R.U.S.E.

Review from Starks - Monday, 13 September 2010 @ 8:17pm

The joy of writing for AustralianGamer is that, at times, you get the chance to play games that you otherwise might not have really noticed. R.U.S.E. (hereafter RUSE, cause I can’t be stuffed putting the full stops in due to my emerging RSI) is one of those games: a gem that should be rewarded for its cleverness, easy playability and simply addictiveness.

To give you background it centres around the WWII era with two campaigns. One surrounds the American story of General Joe Sheridan along with his military campaign to move through Africa on his way to Germany and one surrounding the German story of General Major Erich von Richter. The latter uses an alternative storyline based on Operation Sea Lion, a German plan to invade Britain in 1940, the premise of the story surrounds the capture of Prometheus, a traitor in the German ranks.

While the storyline provide some brief intrigue, it’s only deep enough to give you a reason to play the campaign and hook you in. Once hooked, the game itself tends to keep you very well involved and the story begins to matter little.

RUSE starts with Sheridan, and introduces you to the European theatre of war. It then cuts to an earlier timeline in Africa, where Sheridan is only a major in command of an armoured corps. From here, your ‘welcoming’ to the game begins. I found that they integrated a tutorial fairly effectively into the campaign itself, thereby making the learning experience seem much more functional, rather than dragging you out of the game to learn the basics, something I always find frustrating.

Bombs away!! ... Wait, was that our joint? OH SHII-!!

The learning curve is reasonably steep. The game tends to punish you a bit for failure, particularly since you have very little in the way of unit replenishment in the beginning. Not being able to rebuild your forces makes most missions fairly tense and sometimes annoying as casualties dramatically affect your ability to continue.

After a while, however, you get the knack of things. And this is how RUSE sets itself apart. Using a very methodical, slow paced but deliberate movement of time the game forces you to think, and to be honest I had almost forgotten what it was like to have to think when I had a 360 controller in my hand. It was like an opening of my mind as I sat there and with intent concentration planned my movements, thought through every skirmish and ordered my troops to carry out various missions.

This is where the game gets you. The fact that the pace of the game is so different to the hectic ‘rush and scramble’ most RTS’ are prone to means you begin to develop a more tempered yet still anxious tension that I imagine resembles true war from a generals perspective. The game requires a degree of patience, an ability to work several moves in advance like chess as well as perceive and discern the true meaning of the oppositions intent when they enter into a skirmish challenges the gamer to a different and in my experience unique perspective so very few titles bring to the table in the current day of releases.

As you begin to get more experienced, the game introduces the Ruse plays, the differentiating factor the game offers the player. The Ruses include things like Radio Silence, which allows your units a degree of invisibility, a very important element of using your bombers; Decoy Units, which allow you to prod the enemies lines in one direction with expendable units while you double back around and catch them in the rear; or the Reverse Intel, which allows you to ‘hide’ units, such as hiding tanks in infantry so the enemy tries to counterpunch with the inappropriate unit and then gets caught out.

The power trip of being in this position sometimes goes to my head...

This all forces you to consistently use the Spy Ruse in order to understand what is going on at all times and really puts in to play the saying ‘Information is Power’. It gives great insight into how to better use Fog of War as a tactic and it truly broadens the understanding for keyboard generals of how much of an advantage it is to have information on your enemy’s whereabouts and status before running your men into battle.

RUSE leaves you with the impression that all war is really just a larger game of chess, and good military intelligence is like a snapshot into the thoughts of your opponent at the time he’s thinking them.

The controls of the game are actually quite good. My experience with Halo Wars led me to believe that RTS consoles couldn’t get a better control scheme. I was pleasantly surprised to find that RUSE has, in fact, not only hit the benchmark but raised the bar as the control scheme was immediately natural and felt like it had been the result of a simple idea that was effectively executed.

It’s about here that the attention to detail begins to kick in. When playing the game, the level of detail for the units themselves are fantastic. Zoom all the way in and you can watch your troops in the battle for their digital lives. The sound, atmosphere and perception focuses entirely on the skirmish itself to make you believe you’re really there.

Yet, zoom completely out and the board turns into a 1940’s war map with units marked as red and blue tokens and the map being set in a headquarters room. Around you, men work the communications device, quiet chatter takes place and all the atmosphere of a real war time headquarters is in your lounge room.

Zoom mid way in and you get the type of birds-eye view associated mainly with games like World in Conflict, allowing you the chance to make measured tactical movements of your troops whilst monitoring the skirmishes taking place.

As the game progresses and Sheridan becomes a general, you get additional RUSE skills and the opportunity to build buildings and replenish your supplies. As such, your ‘tutorial’ is over and the game takes on a new dimension where sabotaging and destroying enemy holds is an added concern.

C'mon baby light my fire, C'MON BABY LIGHT MY FIIIIIIIIRRRRRREEEEEEE!

The more I played through, the more I began to sense two things. The first is a level of polish I would never associate with such a small games developer as Eugen Studios. I had never heard of these guys and yet they’ve released 3 or 4 other titles. They truly have developed a top class game and yet I would think they’ll fly so far below the radar they’ll never get true credit for it.

As a slight aside, I think part of the fact I like the game is that the European developers tend to have a different slant to things to their American equivalents. Similar to the differences in English and American humour, RUSE has subtleties and flavours not found in their American equivalents simply because the stylistic differences allow these different flavours to come out. As so eloquently said so often on Top Gear, European and American machines are just different in nature, and while I'm ok with that I think we'll begin to see this more often as each continent's developers grow and mature.

Secondly, the game yearns for more in the way of online. The true test of anyone’s mettle in such a game is whether they can defeat a skilled human opponent. And this is why I expressed frustration in the opening – I simply couldn’t find a game! While this hindered my ability to test the multiplayer online, it also annoyed me as the great potential this title held is something I want to expound on and really delve into. It’s not often you find a game that keeps you up to 3 in the morning, so if I find it I want to ensure I get the bloody most out of it!!

Graphically, the game looks sharp. I loved the bombers flying in over head, the infantry and tanks all looked great and the environment itself was realistic enough. Sound wise, the game had some fantastic effects and I never got sick of hearing artillery fire. If ever I was called to war, I want to be doing that.

It’s titles like these that are released and make me giddy with delight. It’s a fresh new perspective on RTS that I’m surprised nobody had done earlier, or at least I haven’t experienced anything like it. It made me think, kept me enthralled and had no actually problems that I could think of.

My only regret was I was playing it on my console. Truly, this game had so much depth and playability that I just wanted to plug in a keyboard and mouse. It felt more like carving a roasted pig with plastic knives using the 360 controller.

Nevertheless, this is a game that will get a heckavulotta play over the next few months!! Might drag me away from Halo: Reach a few times. Yes, I know! It's that good!

Pros

Wonderful concept, brilliant execution and exudes polish. If you love a good RTS, get this game. If you don't like the RTS, still get this game. Seriously.

Cons

Not many. The lack of online players is a drag, and sometimes the AI can be a little predictable and easily 'read'.