I came to ECTS'97 to find out more about. At the stand I met Josh Resnick, Director of Production, who spent nearly 45 minutes taking me through the game and chatting about its pros and cons. The first point that Josh was keen to make was that they'd managed to sign up the multi-talented Ron Miller who did a lot towards the success of Warcraft , stealing him from potential work on Starcraft . The game setting is a sci-fi one where Imperial forces square up against the Freedom Guard. They have the ability to phase into the terrain, enabling them to make surprise attacks or ambushes.
Some units have very dedicated uses, like the shredder against infantry.
The variety of weapons is very promising, and geared to meld with the new options available from the true line of sight and elevation features. You can stick a long range weapon on a hill top, or spot for artillery from a hilltop. The real terrain elevations surpass the fake cliffs of Red Alert and pose a variety of strategic problems and choices for the player. Terrain also, as you'd expect, affects movement. Resources are represented by water and energy - the ways to gather energy are less than in Total Annihilation , but the player does have the ability to have some control over the way the resources are tapped and exploited.