S.W.I.N.E.

More than one type of swine

As far as the pigs are concerned, they deserve a bit of freedom; the run of the land so to speak. Given their intentions in this area, and their deep-seated hatred for their flopsy-eared neighbours, they hatch a plan to exceed their boundaries and invade the rabbits' territory. The rabbits on the other hand are having none of this, and so the two sides meet, fighting for land across 15 missions of varying intensity, some of which yours truly has now sampled. Each 15-mission campaign (one per animal) offers plenty of strategy fun. You have a pile of cash to spend on purchasing units, and you do this on screens preceding combat. Your assembled troops are then kitted out and thrust into battle at your behest. Four legs and a life of snorting or hopping is apparently no reason not to take up tanks, gun-packed humvees, artillery and other instruments of war when the time comes, and as such all these and more are at your disposal as the game wears on. Outside intervention (including airstrikes) can be called upon to help players reach mission objectives, and you have a truck for towing supplies and munitions too. Controlling matters is a cinch. The usual clickety-click lassoing is possible with the left mouse button and I don't foresee anybody with more than a day's worth of RTS experience having any trouble getting to grips with S.W.I.N.E. Apart from the simplistic control system the battle mechanics are also pretty obvious. You spend much of the time marching your troops about and capturing objectives, raising strongholds to the ground and whatnot, and once you have the single player game under control (and I trust it gets harder) you can compete against chums over 10 different multiplayer maps, with deathmatch, capture the flag and seek and destroy amongst the modes on offer. Online play is obviously planned as well as LAN play, and we fancy a skirmish mode.

Makin' bacon

Visually the game is a sort of cross between something out of Red Alert and Animal Farm. There's an unmistakable cartoon edge to the 3D visuals, and it all looks very good and fits the style and pace of the game nicely. There was the odd graphical glitch but this was a beta, so we can't be too harsh over those. The movement animations are suitably involved, and the vehicles react well to the terrain, no doubt lurching the stomachs of the troops inside as they thunder over all sorts of terrain. Another thing I'm pleased with so far is the return of amusing banter between units! Not since WarCraft II have I giggled over the lines of little animated creatures quite so much. The Hungarian developers have infused a refreshingly self-deprecating Var Offiszer schtyle for the pig troops and the rabbits are French! That's not to say they all have amusing curled moustaches and eccentric dress codes, but they speak with a noticeable French twinge. It's all very entertaining. All the elements of S.W.I.N.E. I've seen so far fit together extremely well to create a nonsensical real time strategy game that doesn't take itself too seriously. We've been moaning about the stuck up RTS genre for years. Gasp, heaven forbid someone might inject some humour into the proceedings again, we grunted after we had completely and utterly finished with WarCraft II forever. Although S.W.I.N.E. isn't really competing against timeless classics like WCII or even trying to deliver the same depth of storyline or campaign, we think it will be an essential purchase for any bedroom dictator bored of the sounds of battle and yearning for the sounds of squelching mud and a party hat. We look forward to the end result immensely.

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S.W.I.N.E. screenshots