LoooSeR 6,894 Posted August 2 Report Share Posted August 2 Last mission in USSR campaign. Spoiler My squad. Spoiler Sniper is moving to frontline, while searching for more rifle ammo. We will need it. First line of German trenches. On the right flank we managed to take out AT gun crew, now troops are trying to close in and breach through defenses. Helping with some sniper fire. Big amount of troops are making their way to trenches. Continue to pick enemy heads, now in second line of trenches Captured this gun, it have plenty of ammunition to use. Managed to sneak AP shell into Tiger side turrer plate. This mound thing allot German infantry to get closer to us, and looks like they are concentrating behind it before counter-attack to re-take first trench. German infantry counter-attack have little chances to get anything, as my gun is overwatching whole area between trench and dirtwall. 2nd counterattack - now with armor support. Spoiler I have now additional forces to use - ZiS-3 76 mm and Pak 40 75 mm guns are going to be my main firepower to stop armor. Tiger parked in nasty spot - destroyed tank hulls are covering its hull. Gun shields are playing their role - crew is not killed by HE shell near detonation. 2nd gun arrived to help to deal with a stream of tanks. MG gunners are covering AT guns right flank. Our artillery is going to hit a main square, we will have a gap to push closer to enemies. Most of armored vehicles on the right are disabled/knocked out/destroyed. Time to move forward. Big cat on the left flank. Good thing we picked right flank to push. Spoiler My AT team. Yet another Tiger. Fallen trees and bushes are going to help me to sneak soldier with Faustpatrons close enough to this Tiger. Central part is full of bodies. Climbed inside of this Tiger. Unrepairable, but MG on top still works and i can use it to sneak bullets to German infantry sides. Sniper is clearing areas around knocked out Tiger. Friendly forces are keeping Germans busy in central square. Meanwhile i started to secure buildings around us, i will use this place to push right flank of enemy last defenses. German infantry squad is trying to dislodge us from here, sniper managed to escape death from point blank fire by jumping into damaged Tiger. Enemies will be cleared by rest of troops. Making entry point with explosives. SMGs and handgrenades are must for CQB in this game. After all Germans were killed, something big started to fire at this building. Heh, we need to keep away, using backstreets to avoid this angry 88mm. At least we have no such thing as shortage of weapons or ammunition! Scouting area further down right flank. Spoiler Ostwind is visible from here, but we are far enough from it to be safe. Surprise effect. Now i'm doing something risky. Managed to crawl away out of fire arc of MG before it managed to rotate. 88mm shell landed pretty close to my last position where sniper was spotted. Most of my squad is already here. More nazis exited building and pushing central area. 88 mm gun crew was taken out by sniper, AT team knocked out Ostwind. Now I can put my AT cannon here and work on infantry. Clearing left flank. Spoiler Enemy Pak40 got hit with HE shell and knocked out gun crew. Next target - King Tiger Bounced off... Tiger B answered with it's 88mm and destroyed my ZIS-3. Crew survived, but knocked out. Gun crew managed to get into cover. Tiger B was destroyed by friendly troops that managed to close in using moment when tank was distracted by us. Dashing for enemy Pak40 that we took out, hoping HE shell didn't destroyed gun barrel. It works! Building is full of German troopers, we will fold this house on top of their heads. Moving to get to end of left flank. Ohh shit! Crew is retreating, while enemy soldiers are chasing us. We got way too close to enemy armor. If tank was alone, i would try to take it out with AP shell, but infantry support makes this idea really bad - hand grenades would finish AT cannon crew. Friendly forces are closing in to Reichstag Sniper is helping to troops on the left side of entrance. Spoiler Using stationary MG to suppress enemies at the entrance. We trapped Germans inside. On the left flank gun crew payed back for destroyed AT cannon. Grabbed 88 mm AA cannon to clean up rest of enemy forces on left side of the central square. Took out last 2 with grenade. Flag carrier arrived, we will push inside. A group of German soldiers is trying to rush somewhere. Ha! 88 mm caliber shell found them. Enemy lost 458 soldiers and 19 AFVs, we - 200 and 5. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted August 6 Report Share Posted August 6 Finished Ground Control 2. I will not post full playthrough, as it looks somewhat similar in majority of missions. Also, Inversion FPS from Siber Int. is done (Siber did Timeshift, Snowrunner, helped with Quake Champions and made Crysis "Remastered" for Switch). Not sure what to hit next, but have few option, 2 of them are tactical non-real time strategies. