The Thrill Of It All
There are many trumpettable graces to War Of The Worlds. Jeff Wayne's fair score is amazingly effective in game context. The cut scenes are some of the best ever done for a game, even by today's 'Blizzard-driven' standards. The acting is top-notch. An 8 Meg video card is the only real requirement for solid 1024x768 resolution action too.
As for the play, this was the first game that adequately presented artillery - it is an awesome sight to suffer or by turns inflict a bombardment from 12 inch guns blazing away aboard a flotilla of 9 Ironclad dreadnoughts... all from well beyond the range of the targets. Clouds of dust and fire erupt with deafening rhythm under such unbearable pounding. Watching a Martian six-legged vehicle stomp through and destroy lightly armoured vehicles as well as displace heavier ones - while taking damage from the resultant explosions themselves - is inspiring. New versions of Martian Tripods firing their more powerful Heat Rays evoke a nostalgic dread that H.G. Wells would admire. The flash in the night air around a towering Fighting Machine from its swarming Armoured Lorry assailants is inspiring, or perhaps dissuading as all that flash fails to take it down. The sheer fantastic brilliance of the game comes across most effectively when Martian machines stride through urban areas, tripping Electric Wire Fences and mines as they rush to engage a target; damaged vehicles that smoke and burn even as they operate, as damaged as they happen to be, buildings that smolder and ruin under stray fire.
Something that plagues most rts games is also not present here - the S.E.O. effect. The computer opponent reacts without the benefit of superior reaction Speed, superior Efficiency, or Omnipotence. It plays by the same rules you do i.e. it does not cheat. What a refreshing breath that is. Sure the computer may allocate resources or direct units on the WarMap split seconds faster than you, but since you control the passage of time and can pause the play, such advantages are quite miniscule at best. The same goes for tactical play, though for a different reason - the computer utilizes a simple "Roam and Attack" algorithm to direct its units... this algorithm is very fair when the game is taken from an overall perspective as it removes the computer from making dynamic decisions concerning the course of a combat while still managing to present a believable flow of combat events.
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Screenshots.
War of the Worlds main page.
