. And you sat in AWE of the scale of what was being discovered. But I'm getting away from myself. So, based soley on the principle of small boxes sucking...

-1

Now, the random crap they throw in there. Nothing special, it's jsut random crap. Well, there's a little laminated tech tree guide in there, which is nice. However, I EXPECT that, so it doesn't earn any points. EVERY game should have some sort of a reference card. However, these days many games don't, and thus lose another point in a hurry.

So now, the manual. Well for a start, the game HAS a manual, which to be honest is more than I've gotten out of some games lately... but this is teh way it SHOULD be, there SHOULD be a manual. Only truely awe inspiring manuals get bonus points, like homeworld's which got +2. Best. Manual. Ever. Well, Cataclysm's manual was sweet too. But anyway. For starters, it's a small manual. Because it came in a small box. That's bad, so there's a point off. However, the manual is pretty good, including a full unit listing with descriptions and these neat little icons that show everything a unit can do, like if it can run people over, it gets this one icon, if it can snipe, it gets another one, if it can shoot down planes, it gets another one, and so on and so on. It's a nice touch. That almost warrants a +1 to offset that -1. But not quite, due to the fact that there simply isn't enough fluff. For those of you who are not aware, fluff is the storyline and character development and lore that goes along with a game. Warhammer 40k, for example, has fluff coming out of its bloody ears. Extreme Paintbrawl, on the other hand, has no fluff whatsoever and frankly deserves none. Act of War's manual has the bare minimum of fluff, ust enough to vaguely let you know what's going on, but not nearly enough to properly involve you. Probably because it simply isn't big enough because it had to fit in the small box. And that means that..

-1

So, then there's the disk itself, which is nothing really special. It comes in a nice sleave, with a neat picture of a jet, but there's nothing good or bad about it, really.

Oh, and the box, which likewise isn't really anything special.

So, there's the packaging. Act of War is off to a poor start, with -2! However, MOST games these days have shitty starts, some reaching as low as -5, though that particular game shall remain nameless. It did, however, come in a small box. Which is pretty much an instant -2. So.

Oh, and no overal adjustment. 'cause there's no reason to have one.

Packaging total: -2

-AGT

Okay, this is the technical stuff, and the instalation experiance. First off, the installer itself.

The installer was an instalsheild installer, you know, standard fare, nothing special... Not like RA2, which had an awesome installer, but still acceptable. However, I was shocked and suprised by one aspect of the instalation... when it started to copy the files, I was busy reading some webpage, when all of a sudden... BAM! FULL SCREEN VIDEO. I sat back in shock, this is FAR from standard fare. At first I had no idea what was going on, but that only lasted a moment, because then I was watching a TV news show featuring two cheif oil company executives. This video ran for a good... shit, I dunno, five minutes? And when it was done, the installer was almost done. I suspecft if my machine was a bit faster it would've been done. This is a REALLY sweet thing to do, and because of it, The installer gets a coveted +2! Yup...

+2

So, then there's the system specs. Ouch. Okay, the MINIMUM specs: P4/K7 1.5ghz, 256MB RAM, 2x DVD-ROM drive (Yes, it comes on DVD), 64MB video card with T&L support, DirectX9 compatible everything. AND SIX FUCKING GIGABYTES OF HARD DRIVE SPACE. SIX. SIX. W.T.F. If it comes on a damn DVD, can't it run the movies off the DVD? I mean, shit, SIX FUCKING GIGABYTES. WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY NEED THAT MUCH FOR?!?!?! And if anyone says "FMVs!", I'll kill them with my bare hands. Those can stay ON the damn DVD. Those do NOT need to be taking up precious space on my HD. Do you have any idea how much pr-n I had to move onto other computers just to install this? Heaven forbid I might acctualy delete some... =P So, that HUGE requirement is definitely a -1. Awesome game or not, that's just unacceptable. they should look back at some of their ooold games, which, you know, were for machines without hard drives. Now THAT's some good programming. Just because 80GB drives cost $60 apiece, doesn't mean that we should have to buy another one just to install this damn game. The rest of the specs are high, but understandable, because the game is pretty damn sweet. So...

-1

Hmm... I think I'll also include the opening video, too. Becasue that sorta falls under this category. Luckily, this is a short one. There isn't one. Which means another -1, because if you're going to have this much video, you gotta at least have a neat thing when you load the game. That's just standard fare. So...

-1

Installer, specs, and intro total: 0

So, there's the whole pre-game experiance... soon I'll start working on reviewing the campaign, which means, of course, that it'll be chock full of spoilers, so as a courtesy I'll lj-cut everything. =) I have to finish assembling my (300 so far) screenshots, and picking the best ones to use. We're gonna have us a ball with this one, folks!

-AGT

IVR