Global Domination (PC)

GameSpot editors' review

• CNET editors' rating: 1.5 stars Poor
  Detailed editors' rating
  Overall score: 3.9 (1.5 stars)

• Reviewed by:
  Scott Krol
• Reviewed on: 01/27/1999
• Updated on: 05/01/2000
• Released on: 11/30/1998
• Originally published on GameSpot: Global Domination (PC) Review

It's late at night, and you've had too much beer and double-cheese pizza. Flipping the channels on your trusty TV you happen across the old James Bond flick Never Say Never Again. As a gamer, you watch with interest the scene where Bond battles the villain in a video game. Wouldn't that game rock if it was real? Well, the electrical shocks might be hard to create, but you can always spill beer onto your Intensor chair. And what if you combined it with Missile Command, that classic arcade game that had Reagan '80s stamped all over it? Why stop there? Why not add a dash of Risk, everyone's favorite "conquer the world without learning a million pages of rules" game? Then you are hit by a moment of clarity. Who the heck would pay $50 for an updated Missile Command? The brilliant game idea now fades and you resume channel surfing.

Sadly the folks at Psygnosis never had that moment of clarity. Instead, they did decide that a game combining the Bond game, Missile Command, and Risk would be fun. So some designers spent a good portion of their time on a game called Global Domination; hopefully not many gamers will do the same.

Thankfully the game plays straight off the CD so you don't have to soil your hard drive with more than a tiny footprint. In the future, the world has been reduced to chaos (that wacky Y2K bug apparently) with nations slinging missiles with the enthusiasm of jilted lovers on Jerry Springer slinging chairs. Enter you, the player, working for a hush-hush agency called ULTRA. Armed with a supercool name, Phoenix, you are hired by countries to protect them from their evil neighbors.

To do this you're presented with an FMV briefing, which tries to give you a little information about the upcoming mission and present a horrible plot, all at the same time. If you do make the mistake and buy this game, do yourself a favor and don't skip over the beginning video. Your fellow ULTRA members are introduced one at a time, the camera freezing on them while they look solemn, and a subtitle tells who they are. This has to be one of the most hilarious moments in gaming history, right up there with Deer Hunter garnering so many sales.

Once the FMV is over, the actual game begins. Every scenario involves a spinning globe suspended against a funky, dark-aqua background. This is the playfield. The world is divided up into territories as in Risk. A text display gives you your scenario objectives and helpful hints. Strangely, the hints aren't really hints but important pieces of information that are usually not covered in the flimsy manual. Almost every mission revolves around two things: defending some territory and then smacking around another territory or territories.

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