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted August 10 Report Share Posted August 10 Start of Allies campaign. We need to sabotage German radar station and raid HQ nearby. Spoiler We landed near radar station, 2nd objective is in the center of this map. My team. Starting flanking move. Spoiler My team is preparing for an attack. That guy tried to run to HQ building and alert other troops. Main assault starts. Spoiler Took out last guard. Truck with reinforcement arrives. Spoiler Finishing HQ building. Now we are getting out, we destroyed and took out what we needed to blow up and clear/grab. More troops are blocking out way out. Spoiler 50 killed enemies, 5 vehicles (most of which were trucks or vehicles with no armor), we lost 4 soldiers from friendly troops. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted August 25 Report Share Posted August 25 Second mission. We are dropped into small town with task of capturing it. Spoiler Tank support gone in just few seconds, heh. Town is full of German defensive positions, overwatching streets and courtyards. That is scary thing, if it is mobile. I'm starting with some cheeky snipes. Spoiler Patrol responded to sniper rifle shots, rushed right into LMG fire. Poor bastards. Continue to snipe enemies. Relocated my sniper after static MG started suppressing area from where i was shooting. Allied troops cought a moment and rushed to MG positions. Enemies are also inside of buildings. Mad enemies - using rocket launcher vs infantry at close range. Other side of courtyard. Sniper is very effective here. Now we need to clear enrrance for our AFVs by taking out enemies nearby and securing street. That was perfect frag. Spoiler And another one. And here is our support. That position i would like to avoid taking head on. Good thing we have plenty of AT weaponry and ammunition for it. Group of enemies that are blocking our way to AT gun. Sniper says thanks for standing in window. Captured 75 mm cannon, time to ruin things around. Relocating gun to support troops pushing enemies next street. Man, that tin can is driving right to enemy AT team position. Also that Mario-tubing German to the right from my AT gun was jump moment for me once i noticed. Spoiler Obvious results. I managed to land 75 mm HE round just a second or 2 after tin can gor smashed into pieces. That was wrong tube, Mario. I like house clearing in this game, especially when you have cannons. Moving to flanking firing position. Train is on the move! Spoiler I managed to take out a turret with 88 mm gun, but second one with quad ACs is still active. Managed to land solid HE and finally destroyed last turret. Now i need to deal with horde of infantry that train brought here. Spoiler In about 5-7 shots managed to finish almost whole group of troops this train unloaded, thanks to open field between my gun and enemies. Returning to flanking shelling of sandbags that block street and enemies behind them. Cheeky gun placement. Open door -> frag -> position cleared. Ow, we are finished? Well, not bad. 124 vs 32 killed on our side and same amount of AFVs lost for both side. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted August 25 Report Share Posted August 25 Silent Storm screenshots, for future use. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted September 9 Report Share Posted September 9 3rd operation for Allies. We are assaulting fortified positions with light infantry and light armor support. Spoiler Spoiler Enemy Pz4 is trying to flank our LT. We got it just in time. Another AFV is hit with Bazooka rocket. Damaged buildings are full of German infantry. Bulk of our forces are almost got to end of this flooded city. German positions outside of flooded area have more serious weaponry. We lost our armor, not surprisingly. But enemies lost 1 AT gun 2 AT guns and a Panther. Now we use those Pak 40s against infantry in buildings around us. Next defense line of Germans in this town looks much more serious. Spoiler 2 MG gunners here. Our way up is closed to concrete bunker built right on stairs. Spoiler Both AT guns are now in my hands, sending some HE into that bunker. Trying to take out infantry in those trenches by shotting through buildings. Meanwhile 2nd gun is being moved to flank Tiger in that position. Almost done with this group of nazi troops. Detonating this thing. We advanced to first main bunkers with 88 AA gun on top of it. This gun doesn't have depression to work with, so splash damage it is! I like this game's destruction system. 