Krush, Kill n’ Destroy is a dirty war against a very powerful CPU enemy. But once the player understands how the game works and how to defend his base, it can be lots of fun. The satiric and hilarious mission briefings and the mix of units and weird technology entertains the player for weeks. The game was later re-released with the additional title Xtreme, featuring 20 more missions and two more music tracks. Normally, games with the addition Xtreme aren’t that good, but KKND proofed it is. Fans of early RTS games should find and buy a copy! KKnD can be considered as one of the better Command & Conquer clones. I remember well as I played it short after release with the age of 13. The first four levels were no match for a child of that age, while I encountered later missions as too difficult. I declared the game as “impossible to conquer” for a long time, until I realized: Experience in the real-time strategy genre and knowledge about game mechanics always lead to victory.
introduction to the game
Fractions
We have two fractions. Who could have guessed? The Survivors, that only survived because they continued life in underground shelters, and The Evolved – the remains above ground that evolved due the nuclear decontamination. After 60 years, the Survivors opened their shelters and started to reclaim earth for their own, while the Evolved created a new society in symbiosis with nature. The Survivors still think that earth belongs to them, while the Evolved see a dangerous thread in he return of the bugs from the bunkers and fear they could once again bring another holocaust over mankind. If there is the question, which one of the two sides are the good ones, then I would consider the mutants as good. They only want to keep their freedom while the humans want to destroy it.
In both campaigns, the player is briefed by two high ranked commanders of each side in hilarious and entertaining live actor movies. Hilarious because the protagonists don’t seem to be very smart and represent the downfall of mankind’s brain functionality. For the Survivors, the player is just a nameless commander, while the Evolved send their new warrior on the hunt for the symmetric bricks.
Units
While the Survivors prefer technology as weaponry, such as off-road vehicles, tanks and hoover-craft, the Evolved mount elephants, giant beetles and mutated crabs to deal with the symmetric bricks. It first looks funny as you command a giant scorpion that spits acid from its tail to melt enemy units, but this freaky idea to have animals as weapon or the brain frozen comments by brain-degenerated soldiers once they received orders give the game a fresh and exclusive personality. The game uses the stone-paper-scissor system, which means that each unit also got a counter-part in the opponent army. But in the end, only the amount of oil the player can gather and the mass production of units lead to victory.
one very silly mission briefing
Gameplay
The way how the player controls his units is common for RTS games that follow the legacy of Command & Conquer. The player gives simple orders to units by point and click commands with the mouse. Oil Rigs send to oil pours deploy to Oil Towers and Tankers transport the earth-blood to power plants and increases the player currency. The CPU attacks very early and its army grows with every defeated attack, coming back with the doubled amount of forces. These armies can crush the players base in no time if his defense is not good enough.
New Technologies and Units need to be researched in Research Labs for the Survivors or Alchemy Halls used by the Evolved. But there’s no very complex research system as you may think by now. Simple technology levels unlock new structures in the sidebar and inside unit factories. The Evolved got two construction structures. One for beasts, such as War-Mastodons and Dire Wolfs and one for Monster-Trucks or Oil Rigs. Both armies train their soldiers in the main-hall, which is the most important structure, since other buildings are manufactured there. Defensive Towers become very helpful in later missions and require the use of Technicians to keep these up and running, while an own gigantic army grows in the back.
It’s wisely to destroy enemy oil rigs as soon as possible, since with every rig less, the CPU can’t build the full amount of units anymore. Unlike in other RTS games of that time, by the CPU controlled oil towers have infinite oil, giving it a mean advantage over the player. Only a perfect executed counter-attack with as much units as possible, while the enemy retreats guarantees victory.
a perfect executed counter-attack after the big enemy fall out
A3D's Let's Plays 