Developer: PoRovoz Studios
Publisher: PoRovoz Studios
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Earth Liberation – Preview
Real time strategy games used to be one of the biggest game genres there were. Games like Command & Conquer, Starcraft, Supreme Commander, and Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War ruled the pc gaming market. Unfortunately right now there is barely anything left of the genre. PoRovoz Studios makes the ambitious attempt to revive the genre with Earth Liberation.
In Earth Liberation our dear planet gets invaded by the reptilian aliens called Khrasters, they almost completely wiped out mankind. You as the player are a commander of the Resistance, a group of the last surviving people who want to fight back against the Khrasters. It’s your time to build and control your army and to try to get rid of the aliens and free your planet.
Of course you do all this in a style you expect from a RTS game. You start with some starting funds and a couple of soldiers. First thing you have to do is build a base and buildings and use these to train new troops for your army. One thing that is really noticable early on is that none of the units nor buildings have any upgrades, something that people kind of are used to and probably even expect in any strategy games. Right now it’s unclear when upgrades will be added in the game, but it is on the planning. Another thing you will detect quite fast are the controls. Normally you select units with the left mouse button, or if you grouped units with a hotkey on the keyboard, and then perform all actions with the right mouse button. However, for some unknown reasons PoRovoz Studios decided that you use the right button to let your units walk, but you have to use the left button or the A button on the keyboard to attack units. To attack buildings however you have to use A or the right mouse button, left suddenly doesn’t do anything on those. You also can’t group units, nor put any hotkeys on them. So it will be a lot of babysitting. Because you use the A button to attack this also means you cannot use the WASD keys to move the camera around over the map.
During most missions you have to try and survive the waves and then attack their base. This can almost always be done in the same way: build as many troops as possible, wait to be attack and then destroy their base. Most missions are easily won with this tactic. It gets repetitive really fast in this current phase of the game. It’s also hard to believe you’re one of the last people alive while you keep sending so many expandable soldiers to their doom while fighting a quantity vs quality battle. Now a lot of units do die of their own stupidity though. Somehow it’s for the AI very unclear when they need to attack or not. This means a lot of soldiers just keep standing there while their comrades are dying right next to them. Another gameplay bug is that the AI doesn’t really seem to understand how to reach their destination when you order to move them. Somehow your units don’t know how to walk around rocks and platforms and they keep getting stuck more than a few times. The devs did promise more units, and hopefully more variety, to be added in the game before somewhere between January and May. They are also working on the game mechanics as we speak. So it’s to be expected that the AI will be improved very soon.
Another thing that is really missing right now, but will be added, is a multiplayer mode. A thing that is huge in RTS games is skirmish mode. A mode where you can play with any factions available, against players and/or computer controlled armies. There is both a co-op and a PvP multiplayer in the planning. How that will look like is unclear, but since the devs do claim you can play as either humans and aliens in the PvP mode it’s to be expected that it will be the famous skirmish mode.
Visually the game is quite barebones right now. The units and buildings don’t have much details yet. This is something that that also should be added in the game soon. The design of the units the devs are going for is stylish though. The humans are heavily armored and seem to be inspired by the Space Marines of Warhammer 40K, while the Khrasters look more like reptilian versions of Predator. We’re quite excited to see how these units will look like when the graphics get upgraded.
Earth Liberations kind of lack sounds right now. When you start up the game you immediately notice the main menu doesn’t has any music or sound. During the missions there is background music which is a catchy electronic tune that is pleasing to the ears. This music however doesn’t add much depth to the game like we’re used to in the Command and Conquer games. The unit sounds also are limited by shooting effects. But again, this is something that will be added within a couple months according to PoRovoz Studios.
Conclusion
While everything in this game screams alpha stage it’s already quite clear that the devs are trying to build a gigantic RTS game. It’s an ambitious project filled with potential. The game right now is far from finished and will probably completely change, but the foundation is already there. Once the bugs get fixed and the battles and missions get more diverse you will already have a good game on your hands. Once everything the studio has planned is added you could have an amazing game. We hope for the genre’s sake that this game is that amazing RTS game we are waiting for, for so long.
Earth Liberation - Preview,
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