The Flaws

Regrettably War Of The Worlds has its problems.

Send a large group of naval vessels to a small coastal area and when battle commences you will find a large portion of said force to be missing, the destination body of water being too small to accommodate the force. Tell your units to attack the enemy in the Battle Map and often they may wander into their own fences and mines. Special abilities, such as firing special artillery warheads, or launching the Black Dust canisters, must be utilized manually, player exertion that is quite at odds with the generally automatic feel of the combat. Tell Ironclads or submersibles to attack a target and rarely they shall move inland to do so... quite far inland, to the point of beaching themselves and being destroyed from the earthen damage they sustained as they move. Human Mobile Repair Units don't repair anything. Martian mind control Tripods do nothing but take hits unless you manually activate their abilities. Martian Constrictor units that launch solidifying foam at enemy units are quite stupid, adhering to the A.I. whereby an engaged unit continues to be engaged - without damaging weapon capability this means the Cosntrictor 'foams' up a unit for eternity, until it is destroyed or the Constrictor is destroyed (usually the latter). Destroying a Command Center instantly destroys any other structures in the Battle Map, a totally unnecessary mechanic that can be compensated for with proper Center placement and fortification: that should not be necessary - if one builds it, the other should have to slog through it to some degree. Human Dirigibles and Zeppelins damage themselves when dropping bombs on the enemy, apparently flying too low to the ground.

Some of the aspects of the game seem rushed even though they work, or utterly incomplete. Martian observational research is apparently useless - by all accounts it lends a player no additional advantages or abilities whatsoever. Mind Control units seem to have simple effect graphics compared to the quality of everything else in the game, as do Human shells of special natures. Submersible vessels possess a peculiar submerging mechanic where they stay so until they reach a destination and stop moving, the maintenance of the submerged state being possible only for as long as the vessel is enroute. And of course the promised multiplayer versus play does not exist, even though War Of The Worlds is a PERFECT game for it.

This is all really too bad. Rage had a perfect premise for a brilliant strategy contest. Thankfully they were able to at least bring us what they did, still a class act, despite whatever prevailing reasons defeated their full design. And at incredibly cheap prices perhaps WOTW will entertain others for many many moons, offering a 2 ½ year old glimpse into our rts futures. Hopefully.

- Scott Hunter

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