Hi!
This time, I would like to remind you of the classic RTS genre, a genre that it's glorious years has sadly passed. This game is - Original War, the game of Czech studio Altar Interactive, now Altar Games - yes, the creator of the very popular game UFO: Aftershock. Original War is a wonderful mix of strategy and RPG game, where we lead a group of American or Russian soldiers, who are trying to take control of the mysterious mineral (Series C & C bows), where? Exactly!
Welcome to Siberia!
The game story takes player only 2 million years BC somewhere in the endless wastes of Siberia. Despite the passage of years, graphics has barely grown old. Hand-drawn backgrounds and complex object models, neat special effects (and a great burst of "nuclear" weapon) even today delight the eye of player.
Build my tank
Original War has an incredible feature. Because of a mix of strategy and RPG, you have only limited amount people. Your soldiers are not produced in the barracks here, so you need to take care of every of them. On the other hand, we can construct a whole lot of types of vehicles, because we have the opportunity to choose the individual components of our new tanks, such as chassis, engine, weapons and the driver type. In later stages of camapign we can invent a technology that allows us to replace people with computers, making the game a little easier, because we do not have to worry about the loss of our peole lifes. But still we need to fuel our tanks in time, otherwise they will be only a dead piece of junk.
It was a long, long time ago
In my opinion, Original War is one of the best-routed in the history of gaming ever. You can feel the depth of the story and you can easily identify with the characters of the game. The stories are very complex, the main characters have a rich background. The dialogues are written lightly and with flair. Interestingly, some of the decisions taken at the beginning of the game have an impact on the further course of the game, eg. If you kill your prisoner, he won't be able to free one of our comrades from enemy hands (because he's dead) and at the very end of the game, our comrade does not come to our rescue at a crucial moment of the battle.
Game in the hands of players
After a few years since the release of the game, Altar Interactive has decided to give away the source code and tools in the hands of players (precisely in 2005). And it was a very good decision. Community took care of the patching the errors and fix multiplayer issues. That allowed every willing to create their own missions, and even his own campaign. The programs gives you so much possibilities, that you can even alter the mechanics of the game and, for example, add new graphics of vehicles or buildings, or entire new factions. There was a time, I worked as modder in the Original War coding team and it was the time when almost every multiplayer clan made its own mini-campaigns with teammates as characters to memorise their glory and great victories in Original War contests (this is just a sensation! does players in CS do machinimas about their teams?) I tried to create a good history - a spin-off for American campaign. Community in game is still active and interestingly, despite the 15 years since game release, the latest patch was published on 6 December 2015 and introduced - among other things - support for Steam Workshop!
It's boring to play alone
So why won't we play a round in Owar? I do not know how it looks like today, but a few years ago, servers were crowded by players. Creating a thousands of game modes, most of which were based solely on honor of the players and were extremely engaging.
So old that no one had heard about it
Unfortunatelly, the game has not obtained great popularity in the west. But today, in the era of electronic distribution of this reheated pork, but rather a delicious stew tasted anyone who likes really good RTSy. I highly recommend to any fan of good RTS games and the players who appreciate the story.
If you want to play it: http://store.steampowered.com/app/235320/
The game story takes player only 2 million years BC somewhere in the endless wastes of Siberia. Despite the passage of years, graphics has barely grown old. Hand-drawn backgrounds and complex object models, neat special effects (and a great burst of "nuclear" weapon) even today delight the eye of player.
Build my tank
Original War has an incredible feature. Because of a mix of strategy and RPG, you have only limited amount people. Your soldiers are not produced in the barracks here, so you need to take care of every of them. On the other hand, we can construct a whole lot of types of vehicles, because we have the opportunity to choose the individual components of our new tanks, such as chassis, engine, weapons and the driver type. In later stages of camapign we can invent a technology that allows us to replace people with computers, making the game a little easier, because we do not have to worry about the loss of our peole lifes. But still we need to fuel our tanks in time, otherwise they will be only a dead piece of junk.
It was a long, long time ago
In my opinion, Original War is one of the best-routed in the history of gaming ever. You can feel the depth of the story and you can easily identify with the characters of the game. The stories are very complex, the main characters have a rich background. The dialogues are written lightly and with flair. Interestingly, some of the decisions taken at the beginning of the game have an impact on the further course of the game, eg. If you kill your prisoner, he won't be able to free one of our comrades from enemy hands (because he's dead) and at the very end of the game, our comrade does not come to our rescue at a crucial moment of the battle.
Game in the hands of players
After a few years since the release of the game, Altar Interactive has decided to give away the source code and tools in the hands of players (precisely in 2005). And it was a very good decision. Community took care of the patching the errors and fix multiplayer issues. That allowed every willing to create their own missions, and even his own campaign. The programs gives you so much possibilities, that you can even alter the mechanics of the game and, for example, add new graphics of vehicles or buildings, or entire new factions. There was a time, I worked as modder in the Original War coding team and it was the time when almost every multiplayer clan made its own mini-campaigns with teammates as characters to memorise their glory and great victories in Original War contests (this is just a sensation! does players in CS do machinimas about their teams?) I tried to create a good history - a spin-off for American campaign. Community in game is still active and interestingly, despite the 15 years since game release, the latest patch was published on 6 December 2015 and introduced - among other things - support for Steam Workshop!
It's boring to play alone
So why won't we play a round in Owar? I do not know how it looks like today, but a few years ago, servers were crowded by players. Creating a thousands of game modes, most of which were based solely on honor of the players and were extremely engaging.
So old that no one had heard about it
Unfortunatelly, the game has not obtained great popularity in the west. But today, in the era of electronic distribution of this reheated pork, but rather a delicious stew tasted anyone who likes really good RTSy. I highly recommend to any fan of good RTS games and the players who appreciate the story.
If you want to play it: http://store.steampowered.com/app/235320/
