Ground Control is a pretty entertaining strategy that game that focuses completely on combat.
User Rating: 7.8 | Ground Control PC
Ground Control is a pretty entertaining strategy that game that focuses completely on combat; you won't be trying to gather as much resources as you can as fast as you can, since there is no resource gathering whatsoever. Graphics are nice, and at the same time rather unimpressive. What you see looks pretty good; terrain is nice, though a little bit too barren. Units look nice all around, buildings look pretty well too. The effects are the best part. You can see the gun trails on each unit when it fires, as well as the explosion when it colliedes with something. Artillery have a really nice effect too, though you would have to see it to know what I'm talking about. As I said, the terrain is rather barren; you won't be seeing many trees or grass, or land effects, etc... but the game runs pretty smooth even on lower end systems because of that. As long as you have a decent processor, you'll be able to put the view distance at max and can then see really far with relatively little slowdown. Seeing allies off in the distance exchanging fire with the enemies, and watching the units light up with the gunfire, looks pretty cool too. Sound is nothing special. There's no music, atleast none that I heard. For the most part you'll be keeping busy though, so you won't really notice the lack of it. Sound effects are nice, but nothing special. Voice acting is decent, but can sometimes be annoying, though that might just be for me. There was also a really annoying bug where someone would keep repeating a few words over and over instead of speaking their whole line on the conversation screen which REALLY gets annoying. You assume the role of Sarah Parker, a battlefield commander, and must control a number of groups to achieve your missions. With each new objective, you usually get a new group, as well as keeping your old ones. You must use these units to complete various tasks, though for the most part it's only 'Destroy this unit', or 'Destroy this building' in various forms. Your main unit will be a command unit that can attack, though not too powerful, but can heal and repair other units, and must be kept alive. You'll have various forms of infantry, tanks, artillery, and even air units to use, most have a few special abilities as well. As would be expected, you must use strategy to beat the larger enemy force, though that mainly consists of positioning your units well. Things you must consider include: Elevation (Higher ground means more accurate), lighting (Your harder to see when you're in the shadows), if your command unit can quickly reach most if not all of your units to heal them without getting damage, etc... It's pretty fun since most games (at least the ones I've played) do not really factor in posistioning *too* much. The game is still pretty well balanced, but when you find a really good position, battles will be much easier. If you'd like to play a game that requires a little more strategy than most strategy games nowadays, Ground Control offers pretty entertaining gameplay. I admit, I was a bit skeptical when I heard there's no resource gathering; I've always liked resource gathering since it adds another element to the game, but Ground Control still impressed me without it. If you enjoy strategy games because of strategy, and not just because of the gameplay of previous games of the genre (Age of Empires, Warcraft, etc...) Ground Control has alot to offer. There is also one other thing I should mention, at least currently, the game is free. In celebration of their upcoming game, Ground Control 2, they have released Ground Control free for download. I found it on FilePlanet, but I don't know where else to find it. If you've got the time to download a 600 mb game, I'd suggest doing it; this game was pretty entertaining for me. 
