War Leaders: Clash of Nations Preview

The last game shown to me by CDV was a very early look at a game called War Leaders.  The game will try to give players the ability to play an RTS with or without all of the heavy handedness sometimes associated with RTS games.  You know what I’m talking about.  Battles that seem to last forever, having to replay the same sections again because of an accidental wrong click of the mouse.  These things happen and we know they do.

The demo shown of War Leaders had two different sections, one being the typical RTS battles and the other being a game board type of environment.  The game board setting reminded me of Risk in a way since you could see the countries and could also see your units displayed by different pieces (ex. Tanks).  If you want to move to a different country you just simply point and click where you want to be.  Now this is where you as the player have the option to either play the heavy RTS section or let the game do it for you.

If you want the computer to run the battles for you then it can be done.  You could play the entire game without ever having to play through a battle or watch a battle.  All of it can be controlled by the computer.  But if you want to play the battle than be prepared for what could be a game of attrition by physics. 

The battle section really wasn’t ready to be shown but the demo did show off what the graphics engine will be capable of handling.  The graphics looked great but the showstopper was the physics.  Items and buildings would crumble realistically and debris was left scattered everywhere.  The debris could also be used to damage the troops as well as an added bonus.  Barrels of gasoline were sent flying through the air and the explosions just didn’t happen once.  The barrels kept exploding as they expanded farther and farther away from the initial blast zone.  Pieces of the barrels were sent flying through the air and even sticking into the ground.  Of course this was an early demo so all of this could still change. 

Once again this was a very early demo of a game that isn’t due to be released until probably sometime in 2007.  If the game lives up to the hype of the demo then we could be in for another great RTS game.  Oh did I happen to mention that it was a WWII RTS game? Nope, hmm…..well it is so I guess by 2007 the WWII RTS genre will still be chugging along.

For All E3 2005 Previews