Act of War Review (PC) By Wriggy

8 / 10
19 May 2006 at 23:15

Review by: Wriggy

I won this game in a competition along with its expansion pack (Act of War: High Treason) as I like entering competitions for games but when I won it, I didn’t even have a clue what game it was. I’d never heard of it before so I looked on the internet (well, GamesTracker of course) and found some reviews and looking at it, it looked quite good so I waited till it came and straight away installed the game onto my PC (well maybe not straight away). Act of War: Direct Action was on my PC ready to play. All I needed was the sound cranking up and maybe a drink as I could have waited ages.

Even though it took a while to install there was a video of an interview on a TV show style thing which was quite interesting but got boring after a while. This kind of made me feel like this game would be long and boring but when it finally played it, it was incredible. It’s not just like any old strategy game like Command and Conquers and Age of Empires which are set in the past. This game is easier to understand and take control of and it is also modern. So modern, even Buckingham Palace is on the game in the second mission!

Operation mode (Campaign) can be completed in 3 different difficulites. Army Reserve (Standard), Regularly Army (Hard) or Special Forces (Very Hard). Game loading times take from 2 minutes to around 5 minutes which is alright and every mission starts off with a cut scene but there are no normal cut scenes. These cut scenes are actually acted out by normal people which I haven’t seen in a game yet and it works perfectly.

The training mission is pretty simple. You go to the camp, kill a few men and get extracted. Then the second mission is much better. The British public want money so they are rioting on Mall Avenue. You have to make your way towards the Buckingham Palace gates and protect the Country leaders coming in their limos but then there’s gun fire and everyone is running around and you have to kill them. Then you find out a limo is missing which you have to go and find. This is probably the best start to a game in a long time making the game exceptionally good.

On the missions it will cut to scenes with the real actors then switch back to the normal graphics. Some of these cut scenes are far too long but you can skip them by pressing Escape.

So much time must have been spent getting the missions in Libya, London, San Francisco, Egypt, Russia and Washington D.C. perfect as they are very near to veing exact.

You can also make your own profile with your name, a quote and an avatar. There are a whole load of avatars to choose from but unfortunately you can’t import your own. Your profile can be used to play the game online which makes your profile that extra bit special. Online is great if you can find a game. I used to hate this type of game but this game has convinced me to getting more.

Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who likes strategy games of any type like Age of Empires and Command and Conquer as it is even better (probably as its modern). Even if you haven’t played strategy games before or even if you don’t like them then this game is perfect. There is also an Expansion Pack (Act of War: High Treason) which I have written a separate review for.

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