America is a big country and it’s only suitable therefore that a big game is used to deal with the conquest of the land. Back in those heady days of 1492 America was a rich, fertile land with the odd arrow-shooting native for company. It’s no wonder then that the following few hundred years saw an almost constant fight for supremacy and the chance to rule the country.
The epic battles that raged across the land with thousands of soldiers on each side could surely only be recreated by one company GSC the guys responsible for the epic Cossacks games. Ok, so every other game that’s released these days boasts that it’s an epic when in reality this just means that it has a fancy introduction and little in the way of actual epic game playing. Cossacks was different though as it had literally thousands of units on screen at any one time.
And so it is that American Conquest which is using an advanced version of the Cossacks engine is about the leap onto our screen boasting up to 16,000 units on screen at once, all of which can be individually controlled or put into formations for easier manoeuvrability.
The game features four single-player campaigns that are based on real-life battles that took place in America. Columbus is here as is Pizarro and the Inca’s and naturally the American War of Independence is present as well. As well as all this there are 12 stand-alone missions, six more bonus historical missions and numerous multiplayer facilities.
However, whilst this is all very impressive it is the tactical depth to the game which looks set to make it stand out from all the other RTS games on offer. The gameplay will be instantly accessible whilst at the same time offering levels of detail both in the gameplay and graphically which look set to rival anything else on offer.
The game has unique units for each of the 12 playable nations in the game, which include England, France, and of course the USA and in total there are over 100 different units on offer. Each of the units are full of detail and there is a complicated moral system that runs in the background governing how each unit feels. The enemy AI is impressive and in the preview code we played through our early attempts at building up bases were easily thwart by the enemies fire arrows burning down our buildings so this isn’t just going to be a build and rush game.
The detail continues in the game’s maps which all seem more 3D than the maps were in Cossacks. There are also new diplomacy options that add another welcome layer to the game. As you can see American Conquest is shaping up to be much more than simply a stopgap release to whet our appetites for Cossacks 2. Instead the game seems to have much more to it and should be a huge hit upon its release in early 2003.
INFORMATION ABOUT THIS CONTENT:
Originally posted: thediscworld.co.uk (LINK) (ARCHIVED)
Date of publish: around 05.12.2002
Author: unknown
Language of publish: english