88 mm AP round can go through plenty of walls. Sadly, it doesn't have punch hard enough to go through 2nd main bunker side walls. Managed to take out one of gunners of another 88 mm AA cannon. Breaching bunker. First bunker and AA gun is out of action. Pushing to next bunker. Spoiler Manged to lob grenade right into sniper's face. Flanking enemies from right. Hand grenades, many hand grenades. Almost done with those, but some sort of vehicle is approaching. Spoiler Using what left of Panther against infantry support of that Panther tank, lol. Friendly troops cleared 88 mm flak from infantry. AA vehicle with 4 ACs is moving in. Cought them before they managed to do serious damage. Main target - a stronghold with big guns facing a sea. Spoiler Well, main entrance is not an option, troops are suppressed by 2 static MGs. Trying to find a place close enough to lob a grenade inside. One section of wall is gone, we can push inside, in theory. Continue to throw frags inside. Tried to take out that MG with rocket launcher. Didn't worked that well... Still, we managed to thin out enemies enough to dash to breach in the wall. Inside of that stronghold: Next bunker is cleared, now we have clear path to from controlled areas of the town and breach point. Spoiler Frags are more effective here than guns, but because of big amount of crap around, they are not sure kill for groups of baddies. Pushing both sides. Almost reached 1st cannon Shot gun crew, it is clear now. 2nd cannon is finished. 3rd and last cannon is located away from stronghold, behind small network of trenches. Spoiler Aviation took out flak quad gun on top of the bunker with naval cannon. Team scavanged for ammo and hand grenades of all types, ready for last assault. Infantry from a beach is here. 340 enemy soldiers and 10 AFVs destroyed vs our 81 and 6. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted September 12 Report Share Posted September 12 Operation 4. Were are landing using glider, limited support and lots of German troops in small town nearby. Spoiler Our target - other side of the town, on the beach. We will meet a light AFV here. Flamethrowers? Never used those, limited range makes them awkward to use well. Starting with a sniper fire. Spoiler Moving to better firing position. Missed just by a bit. 2nd one got it. Preparing to fight off enemy counter-attack. Now they are pissed. Squad is fighting with German infantry attack. Spoiler Clearing a house on right side of the road. Oh, wow, glider hit a house that we were going to clear out... Pilots are alive, but German troops are trying to get them. Bigger glider landed in the field that we cleared. We got jeep with HMG and Tetrarch light tank. Another attack, now it is more serious. Light tank is going to solve this problem. AP shell couldn't penetrate that tin can frontal armor, lol. I need to go for side plates to take it out. -1 -2 Counter attack countered. Spoiler More enemy infantry arrived on trucks, blocking direct path to a beach where we need to go. Will try to find flanking path. Placed mines for event of enemy attack with StuG support. Found a path through hill on our right flank, sneaked my soldier here. Using bushes to get close enough to toss a bomb. Moved back on top of the hill, there is a sniper that prevent me from getting close enough to Ostwind. Found that sniper. This one is finished. Enemies are angry, trying to push me. Hand grenade and SMG fire will take care of them. Rushing to ruins, will clear them out and probably use them to stage flanking push against enemies in town. Enemies moved here, didn't find me and now retreating. They are not watching their backs... Heh. Managed to catch them. Found a flak gun that is not overwatched by someone else, easy prey for me. It will work as a breaching tool for us to get into the main part of this town. Spoiler Clearing area from enemy infantry. Those guys are very agressive, running into 20 mm barrel end. Waiting for other side making its move. Flanking move ended with MP40 barrel stuck right into a back of this German trooper. Moved to right edge of this map to clear out crossroad. I expect enemies could use that place to move their reinforcements. I moved more infantry to ruins to grab motorcycle, will push them into breach in enemy defenses in town. Moved through a gap in enemy forces right to bank of the river to hunt down smaller groups of German soldiers. This area looks like storage area, might have something useful. AT grenade first, MP44 burst into back of this guy second. Captured those Opels, they have AT mines inside. Perfect for me, time to use them. If more troops will arrive, they will have some surprises ready for their vehicles. Our target inside of town is documents in building that is guarded by German troops. We need to capture it and serach for papers. Spoiler Cleared troops outside Now jumping into this building. Almost 5 minutes is needed to search for documents, enemy reinforcements are arriving to this area. Hehehehe Fuck! Oh, hahaha! Got you! And halftrack as well! One enemy soldier is bandaging his wounds. So far we are pretty safe here. And another one And even more. 1 halftrack went between mines, have to deal with it. Almost done, but even more forces are coming. I wasn't expecting this much of enemy armor. Even more are getting here from Western road. Turned just few meters too early, damn it. We are done with documents, but this wave of German armor is moving to us. Big number of enemy troops are pushing towards areas of town that i cleared earlier. I don't have vehicles capable of fighting head on with those forces. Spoiler That tank crew doesn't give a fuck Well, now there is a clear-ish path through that building. A lot of enemies, Tiger, Panther, few more medium tanks, plenty