|
|
Shadow Company: Left for Dead
|
|
|
|
|
|
Graphics & Sound:
Shadow Company: Left for Dead is a 3D point-and-click simulation which sports similar textures and smoothness found in the Myth series. It uses a strange 3/4 perspective in which you slide the mouse to the furthest most points of the quadrants of your monitor to slide the backgrounds. There is smooth transition while sliding the mouse and little to no breakup or lag. The character designs are nothing extraordinary and the maps are very repetitive in look and feel throughout all missions. Great character animations are present, and it is really neat to see your characters throw a downed member or enemy over his or her shoulder to avoid detection. Some lighting effects are overemphasized to compensate with the overall dark look to the game. The sound is decent with nice explosion and gunshot noise, yet there is nothing new or exciting to bring personality to your team members.
|
|
|
Gameplay:
Shadow Company has nothing to complain about in this department. The map movement takes a little getting use to because the backgrounds are actually 3-Dimensional and not flat as in most war simulation games. Characters are extremely responsive and the player is given a fair amount of control over the types of movements made by each individual team member. To the avid sim player, there is nothing new to learn, and most should be able to jump right into action with little confusion or problems.
|
|
|
Difficulty:
Shadow Company has an increasing arc of difficulty as in most strategy games. The initial levels may have been designed to be slightly too simplistic, however, the difficulty does increase dramatically as you proceed through the levels. Command & Conquer players would be comfortable with the transitions in stage difficulty because Shadow Company follows a fairly similar difficulty triangle or hierarchy. And those who have played Commandos will find the similar theme of “the team must survive as a whole in order to be able to complete most missions,” which in any case certainly adds to the overall difficulty.
|
|
|
Game Mechanics:
Shadow Company: Left for Dead does for Military Strategy what Myth did for Warcraft. It takes a well established genre of gaming, adds a little steroids to it with 3D acceleration and environmental sound effects, yet lacks in some areas of development. In my opinion, what most of these 3D monsters lack is true strategy development. I would much prefer being able to train my own troops than be given the choice of a lowly few.
|
|
|
-Sabumnim, GameVortex Communications AKA Larry Callier |
Minimum System Requirements:
Pentium 233 MMX, 32MB Ram, 400MB hard drive, 4MB 3D accelerator |
|
Test System:
AMD K62 400, 128MB Ram, 48X CD-ROM, TnT 2 Video accelerator |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
