Joystiq

Splash Damage, the developers, took us deep inside a level where there was a fairly intense battle going on. The Humans and the Stroggs, much like the Hatfields and McCoys, just can't seem to see eye to eye on matters, and they've chosen to negotiate with bullets, bombs, plasma, and other nasty items.

Issuing commands and coordinating multiple events like having a turret constructed, ordering your squadmates to repair a downed vehicle, and trying to handle incoming objectives looked fairly intense (and somewhat confusing) while happening in the demo, which we saw the PC version of (there's a Mac version coming too). The developers had obviously spent a lot of time using this interface and navigating this world, but it looks like there will be a learning curve for people just jumping in. We can't imagine what juggling all of this will be like on the Xbox 360 or PS3.

The game has been designed as a sequel to the Quake series, and they claim it has the most advanced bot AI ever used in a game. This means they'll stay in cover if the odds stacked against them are pretty bad, instead of blindly charging towards you on a suicide mission. You can also take down an enemy and then disguise yourself in his bloody uniform in order to fool the remaining forces. Just don't do anything "out of the ordinary" that will attract unwanted enemy attention. We're not really sure what anything out of the ordinary would be during a full-scale battle ... baking cookies?

Anyhow, the ability to have your teammates repair things comes in handy, especially when your ride has been jacked up badly. There are also many multi-pasenger vehicles, so you and your buddies can get to the battle quickly, and in style. Likewise, building new assets like turrets and shield generators is a nice feature, and you physically choose where on the battlefield the items will be dropped. You'll hear an approaching airship and can watch it slowly approach and parachute whatever you've ordered up right down to you.

All of the multplayer maps have a final objective to them, like to complete construction on something, get your forces to a particular location, or similar scenarios. The map we were shown, Ark, has a sort of biodome (thankfully, there was no Stephen Baldwin in sight) in the center, and you have to protect it at all costs if you're on the human side, or try to breach the walls and gain access if you're playing the Strogg side.

Graphically, the game looks great, but as we previously mentioned, there's a lot happening all the time in this game, and you'll find yourself multitasking quite a bit. They'll obviously have to change some of the elements for the console release, or else release it with a special add-on keyboard and mouse, because this is probably one game you'll wish you had them for. Of course, Halo Wars didn't make us miss the mouse and 'board, so who knows.