of infantry support. Even more forces are stuck in area of where AFVs hit my mines. Even more (!) troops are driving here. Ha! Good job on finding all of my mines. At least several AFVs/tanks got stopped before they got into town square. Used that small hill to crawl closer and now tossing frags into crowds of enemies. Spoiler I'm worried about those 2, they are mobile and fully functional. Flamethrowers and MGs, should work fine for defense against infantry. Squad with AT is not far behind. Clearing last survivors. Thanks to mines, i was dealing with only infantry and that halftrack couldn't turn its MG towards me, as vehicle was immobile and MG have limited arc. Rushing to those 2 tanks parked near town square. Found an angle to hit engine deck of that Panzer 3. It was blocking my path to Tiger. If they will be triggered, they will come here, a great place to ambush armor thanks to geometry of buildings/streets. A lot of MG fire unloaded into that angle with bunch of bullets ricocheting of the wall. And Tiger added 88mm HE shell on top of that. Good thing i relocated my soldier, heh. Gotcha! Building is covering me from 1 Panzer 3 and halftrack laying on the side is shielding my soldier from Pz4 on the background. Trying to find me. Next! Vehicle detonation should help with soldiers that are still alive. Hah, that turret landed on 2 Germans on the right. Western part of town is clear, again. German infantry tried to stage an attack on ruins, where i established positions, but they got cought by my machinegunners. Spoiler Panther is unrepairable. Cleared road from last survivors. Enemies are still present on Eastern side of this town, looking around in all directions. Main squad, i'm holding them in case more enemy troops will come from Western road. Landing zone is guarded, but not by much - Tetrarch, jeep and few guys. Took out this flak gun, to secure river crossing. Enemies brought 150 mm cannons. That could be bad. Trying to capture this Pak40 Well timed frag. I think they didn't tried to avoid it because they didn't saw it, i threw it behind a bush. Now 75 mm AT gun is in my hands. Secured my right flank. and pissed off a lot of Germans in the process... Couldn't penetrate Panther at this range, went for softer targets. Managed to take out Pz4 and a Panther. Manage to penetrate a Tiger with a lucky hit. HE took out infantry and crew of a Tiger. Cleared last enemy on the beach, clearing path for LVT Spoiler LVT is overwatching a bridge, now i have time to try to attack from other direction. You guys parked your 150s in wrong place. Those things will be fun to play around. Need to secure area and make sure guns will be not be overun by enemies when i actually start to use them. Tetrarch main gun is dogshit. Can't take out tin cans and LTs from the side. Damn, LVT can't push this halftrack out of the way. My firepower is basically trapped here until i get this vehicle out of the way somehow. Some riflemens tried to sneak here, but they got unlucky with Tetrarch. Spoiler 51 shells ready to fire....hahaha Stug is getting needed attention. Note damaged engine deck roof. This shell landed near previous roof hit, and took out engine of this SPG. Now other targets can get all of our HE. Engine bay doors are open and engine is visible. Hopped 150 mm will punch through main compartment roof, didn't worked so well. At a range hitting small targets require shooting several shells. AT grenade finished heavily damaged Stug with rear plate hit. Tetrarch was here to use MG against crew, if they would jump out of the vehicle when my soldier was in the middle of throwing AT grenade. Just look at where HE landed and where i was aiming, lol. I like destruction system in this game. Only few enemies left. Hard to stay in cover if floor is gone, mr nazi trooper? Secret docs in our hands, enemies lost 295 soldiers and 29 AFVs, we lost 1 of each (pilot and glider, i suspect). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted October 16 Report Share Posted October 16 Rest of Ground Control 2 screenshots. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler And during one of last missions there was a music track that i really liked. Found this track not as fast as i expected. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Toxn 1,406 Posted October 27 Report Share Posted October 27 So I've been playing the recent Battletech game a bit, and I have thoughts. Background: I've played quite a bit of Megamech (no tabletop, sadly - not enough folk doing tabletop games in general around here) and generally go for no-mech builds because fuck your giant robots. The game disappoints me by having a 4-mech lance limit, so lights are even more useless than normal. This is made even worse by every scenario involving you being outnumbered. So no mass tactics or manoeuvre tactics for you, mechwarrior. So you're all but doomed to having big, heavy, slow, armour-based builds if you don't like the idea of just scraping your pilots out of the cockpit between missions and shoving new recruits in. Besides the intricacies of weapon damage spreads, heat