From: rfermier@athena.mit.edu (Robert G Fermier)
Subject: Cyber Empires Review
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 17:29:37 GMT

Well, I bought Cyber Empires over this past weekend, expecting it to be a 
moderate diversion for a few hours.  I figured that me and my friends would
have some fun fighting each other, Star Control style.  As it turns out, the
game completely devoured my entire 4-day weekend!  I really enjoyed this game
a lot.

There are two basic modes to the game, unsurprisingly.  The strategic mode and
the tactical mode.  The strategic mode is nothing AMAZING, but is pretty well
done.  The world of Orion is split up into 70-odd countries.  Each country is one
of 5 terrain types -- coniferous(forest), arctic, volcanic, desert, city.  Each
of the different terrain types influences how effective the various kinds 
of 'mechs will be (well, they call them cyborgs, but we all know that they're
really 'mechs).  You build factories to build mechs to go out and conquer more
countries so that you have more money to build more factories to build more mechs.
Sound familiar?  The strategic mode is made more interesting by the fact that the
City countries are worth much more than all the other types of countries but are
also the hardest to defend (you can't build fortifications on them and you can't
effectively use long-range weapons).  The economics of the system works pretty
well -- you gradually shift from having far too little production capacity to
reaching a stable cash-influx vs. production-capacity balance.  The relative
costs of the different kinds of 'mechs versus the time to create them, the cost
of more infrastructure, and the industrial capacity that creating one will tie up
is fairly well done.

The graphics for the map of Orion are quite nice also, although it is
unfortunately the same map every time you play.  In general, the graphics are
nice although they never really completely blow you away.  I haven't gotten the
chance to investigate the sound yet, although it supports Adlib, Roland, and
Soundblaster.  Up to 5 players, any of whom can be humans, can play the game,
although you have to restart the game a couple of times in 2-player mode before
you get a fair starting position.  You have the option of fighting combats in a
pure number-crunching mode -- the computer determines who wins, who loses, and
how much damage was inflicted.  But normally, one uses the tactical combat mode,
which is what makes the game shine.

In the tactical mode, the two 'mech armies slug it out with each other.  It's all
from a birds-eye view of the battlefield.  You control one of the mechs, although
there can be as many as 10 mechs on either side.  The computer controls all the
mechs that you aren't using.  You can cycle through which mech you are
controlling.  The computer does a fairly good job of controlling the other mechs.
They don't (usually) shoot each other in the back, and they are very good at
going in for the kill.  As one might expect, they are technically very good (they
don't make mistakes, and they have good reaction times :-) but they aren't very
creative.  All of the combat is in real time, and you see the missiles, lasers,
autocannons, and neutrino cannons firing away.  The middle of a large melee gets
to be quite a hellstorm of fire flying back and forth.

The tactical mode really does a good job of transporting into the realm of the
game.  While it isn't as powerful as the first person viewpoint of Mechwarrior,
you really do get the feel of being in an intense, live combat.  It is really
cool to move around in formation with the other mechs on your side and then open
fire, or catch the enemy in a withering crossfire.  Some of the missions I have
taken a mech away from the group to go on a "solo" mission while the computer
controlled mechs on my side do the main diversion.  It has really gotten my
adrenaline pumping, let me tell you!  And while it is fun even against the
computer, it is a LOT of fun to go bashing on your friends.  One should note that
while arcade-like ability is something of a factor here, the tactics of the
situation are generally MUCH more important (unlike Star Control).

The five different kinds of terrain affect the tactics of the situation too.  In
arctic you can use your high-heat-generating weapons with some freedom because
everyone cools off faster.  It also makes the heat-causing weapons less
effective.  In desert and coniferous territories, you can find water to stand in
to make your heat-assaults from.  In desert and volcanic, you dissipate heat very
slowly.  And of course, in the lava-lakes of the volcanic region, you build up
heat very quickly!!  The city and coniferous countries (the two most common types
to fight in) have a lot of cover in the form of trees or buildings that have to
be blasted through or navigated around.  This alone complicates the tactical
situation considerably.

The strategic mode interacts with the tactical mode nicely, in that it determines
the type of terrain that you fight in, as well as the quality and quantity of
'mechs that you have to fight with.  Moreover, in the strategic mode you can
build fortifications which are banks of automatic weapons that fire at any
oncoming invaders.  Watching those things decimate an enemy army is a very
gratifying experience, let me tell you.  The 9 types of mechs differ in enough
ways that you can spend a while trying to optimize for a combat and discovering
strategies for fighting with and against each type of mech.

There are also two tactical-mode-only options for those who want to get right
into the action without doing the strategy (vaguely analogous to the Melee
setting in Star Control).  The first is called "Showdown", and can be played
against another human or the computer.  Both sides choose a terrain type to fight
on, then get a certain amount of money to buy 'mechs with.  Then they just slug
it out.

The other mode is called "Survival" and is for learning how to fight with each
individual type of mech.  You are in a mech by yourself, and you fight again
progressively harder waves of combats.  High-scores for this are kept, which is a
nice touch.  However, since the tactical superiority of one side or another tends
to heavily outweight the arcade-ability beyond a certain point, the combats get
nigh-impossible to win shortly.  It is still a fun option when you just want to
blow some stuff up, though.

There are some down-sides to the game, however.  One is that the strategy mode is
slow in some annoying places.  For instance, when you switch players, these large
blast doors close over the map to hide it from being seen until the next player
takes the controls.  While it is a cool special-effect, the doors close WAY too
slow and there is no way to speed them up.  When you access certain strategic
mode options like the statistics and purchasing screens, the screen blanks out
for a second while it loads things in, which is disturbing.  It also seems like
it takes much longer for these screens to load up than it ought.  Lastly, you
have to click in the center of a country to give commands to it, rather than
anywhere in the country.  All of these things can start to grate on the nerves,
but they are annoyances, not actual problems.

Cyber Empires also is breaking with recent tradition in computer gaming in a
number of ways.  
A. There don't seem to be any bugs, either major or minor.
B. It only takes up 1.8 Megs of hard drive space
C. It was only $35 at Computer City, as opposed to $45-$60 for most games these
   days.

All in all, I would heartily recommend Cyber Empires, especially if you like the
BattleTech sort of genre and games like Empire and Star Control.  If you can find
a friend or two to play it with, it's even better.


-- Rob Fermier
   rfermier@athena.mit.edu