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In the avalanche of real-time strategy titles the last few years, a couple of titles were overlooked by the trampling hordes to the alters that are Westwood/Blizzard/Cavedog . Who has time to play "minor" titles when you can play Red Alert , Total Annihiliation, Starcraft or that quasi-historical entry from that small Redmond startup? One of the buried entries was Krush Kill ‘N’ Destroy, an Australian effort from Beam Software. Though it did develop a semi-cult following among the core, it never received the attention that some thought was deserved. A year and a chunk later, Beam is back (we won’t mention KKND XTreme) to try to muscle its way onto the platform of the big boys with its latest post-apocalyptic rts entry, KKND 2: Krossfire .
Fighting for the Earth Blood
KKND2 takes place a couple of generations after the 2140 war for domination
of the planet. The Survivors and the Evolved are back to renew their acquaintances,
while a third species, Series 9, also wants in on the action. The survivors
are basically military types who went underground after the last war and have
emerged to kick mutant ass. The Evolved are, well, evolved humans. Genetic freaks,
they tried to eek out a living on the surface and mutated into environmentalists
with skin conditions. The new boys on the block are the Series 9, agricultural
units who are choked that humans ruined their livelihood.
Like the other entries in the rts field, KKND2 is a traditional harvest/build
title with oil being the resource of choice. There are 51 missions in total,
and a fair chunk of them involve rescuing hostages, protecting a base or destroying
installations/enemy units, not just the typical build a base and go kick ass
scenario. After you get through the scripted missions, you can try your hand
in skirmish mode (you against up to 7 computer AIs, though you can’t save
a skirmish game) before venturing out into the world of m/p. All m/p options
are supported.
The interface is clean and quite non-intrusive. Instead of a status bar that dominates the screen there is an expandable bar that extends with a click. Building is a snap, as the interface allows for multiple unit building with little difficulty. You want 6 Seeders, 5 Spore Missles, 3 Sterilizers and a couple Michaelangos? No prob. Each side has 20 basic units to play with (21 if you are Evolved and sacrifice your warriors to create a Scourge Demon) and then the constructible units, which you create as you see fit.There are three chassis sizes and 7-15 turrets available (depending on your race), as well as a few extras such as speed, armor, etc. You can also acquire a few extra units by being the first to find and open 21st century tech bunkers (shades of those serindipity huts of lore) that pop out a nice killing machine to help you in your quest for domination. The graphics are clean, though nothing that you would not expect given where we are in the rts evolution.
Violence and cleaning tips all in one game. Cool.
The biggest plus for KKND2 is the humor. Compared to the drab humorless other
entries, Beam stands head and shoulders above the others for their effort in
trying to inject a bit of levity into the genre. War may be Hell, but it is
also prety damn funny sometimes. Beam's humor is evident throughout KKND2 ,
from the units to the cut scenes to the manual. While the Series 9 and Survivor
units look like they could have been ported from RA or TA, the Evolved are rather
ingenious. Instead of solar collectors, you get a big pig. Instead of an oil
tanker, you get a bull ant tank. Tanks are massive crabs or beetles. The scripted
mission sequences, using the FAMOUS facial motion capture system, are also quite
well done and downright hilarious with the Evolved.
KKND2 also makes good use of line of sight and terrain height advantages. Units
can't see beyond trees that block their view. That means they can also hide
in them. Units on cliffs can fire on units down below, but only artillery units
can shoot up at them. The waypopint system has been improved upon and is better
than in KKND, and brings the game more in line with the others in the genre.
Units can remember up to 9 orders/waypoints. If you want a unit to go to patrol
a point, attack what it can see, and then return to the base for repairs, you
can do it. Units can be assigned to stand ground, disperse, fight, guard, load/unload,
move while attacking and force attack (for attacking allies, bridges, terrain,
etc). You still can't (as far as I can see) force move a unit (good for that
satisfying squash manouvre). Units actually make it to their waypoints without
too much pissing around, though for some reason, the fast units (dirt bike)
seem to get lost along the way occasionally.
Besides the 51 scripted missions and the skirmish mode, there is also a mission editor and a unit editor. The former allows you to try your hand at creating ass-kicking scenarios, while the latter allows you to modify the attributes of units to make the game more of a challange or to tone it down a bit.
KAI (Killer AI) is MIA
KKND2 came billed as having "the smartest and best computer player in the
business". Beam boasts that "the computer player in KKND was the first
to retreat and now the first to kick your butt (without cheating)". The
computer, according to Beam, understands the topology of the strategic zone
you are in and will act accordingly. In addition, it understands your base and
will make the same decisions humans would make in attempting penetration. "These
features come together to create the most formidable and intelligent computer
player in any RTSG, all without resorting to cheating". Not quite.