outputs, the stability damage mechanics, initiative et al (which are mostly interesting to tabletop nerds who feel like the game doesn't play how they remember it), there are also a few technical niggles. Sometimes an enemy mech will move next to a small rock and become inexplicably impossible to melee attack. Sometimes the mandatory ingame 'cinematic' camera will position itself so that you can only see waving bushes. Sometimes the game crawls to a halt when a big object like your dropship gets loaded in (an instance of Unity Engine syndrome). All that said, smashing giant robots together never ceases to be fun, and I've been enjoying what amounts to the sad adult version of that. I give the game a Stock Shadowhawk/10, being that it's not terrible (and can get fun if you fiddle with it a bit), but does not blow the world away with how great it is (optimised Kintaro) or provide some fun twist that makes the formula sparkle in a new setting (Disco built of Grasshopper). PS: I should mention my lack of bona fides again here, because my current go-to team composition is legendarily awful: - Banshee for my main, which is a one-trick pony fitted out with arm augments and as much armour as it can take. - Victor, for lack of any better mechs. Running a mix of AC10 and SRM. - Dragon, again for lack of anything better right now. Also going in for SRMs - Disco-variant Grasshopper, running hot but lethal if you can move in behind someone. Other than that I keep a couple of Griffins on standby for jumpy-shooty-backstabby things, a melee-optimised Shadowhawk, a single Centurion (to my endless shame I had to sell the one other one I managed to piece together due to going broke), an LRM-boat Trebuchet (which is not optimal, but oh well), a disco-variant Vindicator and, of course, and Urbie (sans small laser because the fuck are you going into CC with an Urbanmech?). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jeeps_Guns_Tanks 1,081 Posted October 27 Report Share Posted October 27 16 hours ago, Toxn said: So I've been playing the recent Battletech game a bit, and I have thoughts. Background: I've played quite a bit of Megamech (no tabletop, sadly - not enough folk doing tabletop games in general around here) and generally go for no-mech builds because fuck your giant robots. The game disappoints me by having a 4-mech lance limit, so lights are even more useless than normal. This is made even worse by every scenario involving you being outnumbered. So no mass tactics or manoeuvre tactics for you, mechwarrior. So you're all but doomed to having big, heavy, slow, armour-based builds if you don't like the idea of just scraping your pilots out of the cockpit between missions and shoving new recruits in. Besides the intricacies of weapon damage spreads, heat outputs, the stability damage mechanics, initiative et al (which are mostly interesting to tabletop nerds who feel like the game doesn't play how they remember it), there are also a few technical niggles. Sometimes an enemy mech will move next to a small rock and become inexplicably impossible to melee attack. Sometimes the mandatory ingame 'cinematic' camera will position itself so that you can only see waving bushes. Sometimes the game crawls to a halt when a big object like your dropship gets loaded in (an instance of Unity Engine syndrome). All that said, smashing giant robots together never ceases to be fun, and I've been enjoying what amounts to the sad adult version of that. I give the game a Stock Shadowhawk/10, being that it's not terrible (and can get fun if you fiddle with it a bit), but does not blow the world away with how great it is (optimised Kintaro) or provide some fun twist that makes the formula sparkle in a new setting (Disco built of Grasshopper). PS: I should mention my lack of bona fides again here, because my current go-to team composition is legendarily awful: - Banshee for my main, which is a one-trick pony fitted out with arm augments and as much armour as it can take. - Victor, for lack of any better mechs. Running a mix of AC10 and SRM. - Dragon, again for lack of anything better right now. Also going in for SRMs - Disco-variant Grasshopper, running hot but lethal if you can move in behind someone. Other than that I keep a couple of Griffins on standby for jumpy-shooty-backstabby things, a melee-optimised Shadowhawk, a single Centurion (to my endless shame I had to sell the one other one I managed to piece together due to going broke), an LRM-boat Trebuchet (which is not optimal, but oh well), a disco-variant Vindicator and, of course, and Urbie (sans small laser because the fuck are you going into CC with an Urbanmech?). Did they ever put the Classic Mechs like Archer, Warhawk and Marauder in? They were all in the original boxed games and I think the first PC game, but at some point licensing issues happened if I recall right. