Sierra Spring Break Roundup

World in Conflict: Soviet Assault

Eurogamer stalwart Dan Whitehead was a big fan of RTS World in Conflict when it was released last September. He gave it 9/10 in his review, describing it as "one of the most indecently absorbing PC games of the year".

Now WIC is getting an outing on PS3 and Xbox 360. Porting PC RTS games to consoles is not an easy task, as many who have been down the path Massive Entertainment is treading can testify. But in his review Dan also wrote, "World in Conflict plays like a strategy game, but feels like an action game." In which case, could it be this RTS is naturally suited to consoles already?

Producer Petter Sydow reckons so. "For a strategy game, we go very far," he says. "We have a first-person shooter level of immersion, of story progression, of character progression, and we really think that is something the audience will like."

Yes, very nice, but they won't give a toss if the control system doesn't work - as Sydow is all too aware. "That was the biggest design challenge. We're very much focused on how to get those right, and keep the fluidity of the game," he says. "Strategy gaming was built around the mouse; it's built around selecting units and clicking and moving the mouse. We realised we needed to get away from that."

Soviet Assault has a two-tiered control system, explains Sydow. The A button is used to perform most straightforward commands. The second tier involves more buttons, but there are no complex combinations. You can also use the d-pad to select and control units you can't see on-screen, to save you constantly moving the free camera around the map.

Best of all Soviet Assault also features voice control, so you can order reinforcements or attacks just by speaking into your PS3 or Xbox 360 headset. To demonstrate Sydow orders a "guided bomb" then a "precision tank" before telling a dropship to deliver "one light tank", all without any voice recognition problems. He confirms voice control will be localised for different territories.

According to Sydow they've managed to put all the weapons and vehicles from the PC game in Soviet Assault. "I will say that we tweaked one or two maps just to ease down on the multi-tasking and keep the player centred, and we tweaked a couple of the units to make them work better," he reveals. "But otherwise it's basically the same."

Perhaps most importantly, you can still destroy every house and tree you see, and the nukes are back. "We want the end of a multiplayer match to feel like you're playing in an ashtray. Or, if you drop a couple of tactical nukes, like you're playing on the face of the moon."

One major difference is the game's narrative. "In the PC version we had 14 maps telling Parker's story from a US perspective. So for this version we've added a number of levels - less than 14, but the final number hasn't been revealed yet - which will tell you the story from the Soviet point of view.

"We didn't want an American version of Sovietism," Sydow continues. "We tried to get how Russians would feel. An American whose homeland is invaded has one set of motivations; what motivations does the invader have?"

Find out for yourself when the game launches later this year. And if you still reckon the only place for RTS games is on the PC, don't worry. Sierra will be releasing the Soviet Assault maps as downloadable content ("It won't cost as much as a full expansion, we look at it as a mission pack."). There are also plans to launch a new version of the original World in Conflict, complete with the extra maps, in the UK.