Outlive Review

The number of structures is relatively small for this type of a game. The buildings are relatively common and most of them have already been seen in other games, with the possible exception of the intelligence center, which gives you a possibility to try to spy on or sabotage an enemy base for a certain sum of money. This can give you a chance to turn your enemy's power off at a crucial moment and render his defenses helpless, and swiftly attack the Marketplace (another unusual structure, which has the same function as C.H.A.O.M. from Dune II, instantly buying units, which are currently available at a higher price).

RTS games like this simply have to offer you the possibility to research advanced technologies. Outlive is no exception here, and it has a very rich research tree to offer, and the research method is one of the best that I have ever seen. One click will give you the list of all possible achievements you can research in a mission with all the data about funds and time required. The target research option is a highly commendable feature.

In spite of the good controls, interesting novelties and the perfect research element (if we disregard the mediocre story for the time being), Outlive is visually a complete failure. I'm not one of the people who think that you cannot have good graphics without a latest generation graphics card; it's just that a game has to have a decent design. The terrain and units in Outlive actually look worse that their at least three years old role-models even though they are displayed at 1024x768. Poor color, unimaginative design and their pathetic animation won't bother real strategy players too much, but they simply ruin the overall impression this game might have left otherwise. The few cinematics partially make up for this, but even they are miles behind the brilliant FMV sequences from Starcraft or Brood War.

The soundtrack for this game sure doesn't contain anything you want to call a favorite tune, and the unit voices are totally unbecoming, and seem quite funny. The only reason why you're going to listen to the monotonous voice of the narrator reading the briefing is depressingly slow scrolling of the text on-screen.

Poor graphics and sound have their good side as well - the game will run smoothly on older machines, regardless of the number of units appearing on screen, and loading and saving games is as fast as it can get.

AI is pretty good. Even though your units won't find the shortest way to their destination, they will seldom get lost. The computer is a very good adversary, and it won't be easy to beat it even on "Easy" level. The computer AI will mostly rely on his ability to deduce your weak-points, and attack you where you have practically no defenses.

Another upside is the multiplayer mode. If you're not too disappointed about the technical characteristics, playing against live opponents on Continuum's internet server, direct link cable, modem or LAN can sure give you a lot of fun. The game features deathmatch, CTF and conquest modes, and the authors provided about forty maps for two to eight players. I cannot speak much about the quality of the maps, but if you look through them, you'll find several really unusual maps (I found one which looks like Pac Man). The game ships with a powerful campaign editor. The multitude of options it offers gives you an impression of a very powerful tool, probably used even by the programmers when designing the three Outlive campaigns. It not only gives you the chance to design the map, you can also use your custom sounds, and video-sequences. Then best feature in this editor is the event editor, which will give you some twenty keywords to direct the course of your own scenarios. I didn't think I would ever say this, but this tool looks as good as the scenario editor in Operational Art Of The War Volume II.

The possibility to salvage wreckages of destroyed vehicles and recycle them, as well as the options for creating diplomatic relations with other participants in the war, are the couple of things that will wrap up all the positive impressions left by this game. It would be pretentious to predict the possible audience for this game... if you still feel unsure about buying this one, well, let me put it this way: If you're one of the people who don't think that advanced graphics are a requirement for a good game there is no reason for you not to give this one a try.