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Toxn 1,406 Posted October 28 Report Share Posted October 28 6 hours ago, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said: Did they ever put the Classic Mechs like Archer, Warhawk and Marauder in? They were all in the original boxed games and I think the first PC game, but at some point licensing issues happened if I recall right. I think the Marauder is in game, but none of the others. I know that a lot of the unseen mechs eventually became reseen after some careful copyright-circumventing redesigns a few years back. On another note: I finally managed to get a Kintaro put together. Although I don't like how it looks aesthetically, it's just really hard to argue against 4xSRM6 plus full armour... Jeeps_Guns_Tanks 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted November 6 Report Share Posted November 6 Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus review Ground control 2 is a RTS developed by Massive Entertainment and released in summer of 2004. Game received good reviews, around 8/10 on average. GC2 is fully 3D RTS with free camera, no basebuilding, fast gameplay, and focused on fighting between 3 factions in sci-fi setting. Game also features in engine cinematics, plot and several characters. GC2 was released in same year as Dawn of War, Behind enemy lines (review of it is in this thread), Rome: Total war, it was pretty crowded year for strategy games, at least for me, haha. I played a demoversion of GC back in 2004, but never bought it and forgot about GC2 for many years. Few months ago tried to launch GC1, but it didn't work well (that RTS probably is too old), so i jumped straight into GC2. Visuals For 2004 presentation in GC2 was pretty good. Around 2002-2004 RTS moved to fully 3D graphics from isometric view and sprites of Red Alert 2 times (~2000s). First Ground Control already had 3D models and 3D maps, and free camera back in 2000, BTW. All models are detailed, have good quality textures. Enviroment on other hand have worse level of detalisation and texture work. Plenty of assets are re-used, but map makers managed to make bunch of unique looking levels, especially wast animated skyboxes. Spoiler All 3 factions have unique color scheme and design, makes them easily readable during gameplay, almost all units with exceptions of grunts of both human factions look unique. Majority of maps also have their own dominant color, interesting look and generally it can be said that attention and work was put into visual side of GC2. Gameplay So how it plays? If you ever played a World in Conflict RTS from same studio, released 3 years after GC2, you will be at home here. No basebuilding, map full of captured points that needs to be taken in order to generate the only resource that player will use - AP (acquire points). Spoiler In GC2 units are brought to battlefield by a dropship to a capture point that was designated as LZ, dropship can be upgraded and it have limited capacity for cargo. Units for deployment needs to be "bought" using AP. The more troops you have on the ground, the higher is AP cost of their "service" aka each units generate a cost that takes portion of your AP income, system works as a soft cap for unit number. This makes resource part of gameplay a bit more interesting, as you now have several ways to spend your AP budget, you can utilise tactics of upgrading dropship and "hot" deploy it to points near frontlines and use firepower and view range of your ship for firesupport, or spend all points on units, but deploy them far away from main action. Or you can upgrade dropship view range only and use it as a scout. Each unit have ability to switch to secondary mode of operation, it changes how unit works. For example Alliance heavy tank in normal mode is just well-armored but slow tank, in secondary mode it becames a pillbox that give protection bonuse for nearby troops or for example a scout car in 2nd mode becomes invisible. This does look stupid and cool in the same time. Spoiler But there are problems with this system, as many unites must be put in secondary mode to be able to perform their main function, for example snipers - in normal mode they just run to place you ordered, but only in 2 mode they can actually fire at enemy. This makes managing big army, or several groups at once to be highly micromanagment demanding, which i'm not a fan of. I like when my controls are based around execution of tactics and plans, not around babysitting each unit and explaining which end of his gun needs to pointed at bad man. Apperently those sniper rifles have knee safety - in order to fire this rifle sniper must take a knee. In WiC IIRC Massive dropped idea and 2nd mode of operation was changed to special attack on cooldown. In GC2 some units have 2-ry abilities that are actually fun - they re-balance capabilities of unit, for example Viron tanks in 2nd mode can fire at longer ranges, but with decreased damage rating. Also, as it fire projectile and don't lead targets, units that move will be hard, and in some cases will be impossible to hit. Spoiler Ow, one thing to add about firing at things - most of units use projectile weapons and don't even try to lead their targets, so "straifing" in some cases gives your units Neo's bullet dodging abilities. Infantry