Reviewed: November 27, 2002
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Strategy First

Developer
Strategy First

Released: November 11, 2002
Genre: Strategy
Players: 8
ESRB: Everyone

5
8
7
7
6.3

System Requirements

If you have been following my career as a game reviewer then you probably already know that I am not a huge fan of the RTS genre, whether these games take place in space, on the ground, in the past or in the future. The entire process of mining resources, building a massive assault force then attempting to win battles through sheer numbers rather than tactics has always seemed a bit “boring”. I’ve always tried to enjoy games like Command & Conquer but seldom get past the first few levels before losing any interest I may have had.

Normally, whenever Strategy First releases a new strategy game there are several RTS reviewers always eager to give it a workout. When O.R.B: Off-World Resource Base released earlier this month I decided to take a shot at it myself. A few months ago I had the pleasure of reviewing another great space RTS game, Project Earth: Starmageddon, that actually changed the way I looked at RTS titles – or at least space RTS titles. I had also been following the development of O.R.B. since my sneak peak at this year’s E3 show and had been playing the BETA copy off and on since last May.

Space RTS junkies will all agree that Sierra’s Homeworld set the standard by which all future space fleet armada games would be judged, and to this day nothing has dethroned the reigning king. O.R.B. makes a valiant attempt, but ultimately falls victim to it’s own aggressive design and uninspired mission design, and buggy gameplay.

O.R.B. is one of the few space games (outside of Homeworld) in recent memory to not include humans. Instead, you get to play one of two ancient races locked in a power struggled based on unwavering religious beliefs. How’s that for a deep plot device…alien religion? Unbeknownst to either of the two warring factions, the aggressive Malus and the pacifist Alyssians are both decedents from the same “mother race”. They share a Bible-like book known as the Torumin that is misinterpreted by both races to instigate a conflict of epic proportions. The Malus begin a “holy war” of sorts to wipe the Alyssians from their corner of the galaxy.

Admittedly, it’s a very thorough and engaging story that is divided into multiple campaigns that cover the holy war from the two unique perspectives of each alien race. Unfortunately, the story can only keep you entertained for so long and sooner or later gameplay has to figure into the equation.

One mission was extremely annoying to the point where I stopped playing the game for several days until I had calmed down. This mission consisted of my fleet wiping out all enemy presence within my mission map. At first this is pretty fun, but as the enemies become fewer, finding them becomes the equivalent of an Easter egg hunt in Central Park, especially when you are down to that last egg. It’s a shame these aliens haven’t invented long-range sensors.

Regardless of which campaign you play or which aliens you are fighting with or against you will find yourself using very similar ships and technology. While this can easily be explained away in the story; “both races come from the same origins”, it doesn’t make the game anymore diverse or challenging when it’s time to switch sides. I guess the one positive thing I can say about this is that everything you learned while playing the first campaign is not lost on the second.

O.R.B. features a pretty decent and unobtrusive interface that sticks to the borders and doesn’t clutter the screen with a bunch of useless data windows. When windows do pop-up they show you the necessary info then vanish. In the case of text windows they vanish a bit too quickly.

To assist you in moving and positioning your ships there is a 3D grid that cuts through the current view showing you every unit on the map. My only complaint about this grid was that is always seemed to change elevation based on my currently selected unit. I would have much preferred to lock this grid down. It would have saved me a lot of wasted time moving in directions I didn’t want to move.

When you take an RTS game and move it into the three-dimensional void of space you had better have one good navigation system at your disposal or the game is guaranteed to spiral into the sun and die a fiery death. Picking a point in 3D space while viewing that space in a 2D view is not an easy task. The designers have tried to make things a bit easier with the addition of a Z-axis bar that indicates a particular targets “depth”. The only problem is that is just doesn’t work consistently. Combine that with the fact that the same mouse button to change your Z-axis is also used to rotate the camera and you can look forward to some frustration. Sure, you will eventually get the hang of it if you stick with it long enough, but the learning curve is steep and the entire navigation structure is much harder than it needs to be.

When you find yourself in control of a fleet of ships you quickly realize you cannot micro-manage every last ship. This is where some good AI comes in handy. Unfortunately my fleet didn’t exhibit the best AI I was hoping for. Often, it was barely adequate to keep them alive. Units not under my immediate control often got into serious trouble and I constantly had to override their programming to save their alien butts.

To elaborate, you pre-program your fleet with a set of rules called “doctrines”. It’s a very ingenious system that allows you to pick from several settings such as aggression, formation, when to reload and how far to go to reload. While there are plenty of options to choose from to create these doctrines you still end up with some very “focused” pilots that will not deviate from their orders, even in the face of certain death. The designers have relied on these doctrines to create a set of “battle rules” rather than giving the units a “situational awareness”.