KKND2's AI is not a Killer AI. It is a switch-driven dunce. Maybe it does think
like a human. Maybe, but that human has a grade two education, plays a banjo
and sits on the porch all day with a reed of grass stuck between his teeth muttering
to strangers "Yup. Looks like it might rain a patch. Yup". The AI
will not attack you in a position unless you activate a switch-point. If you
have long-range archers, for example, you can hit them with impunity and they
will not even move out of the damn way. You can even shoot a unit in the back
and it will not turn around and respond because it is watching the other way.
This is not killer AI in action. This is a stupid AI.
This is the new army: stand around with thumb insterted while you get your ass
kicked
The AI goes after the most "dangerous" unit (ie, the most expensive).
It will go after one tank and ignore the dozen or so grunts beating the shit
out of it. Even better, you can suck the AI into a death zone by having your
fastest unit activate the AI and draw it in and then have your runner go past
your other units. The AI units will ignore the other units and try to kill the
runner. You can take half their health away before they switch priorities. The
first few times I did this it was cool, though afterwards it felt like I was
picking on the retarded kid with the runny nose who lives up the block ("C’mon
Timmy, just one more game"). A smart AI would recognize the killing zone
for what it is and not fall for the same trick a dozen or so times. I mean,
a human opponent would recognize this, and Beam does promote the AI as being
human-like. The first time it happened, the AI should have made a note to itself
that this was a dumb thing to do. No such luck.
The questionable AI is also supposed to understand how to penetrate an enemy
base the smart way. Nope. Not even close. As a test I built a base that had
two possible entry points. One would mean a single-file march across a bridge
and then have total access to my interior. The other meant walking into four
Cannon Towers and a squad of bazookas. Guess which one the AI chose time after
time after time? Yup. The AI chose to get hozed down rather than be smart and
send out a scout to check out the rest of my base. As advertised, the AI does
retreat. But it does not have a clue about how to build a base. In skirmish
mode I would watch as the AI built two or three towers to guard a chokehold
but left the rest of its base pretty much clean to pick. You can build a total
of 12 towers (four each of three types, not including AA). Why conserve firepower?
Why not surround your base with as much of a killing machine as possible? Silly,
just silly. I don’t even want to get into how my AI units would stand
around while the enemy penetrated the perimeter and sat around picking their
asses while each unit got picked off one by one. I mean come on. How the hell
could my AI not collectively realize that it was getting beaten on and do something
about it? Now, in Beam's defence, a lot of the other rts titles also had morons
for AI's, but Beam was dumb enough to go off and tout theirs as being something
special when it was not. Bad Beam.
No sense dirtying my hands
Now, I am not the rts God of Gaming like, say Rich "Mr. Protoss" Greenhill but I am fairly competent. But Jesus, what the hell were the programmers thinking when they put the missions together? The first 6 or 7 on each side are fairly easy and then a wall of pain crashes down. On mission 7 or 8 of the Evolved you had to take a tiny force and run it through a few hundred Survivors and then defend a base in the bottom of a valley. Yeah. Okay. Just like in KKND, you’ve got to play the same damn thing over and over and over. I may be jaded, but this seems to me to be the sign of a weak AI. A good AI does not need overpowering odds to beat the shit out of you. It just does it. A poor AI needs to outnumber you 10 to 1. A veteran rts'er may want to see the game to the bitter conclusion. A less experienced rts'er will not. This is the difference between games that sell huge and games that remain with the core. The learning curve is fairly decent up to the halfway point when it skyrockets.
Still on the Second
Tier
Overall, KKND2 Krossfire occupies the second tier of rts games. The game does
inject a well-needed bit of levity into a genre that was getting bogged down
with way-too-serious titles. The Monty Python-esque humor defintely sets the
game apart and makes it worthwile as an m/p diversion. Excellent line of sight
and terrain advantages should allow the game to enjoy a long shelf life. As
a solo product, KKND2 is a mixed bag. Great longevity with lots of solid, interesting
missions, a mission editor and an unit editor as well as a skirmish mode for
practice and play. However, bad AI and brutal missions really take away from
what the product could have been. The enemy AI is simply retarded. If a patch
comes up to spruce up the AI then I would heartily endorse KKND2 Krossfire as
a solid gap-filler before the heavy hitters come out in a month or so. But with
the AI as it is, I'd rather be killing Zerg.
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