can move through forests and it gets protection bonuse when in forest. Vehicles have different armor ratings on front, sides, rear and roof, it does matter which way your vics are looking when fighting enemy forces. Although, don't think that a squishy with assault rifle will not be a problem for armored vehicles and tanks - armor rating is just damage reduction stat. Also, each unit have limited view range, game have dymanic weather system which affects how far troops can see. Spotting is based on view range and LOS, which makes air scouts to be very usefull. This is a very good recon unit, in secondary mode it have huge spotting range. Spoiler Imaging blindly driving into this position. AT guns, artillery, air units would be able to crack a very serious team of attackers. Unit balance is based around rock-scissors-paper, but different units have different level of how deep their are in this type of balance, as some units have ok capabilities against several types of troops, while others are much more specialised. Spoiler Viron grenadiers armed with guided missile launchers are very scarry units to fight against, but they are must-have when you play for this faction. Those boys are walking and living vehicles sweapers and destroyers of everything that flies. But they are an easy prey for enemy infantry. Using air units sometimes feels like cheating. Those mortar vehicles are defenseless. Units gane exp and get level of veterancy, which increase their min damage stat, making their average damage a bit higher, and thats all. This veterancy is not carried to next operation. Player have another way to sepnd AP in order to support units on the ground - using special attacks that he can call in, different for each factions. It can be airdrop of infantry, or artillery barrage, or airstrike, but for pretty hefty price in APs. Spoiler Each faction is different from others by somethings like faction trait or abilities of all/most units. Earth faction is suprisingly not what you expect from it - they have a lot of units using anti-gravity tech and float above ground. This gives ability for Earth emprire forces to bring heavy tanks over big bodies of water and retreat using them as a way to shake off "tail". Virons were made to be able to meld same units into new one. Melding gives you a set type of unit, which make Virons to be more pain in the ass to set up for fighting, as half of your units can not be brough on dropships as they are, you need to micro needed number of specific untis to get what you want. Alliance is most classis of factions where tanks are tanks, snipers are snipers, and fast scouts cars are quickly scouting things. All this - unit balance, specialisation, switching between modes that make unit function differently within it's role leads to cooperation between different types of units to be basically required to be able to finish many missions of singleplayer campaign. My main tactic after getting units that can create force shields over group of units and repair vehicles, i started assembling huge piles of different types of troops under umbrella of several of those shield vics with repair support and using 1 or 2 of those piles of troops as a "superunit", moving groups of units within each team as a whole, in order to mitigate each individial unit shortcomings. Artillery under protection of different vehicles and soldiers variants is very safe way to smack your opposition, especially if you find a chokeplace for enemy troops. Spoiler So how it actually plays? I played only singleplayer, so i can say for only that gamemode. Missions and objectives within those missions have limited variety and it is what you expect - capture territory/place, defend territory/place/VIP, blow up a thing and stealth missions in-between to mix things up. Guess what we should do with those slow moving defenseless units with pretty big HP pool. Spoiler This is stealth mission. Yes, it is, beltfed mortars are stealthy! He will never know what hit him! For most of levels enemy factions have limited unit variety and limited AI decision making. Majority of missions begins with you having small group of troops and first thing to do will be to capture a point on the map so you can designate it as LZ and start to bring in other forces. Spoiler Normandy-style landing using APCs, as you can see on the map most of capture points on the map are red. Ground Control 2 missions, where you are fighting AI as a functioning enemy (no scripts to limit AI) are pretty fast paced and centered around capture points. Missions, where you start against enemy having control of most if not of all map and functioning AI have problem of "Reverse difficulty curve" aka mission is harder at the start then in the middle or end. Most blatant example was several last levels of the game, where enemy had all troops/vehicles types avaliable and all the resources on the map. For 15-20 minutes i was just simply fighting back a constant stream of enemy forces, trying to slowly move forward and find a place to plug this stream of meat and guns, but without loosing LZ as AI is