Thandor - The Invasion Preview

The armored recon vehicle moves across the alien landscape steadily. The fog of war lifts revealing a xenite deposit. Unfortunately it is just beyond the confines of your base camp, and thus can’t be mined at the moment.

The screen to the command center opens with a whirr and clank, “We’re under attack!” the British-accented voice yells. Your tanks are already engaging the enemy, but for good measure you retarget the intruder. A few more rounds and the offending vehicle explodes in an orange, yellow and red ball of flame. Continue the recon.

Thandor The Invasion, from Innonics and Planet 4, is a real-time strategy game involving a divided alliance, alien worlds and combat against forces once thought of as friends. Ten years prior to the time frame of the program, an alien race known as the Golraths invaded and conquered many worlds. An alliance of all remaining planets was formed to combat the aggressors. When the Golraths were defeated, the alliance began to have internal conflicts and soon fell apart. Friends united in a common struggle soon became enemies. But there were troops who remained loyal to the Alliance of Avares, troops who continued on in secret to build military forces and to realign the nations. Now that faction stands revealed.

What has that to do with this program? It builds a foundation for the action, just as each mission and campaign adds to the storyline. There are 19 single game missions, each one supports multiplayer gaming. You can play as a single player and let the computer control the other factions. The program also includes three campaigns – Thandor: The Invasion, The Conquest of Kyrrdon, and Battle for Luke Planet. The program also sports a tutorial, which will guide gamers through the basics of the program in about 12 minutes.

Each mission requires something different. You may pursue peace, or simply get into an arms race, or a race for superior technology.

In many regards this program bears strong likeness to Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (without psychic plants) or Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun. This is a race for technology, to build weapons, mine xenite or harness the power of tritium. The latter two provide the materiel and power for your success.

Thandor features terrific graphical elements, a moveable camera that allows a 360-degree view of the action and enables gamers to zoom in, rotate high or get close to ground level. The combat units are nicely designed, and the engagements are well rendered. The buildings have operational movement and the sound changes according to where the camera is in relation to the building. If you are on top of them, expect a cacophony of sound. If you have accompanied your recon units out into the field, the sound fades behind the hilly terrain. Overall, the audio is vibrant. The program integrates cut scenes to transition from one phase to the next.

Controls of this program are stock for the genre. You can group and move units by drawing the mouse across all the units you wish to include. The on-screen interface gives instant access to the build menu. Just point and click. This game is extremely simple to jump into and play. The options package is not overly elaborate, but does touch on the basics. You can adjust your enemy strength from weak to strong. They are pushovers at the weak setting.

The preview disk of Thandor (this program is already on the shelves in Europe) promises a game that looks good, plays well and sounds great.