SunAge
Preview
Old school RST gaming galore
by Akmad
previewed on PC
Old school in a new jacket
Every once in a while a game comes along that reminds you of the old days, back when it wasn't just about how much RAM was required but adjusting the system usage of your RAM (High/Low Mem) and working with DOS-mode games in Windows. Back then your video card wasn't all that important as long as you had a nice SVGA model; DirectX, SLI, and whole megabytes (!!) of on-board RAM were nothing more than a twinkle in some developer's eye. The games we remember from that time were fun and interesting at the gameplay level; they had to be, because looking back they usually weren't much to look at. Now we have become spoiled with 3D everything and levels of detail far from the impressionistic roots. Enter the small Vienna-based game developer Vertex4 with their upcoming RTS SunAge that harkens back to the 'old school' games that began the genre. SunAge is a classical RTS, straight out of the mold of the Command & Conquer series but with a few additional features to add depth and an understated, yet beautiful, graphics engine.
A distant Earth
The story -what little we know- starts on a dying Earth in the distant future. To survive, all humans, at least those that are a part of the Federation, now live in sealed cities. This isolation fuels a cult, the Raak-zun, which attempts to bring down the Federation and plunge what is left of the world into chaos. During this battle a portal is opened to another planet that could save the human race. However this planet is inhabited by Sentinel drones and will not give it up without a fight. All of this will be played out on the 24 single-player maps that will comprise the campaign mode. Single-unit missions are mixed with the normal RTS fare to give the player some much needed variation. Describing these stories always seems a bit silly; Most gamers have heard the same story a thousand times and could quite frankly care less if the Federation can wipe out the Raak-zun and Sentinel and live in peace and harmony on their new paradise world (fat chance with all those fun and lethal toys they'd have left over). I will skip that part. More interesting questions are whether the game will have depth, if the three races are properly balanced yet unique enough to be interesting and -of course- will the game will be fun?
Nodes
SunAge has two interesting features that I think (hope) will give it depth and originality in a very congested RTS genre. The first is that each unit will have 'dual functionality'. While there isn't much information about exactly what this will entail, it should benefit the experienced player by allowing them to utilize the best functionality for a given situation. I liken this to when FPS games started giving each weapon multiple firing modes; this feature added a lot to the games and allowed players to perform some pretty nifty moves. If implemented correctly I expect the result will be the same for SunAge. The second feature that caught my eye is the concept of 'network nodes'.