pretty active in GC2. Reason of RDC is that enemy have a lot of resources, attack paths and units avaliable, while you don't. Spoiler After surviving waves of enemies and finding a way to stop it or at least contain you start to chew through enemy forces and finally get to objective/final hostile LZ and finish a mission, watch short in-engine scene and move on next op. AI As i mentioned, a lot of missions have AI limited in avaliable forces or actions it can take, to make operation different from previous one (like stealth infiltration, or VIP escort), but in missions that are supposed to be less directed and "raw", AI sets a pretty fast tempo for gameplay. According to my observations, it is somewhat simple in action it can take, but it is aggressive, tries to use most of unit types, tries to assemble groups of units to attack, knows weapons max range, can retreat and so on. Thanks to rock-scissors-paper balance, AI programmer manage to make AI respond to some of situation when enemy unit have an edge. But AI have several traits that are exploitable - it doesn't really switch strategies if previous attempts to use it didn't brought positive results, doesn't respond properly to artillery fire or when player pulls AI units into bad position/choke, basically when player start to do somethin that have tactics used outside of sending units to capture points, AI fuctions are starting to shows limitations. It reminds me an Unreal Tournament bots in duel mode when AI is simple and just moves from item pick up zones to another one and does few things in combat to survive, but doesn't have a bigger plan outside of 2 functions of collectig items, trying to kill player and avoiding damage of player's projectile weapons. AI have noticeable "phases" of attacks - this one is troops assembling for attack, they try to stand outside of attack range of direct firing units. Spoiler When attacking all units are moving in. AI doesn't try to use formations or anything sophisticated. When enemy air units encountered my interceptors, they just move to location outside of weapons range, but don't try to bring in AA or fly to completely different place to try to hunt other units. Plot It is there, but it is rather bland. Although aliens in this story have different subfactions and player ended up with Viron allies after first "ALLIEN INVASION!" encounter with Virons. Most of other characters are ok, but nothing special, they are... functional for story. Bad guys doing bad things, good guy trying to do the right thing, traitor that sold out and so on. Conclusion Pretty good RTS for 2004, but my PC was occupied by Behind Enemy Lines, as it was full of new tech utilised for gameplay in many new and fresh ways. Ground Conrol 2 is a classic "arcady" RTS without basebuilding, but with increased micromanagment of units in order to fill up the "gap". Fast paced for the most part, not too overcomplicated outside of one alien faction, and with some depth to squeeze more efficient plays. Ground Control 2 set up, tested out and found mechanics that would be used in next RTS that Massive stuido did - World in conflict, which will be released in 2007 and gain serious popularity. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Toxn 1,406 Posted November 16 Report Share Posted November 16 On 10/28/2020 at 1:27 AM, Jeeps_Guns_Tanks said: Did they ever put the Classic Mechs like Archer, Warhawk and Marauder in? They were all in the original boxed games and I think the first PC game, but at some point licensing issues happened if I recall right. So I bought the DLCs when they came out on sale recently, and I'm now happy to report that I'm regularly running two Archers and a Marauder in my lance. No Warhawks yet, though, and I'm miffed that no Hatchetmen have showed up yet for salvage despite being available. COIL weapons, which were supposed to fix the fast-but-useless mech issue, have also proved to be underwhelming, although running a Firestarter that could rear attack for 100dmg + 6MGs was fun for the early game :) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jeeps_Guns_Tanks 1,081 Posted November 17 Report Share Posted November 17 12 hours ago, Toxn said: So I bought the DLCs when they came out on sale recently, and I'm now happy to report that I'm regularly running two Archers and a Marauder in my lance. No Warhawks yet, though, and I'm miffed that no Hatchetmen have showed up yet for salvage despite being available. COIL weapons, which were supposed to fix the fast-but-useless mech issue, have also proved to be underwhelming, although running a Firestarter that could rear attack for 100dmg + 6MGs was fun for the early game Nice, now I'm tempted! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LoooSeR 6,894 Posted Thursday at 10:56 PM Report Share Posted Thursday at 10:56 PM Played Clive Barker's Jericho, a FPS game from movie maker, and a bit unusual one. Game is build around occult-ish story, hellish/purgatory themes and a lot of shooting. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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