R.U.S.E review

Console real time strategy (RTS) games have struggled with the demands of creating a control interface which comes close to rivalling the ease of the point/click/drag/keyboard shortcut standard of PC strategy gaming.

In this regard, R.U.S.E deserves high acclaim for bringing to the table an intuitive, comfortable, practical control system which single-handedly breathes renewed life into an ailing console genre.

Dispensing with a moveable cursor, the screen’s centre-most units/buildings are automatically highlighted, with a simple tap of a button creating a moveable ghost unit which can be placed at your leisure on a target destination or enemy. The ‘real’ unit then heads towards his new destination or attacks his new foe.

The camera is controlled with the left stick, with pans and zooms revealing the details of your growing army and enabling larger or smaller groups of units to be selected.

From hovering perhaps 20 metres above ground level, you are able to see individual infantrymen stagger and fall or launch an ambush from forest cover, before you can zoom out to see the entire battlefield beneath you, which, in a neat touch, transforms into a strategy map on a desk in some anonymous war room.

At its heart, R.U.S.E is a neat combination of Command and Conquer and World in Conflict, albeit set in an alternative Second World War scenario. The standard paper, scissors, stone mechanics of strategy games since the dawn of time are in place, with a nice selection of environments, units and building options available to choose from.

‘So what?’ shout the PC gamers, spoilt for choice by RTS games covering every era of fantasy or reality in every direction. ‘What’s in it for us?’. Well, chaps and chapesses, R.U.S.E also brings to the party a neat selection of devious devices and abilities (the eponymous ‘ruses’) which can be deployed to enhance your chances of success. These range from a spy ruse, revealing exactly which enemy units are which in set sectors of the map (prior to such espionage, they are represented only as large or small poker-chip style discs, denoting light or heavy units), to blitz, which enhances the speed of your units, to radio silence, which hides your forces for a set period of time.

Othe ruses include a decoy assault, in which fake units are sent to attack an enemy, forcing them to divert their defences from where they are needed to deal with the bogus threat, and a switch mode, where heavy and light units are represented as the opposite to the enemy, leading to the enticing prospect of a few enemy light tanks expecting to polish off a few infantrymen instead staring down the barrel of a Sherman tank or three.

There are three modes of play: Campaign, Operations and Online.

The campaign mode covers the rather cheesy story of US military man Joe Sheridan’s ascent from Major to General as he hunts down the spy Prometheus across the fighting world. This acts as a neat tutorial, albeit one with a very gentle learning curve which borders on the tedious.

Operations features a series of set scenarios for you to conquer and online offers the obligatory multiplayer fun, in which up to eight players can take part at once.

On offline modes, decisive, scripted moments in each particular mission are dramatically revealed by the camera zooming to its location and cinematically revealing the details of the threat. This can be annoying if you are in the middle of ordering some units to defend a struggling weakpoint at the time, but forgiveable. Likewise is the bizarre discrepancy between the spoken word and subtitles during the cut-scenes. Spelling mistakes are frequent and on at least one occasion, the spoken words are completely different to the subtitles. More amusing than anything, to be honest, as the overall experience of the game is overwhelmingly positive.

The scrap to prepare effective defences as a wave of enemy forces mercilessly bears down on you creates genuine tension, and the satisfaction of seeing a well placed platoon of infantry take out tank after tank from a forest hiding place is tremendously addictive.

I’m not sure there’s enough here to satisfy PC gamers who have a wealth of alternatives available, but R.U.S.E is without doubt in a class of its own on consoles and will likely be seen in years to come as a pioneer of the console RTS genre.

8/10

R.U.S.E

Ubisoft

XBox 360, PS3, PC