There are a few control issues that were surprisingly missing from this title, especially since they have been staples in space RTS games since Homeworld established the ground rules. The most annoying of all of these was my inability to slow my fighters to effectively attack the larger and often slower ships. Attacking these ships becomes a lengthy series of strafing runs that make the entire attack last much longer than necessary and usually invites additional air support from any nearby enemy squadrons. All that would have been required is a “match target speed” option. Considering the game does offer a “Shadowing” option for covert ops I can’t easily forgive this glaring omission in offensive tactics.

While I did miss the ability to target specific systems such as engines, weapons, hull, I was pleased to see the additional of Ramming and Kamikaze attack modes even though I seldom, if ever, used them. Formations were a bit lacking in your ability to execute precise control over them. No matter what you “wanted” to do, your large groups of fighters would also break off into smaller wings creating a much less formidable fighting force and creating a lot of extra work for you since you must now monitor multiple groups of fighters.

Targeting is also done quite poorly. Whatever you do, do not send your ships in to attack specific targets unless you are prepared to reassign them a new target after it is destroyed. These guys have no initiative to seek out a fresh enemy when their primary target is obliterated. Your best bet is to simply give them an aggressive doctrine and then hope for the best. When I say “hope” I refer to my pilots’ ineptness to pick and prioritize their targets. All too often I would be running after rogue pilots who though they could shoot down a destroyer with a lone fighter craft or be forced to reassign a squadron who was attacking a target that was no immediate threat to the battle at hand.

At times, I felt I was fighting my own fleet’s incompetence rather than the enemy and that just doesn’t make for a fun game. Even worse is when no matter what you do or what orders or doctrines you give to your ships they simply refuse to follow your orders. I was honestly looking for a court martial command so I could blow them out space.

Control problems aren’t limited to the fighters. Your capital ships seem to be under the control of a bunch of drunken officers who will fly your multi-million resource unit ship into an asteroid field with the same careless abandon of a certain Exxon tanker captain from popular Earth history. And what I am sure is a programming bug rather than blatant refusal to obey my orders; captains will often fly their ships in opposite directions from the course you have laid out. Obviously somebody’s X’s and Y’s are getting messed up in those complicated algebraic formulas.

Speaking of capital ships, once these become an available unit the game quickly becomes unbalanced to the point where the smaller fighter craft simply become a waste of resource expenditures. The game quickly evolves from a tactical fleet battle into a game of giant ships that pull aside one another and trade punches until somebody wins.

Apparently the artists put all their work into the backgrounds and forgot the little details like ships and the other structures that you build and destroy in this game. The models seemed to be uninspired and the textures were equally as unimaginative. Bases were downright boring, with no activity, flashing lights, moving parts, etc. Considering we are dealing with totally alien races outside the influence of humans, I was hoping for something really original, perhaps even organic. What we end up with are alien races that appear to have purchased their ships from a Wing Commander garage sale.

Special effects are wonderful with colorful lasers and explosions, but these often seem to get lost in the backgrounds, which are already too alive with color and visual effects of their own. There are also some minor annoying glitches in the explosions; mainly that they don’t always happen at the point of impact from your weapon’s fire and that the ship or object being destroyed doesn’t always blow apart in a convincing manner.

The sound effects of laser fire, ship engines, and explosions is all excellent but what stands out the most is the creative use of alien voices. As you control the various units you will get acknowledgements from the pilots in their raspy alien tongue. There is even a translation guide included in the 50-page manual. On the other hand, the movies are all voiced in English, which helps us enjoy the story a bit easier but seems a bit out of place after hearing the aliens speaking during regular gameplay. It would have been nice to at least have an option for alien voices with subtitles during the movies.

My biggest complaint was the lack of verbal mission briefings, especially during mid-mission updates. I’m busy trying to control an entire armada and I catch a flash of a mission update out of the corner of my eye. What did that say? If you aren’t going to SAY the words at least leave the text on the screen long enough for me to read it or have some cutesy sound effect to let me know there is an incoming message to wake me from my trance.

The game supports online play for up to eight space commanders and uses the powerful GameSpy network to match up prospective players. Setting up an online game or joining an existing one is a simple and there is a good selection of skirmish and team play options at your disposal. These multiplayer games may ultimately prove more enjoyable than the drawn out scenarios of the single-player game.

There is even a downloadable campaign editor complete with all the necessary tools for creating and scripting your own scenarios, event triggers, campaigns and cutscenes. You can then host these custom missions online and the game will automatically send your customizations to the other players.

The visuals are stunning at first glance but show some obvious compromises in detail under closer scrutiny, and the mix of classic space tunes and alien language is a nice addition to an otherwise average game. The boring and often lengthy missions make this one of those games you endure rather than enjoy. If you must play an RTS space game you will probably have a much better time playing Project Earth: Starmageddon, or you may want to wait for Hegemonia, which is just around the corner.