So far we have some great looking battlefields and units, a cool support mission system, and some great, chaotic action. What's not to like? Well, there are a few things. First and foremost is that the AI is not very sophisticated. The only real tactic employed by the AI is to try and overwhelm you with one frontal assault after another and enemy units attack by charging straight at you regardless of the situation. For example, soldiers will run across open ground to get up close and personal with your armor and Soviet vehicles like to lock bumpers with yours. At times it almost felt ridiculous to me to be launching TOW missiles at enemy APCs a few feet in front of my vehicles.

Another issue is that the game's three forces - US, Soviet, and NATO - are essentially the same. The units may look different, but each one has a functional counterpart in the other two factions. Playing to your strengths and trying to exploit the enemy's weaknesses are a big part of the "strategy" in real-time strategy, but that is completely missing here.

There are a few other issues here and there such as the lack of a skirmish mode for offline play after you've completed the game's single campaign. Whether or not these issues will bother you depends a bit on the type of gamer that you are. If you're used to playing action games then they won't bother you too much, but if you're a strategy gamer they will be hard to ignore.

The multiplayer game has some unique gameplay that's markedly different than your typical base-building RTS' multiplayer mode. There are three game modes to choose from: Assault, Domination, and Tug of War. In Assault each team takes turns defending or attacking strategic points on the map and the team that captures the most during their turn as attacker wins the game. Domination is a king of the hill style game in which the team that controls the map's strategic points for the longest cumulative time during a twenty minute game wins the match. Lastly, Tug of War opens with a set of strategic points at the center of the map. When a team controls all of the points they begin to move to the other side of the map.

Before a game begins each player must select a specialty: Air, Armor, Infantry, or Support. The role that a player selects will determine the relative cost of units to that player. For example, select Armor and tanks are cheap but helicopters are incredibly expensive. With each player in a specialized role teamwork is critical to success. If you have a few friends to play with or are in a clan, then it can be an extremely enjoyable experience. On the other hand, if you play on your own and leave the selection of your teammates to chance you're going to find yourself in some frustrating free-for-alls and at the mercy of a coordinated opposing team. Like with the single player game, your enjoyment of the multiplayer game depends a lot on the type of player you are and what you're looking for in an online strategy game experience. If you're a lone wolf base-builder you're going to hate it, but if you're looking for the sort of coordinated effort usually reserved for tactical shooters then you'll love it.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 87%. Strategy gamers looking for the next best RTS game may be disappointed, but World in Conflict is an enjoyable game nonetheless.

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