Let’s Introduce: Earth 2150 (1999;RTS)

Earth 2150: Escape from the Blue Planet is the first part of the real-time strategy video game trilogy developed by RealityPump, former TopWare Interactive and the follow up to Topwares Earth 2140 Trilogy. The endless war between the Eurasian Dynasty (ED) and the United Civilized States (UCS) damaged our beloved Earth, making it drifting into the sun. The doom of mankind is at hand. In less than 180 days, each fraction is trying to build gigantic spaceships, so called Arks to escape their faith. The fractions progress as well as the latest informations about earths final hours will be presented during news-flashs during the campaign. Meanwhile a third fraction, the Lunar Science Cooperation (LC) seeks for a way to prevent Earths destruction.

The player takes control over the projects success. During the game, ED and UCS have to gather a total amount of 100.000.000 Credits each to end the development circle for the arks. Unlike other RTS games, the player got a main base responsible for research and weapon development as well as choosing a mission somewhere else on the planet. During a mission he can switch between main base and  battlefield and transfer forces and other equipment between them. He must spend Credits for research, battle unit development  and production as well as donate credits to the progress of the ark construction while facing enemy forces on the battlefields. The LC campaign is a lot more different and its focus is more on stealth, stealing and defensive warfare than the ones for ED and UCS.

Some of the missions require to dig tunnel systems and to operate underground to avoid direct conflict with enemy forces while others will only be available once the player found enemy intelligence which will unlock new mission areas or is giving the option to research new weapon technologies. You can fail or abort any mission and still see the end of the game, even though it means that your campaign fails, which isn’t what the player wishes to see. This constant need for research, micro- and resource management keeps the player busy and is a great catalyst for the player to success in the campaign and to lead his side to victory.

Let’s Introduce: Corridor 7 – Alien Invasion (1994;FPS)

Dark Corridor would be a more fitting title, I guess. It got buttons on walls, fog in the distance and even transparent textures giving the player a look at the horrors awaiting him in the corridors beyond. He encountered ugly monster aliens, growling at him, blasting their weapons and trying to rip him apart. More than 4 weapons and his luck in finding and pushing rusty and dirty secret walls around to make himself new passages were his only hope in the middle of madness. Instead of simply finding the exit, the player cleaned each level from monsters and left it with the same elevator he just entered the floor before, just to let him wipe another system of eerie corridors above.

It used the by it’s time very outdated Wolfenstein3D engine. ID software recently released Doom. I lost my way pretty much the same as in Wolf3D, even with that little mini map available to me. Sometimes I had to investiage each passage over and over again until I found the last remaining mob for slaying. After some time, it even happened that I forgot where the elevator was and suffered from motion-sickness. But to this day, Dark Corridor never lost his unique atmosphere and will keep your eyes and hands busy for a very long time.

I had a great and mind terrorizing experience with the game. Wolf3D pushed me to the limit with the scary barking Schaeferhunde, the tension between rooms and purple-blood thirsty mutants shooting at me out of the nowhere. While Wolf scared me off, Rise of the Triad (Duke Nukem 3D’s predecessor) pushed me on. And Capstone Softwares Corridor 7: Alien Invasion was just the perfect mix between those games.

Let’s Introduce: Total Annihilation Kingdoms (1998;RTS)

TA:Kingdoms is the second game based on Cavedog Entertainment’s widely acclaimed Total Annihilation. But instead of a traditional sequel that expands the story of the end-time sci-fi universe in which the first TA took place, Chris Taylor throws the player into a medievil world full of magic, elves and dragons awaiting his command. No other than composer Jeremy Soule wrote beautiful medievil music to fit the games theme. Kingdoms didn’t acclaimed any awards like the original TA since it didn’t got any innovative improvements to the old engine as well as fans and critics seemed to dislike the fantasy scenario. Despite these facts, Kingdoms still got an unique style compared to the previous TA and surpriced myself every now and then.

Who doesn’t dream of commanding trained dragons or shooting fireballs on his enemies during massive battles with hundreds of rangers, wizzards or knights battling each other? Total Annihilation: Kingdoms got it’s charme and gives you exactly that!

Let’s Introduce: Lands of Lore 3 (1999;FPS-RPG)

It’s one of the last games before Electronic Arts closed the assimilated gameforge Westwood Studios. It’s not a pretty good one, too. But it isn’t Westwoods fault at all, rather more the fault of the strong rules forced upon Westwood by Electronic Arts. EA didn’t saw a future for the franchise.  How surprising? But the project already entered a state near completition. As an independent studio, you don’t have to care much about dead lines. But now with EA holding a gun to their neck, Westwood had to. And so, the designers rushed the games developement progress to match the dead line.

Lands of Lore 3 sure got all the sweet 3Dfx effects of its time, but lacks of creativity in level design. It suffered from wallpaper forests with one or two trees in between. Some locations look well done and balanced, while others look rushed. The rushed ones are the locations that got finished as development time ran out. One dungeon for example, used the same rockwall texture only. Even the height of that cave was too high for the players model. Not everything in Lands of Lore 3 was bad, though. CGI movies look simply amazing and didn’t had to hide from those of other games. Especially the opening movie after the player steps into the rift warping him into the Command and Conquer universe got that special aditude. The postapocalyptic desert and the haunted house scenario are the two highlights of the game.

Lands of Lore 3 is a weak made but entertaining first-person RPG that can hook you up if you let it. If you take a closer look, then you can get a feel in which direction the franchise could have gone if Electronic Arts didn’t smashed it.