Top Secret Magazine Urban Assault

Microsoft takes a step away from the RTS (Real Time Strategy) crowd with Urban Assault. UA is not the standard RTS game you might be use to such as Command & Conquer, with is top down, birds eye view of the battle arena. In UA, you control the action in a fully 3D rendered world.

The story is the rather dark, post-apocalyptic type. The year is 2234 AD, and there are very few humans left alive. Several factions of Humans and Aliens, known as 'Offworlders', have invaded the earth and are determined to destroy all opposition. Its your job as the player to build a mechanical army, and lead the Resistance faction to victory. In UA you will run into 5 different factions including 3 alien and 3 human (including your race) factions. You play as the Resistance faction. The other factions include the Mykonians, Sulgogar, Taerkasts, Ghorkovs, and the Black Sect faction. All use different units and have both their strengths and weaknesses.

Urban Assault is full of features to better control your forces. One of the main features in Urban Assault is the ability to take 1st person control of any of the units in the battle arena, including tanks, aircraft and helicopters, and control it. From here you can lead your forces into combat as squadron leader, or you can sit back in the,

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control ship and watch the action via a 2D map screen. From this screen you can control your units just like many of the other top down RTS games.

The graphics in Urban Assault are good, both in hardware accelerated and non-hardware accelerated modes. The gameplay is very smooth, and the action is fast-paced. The interface is intuitive, but takes a little getting use to, and on your first few large scale battles, all the information can become overwhelming. This mix of action and strategy means you'll have to carefully watch all sections of the map to watch for signs of an enemy attack, while concentrating on leading your forces into battle.

Speaking of your forces, you get to choose from an assortment of different vehicles. All units have an area of specialty. For example, the anti-helicopter unit can take down an enemy helicopter with one or two hits, but he is almost defenseless against ground attack. Tanks are great at destroying other tanks, but are vulnerable to air attack. This makes combined forces a must.

Urban Assault offers great, fast-paced action mixed with some minor strategy components. If you liked BattleZone but craved for more action, then Urban Assault is defiantly worth a look.

Company:
Microsoft
www.microsoft.com

Category:
Strategy/Action

NOTES:

Interest: 70%
Maniability : 75%
Graphics: 80%
Sound : 70%
Originality : 65%

TOTAL : 72%

Requirements:

Operating System:
Windows 95/98

Processor:
Pentium 133MHz or higher

Memory:
16 MB of RAM

Hard Drive:
100 MB

Sound Card:
Windows compatible sound card

Video:
Local bus SVGA video card with 1MB Video Memory

Joshua Westhoven

DEMO