Extreme Tactics (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 2.5 stars OK
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 5.8 (2.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Stephen Poole
• Reviewed on: 06/29/1998
• Updated on: 05/01/2000
• Released on: 05/31/1998
• Originally published on GameSpot: Extreme Tactics (PC) Review

With so many real-time strategy games on store shelves, it doesn't taking a marketing wizard to realize how important it is for a publisher to come up with some distinct feature that makes its product stand out from the crowd. That's precisely what Media Station did with Extreme Tactics: In addition to the usual routine of collecting raw materials, constructing units, and embarking on military conquests, the game gives you complete control over the design of all your units - everything from selecting the chassis and weapons loadout to defining how the units behave during combat.

It might sound like a simple change to the RTS formula - so simple, in fact, that you might wonder why it hasn't been done before. But the ramifications of such a design are incredibly far-reaching, especially for multiplayer games. Because your opponents have no idea what type of weapons or defensive apparatus your units will be carrying, they can't simply crank out units for the dreaded tank rush; if they do, they run the risk of facing a unit you've designed that's all but impervious to their weapons.

What makes this feature even more impressive is how well it's been implemented: Creating or modifying a unit is a straightforward process of choosing a chassis (five available for each clan) and transport (treads, wheels, walkers, etc. - four per clan), then dragging and dropping weapons, shields, and specialized detection devices into open bays on the chassis. Larger chassis have more bays, naturally, but they also take longer to construct and move more slowly than smaller units.

Except for the chassis types, not all this stuff is available from the get-go; you'll only gain access to advanced features like heat-seeking missiles, cloaking devices, radar, antimagnetic shields, and hover jets when you reach certain technology levels. (You can adjust the tech level to any setting in a multiplayer game, however.) Complicating matters further are relay stations: Unless you've deployed the appropriate relay station - weapons, detection, shielding, stealth, transport, and tech (which enables units called "pods" to implant viruses in enemy vehicles that put them under your control) - you can't use the corresponding equipment.

You can imagine how deep the design process can become - but Extreme Tactics doesn't stop there. Once you've constructed a unit, you're able to set AI routines for its movement, repair, combat, and targeting. The choices for each parameter are simple and logical: When setting movement, for instance, you can make a unit ignore enemies en route to its destination; avoid moving within firing range of known threats; fire on the enemy but continue moving; or enter into combat mode and follow the AI selections you've made there.

And believe me, you have to think long and hard over some of these choices. Set a unit to return to a repair station when it takes 50 percent damage, and it might bug out just as it's about to deliver the coup de grace - but if you set the damage higher, there's a good chance the unit will be blasted to smithereens because its shields aren't strong enough to withstand the pounding it'll take from pursuing enemies as it returns for repairs.

Compared with the depth of the unit-design feature, the story leading up to the action is a little on the thin side; then again, about the only prerequisite for an RTS is two factions who've got some reason to annihilate one another. In this case, the combatants are the Hammerhawk and Bloodfox clans, both struggling to gain control of a precious mineral called coolar - the last energy source on their homeworld of Calibria. Because of pollution and atmospheric changes, both clans now live in domed, underground cities - but the sticky wicket is that the coolar is up on the inhospitable surface.

The Hammerhawk wants to harvest the remaining coolar to power a fleet of starships to escape the dying planet; the Bloodfox clan is dead set on sticking it out on Calibria. From within the safety of mobile command centers, robotic military units and utility vehicles are guided by remote control - and you're the one doing the controlling. While this story doesn't really take twists as you progress through the game, it at least explains how one person is able to quickly issue commands to a roving band of units.

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