The graphics in Metal Fatigue should easily equal the beauty of the rest of the game. The engine is hardware only - but if you don't have a good 3D card by now, it's long past time to upgrade from that graphing calculator you must be using. Here's a random list of buzzwords for you to ogle: colored lighting, shadows, transparency, environment maps, Glide, D3D, OpenGL, full 3D world, total camera control, resolutions up to 1600x1200. Every object in the game is fully 3D - the game uses a custom engine, and a damned good one at that.
There probably won't be any of that fancy 3D sound in the game - the designers have voiced their opinions that 3D sound is better used in first person shooters - but there will be some interesting effects, such as the decay of sound over distance. The one major question in my mind is, will there be sound in space? There isn't in the real world... then again, this isn't the real world, this is a computer game.
Multiplayer is certainly worth mentioning as well. First off, the rules can be easily customized. Don't like the pre-build stage? Then don't bother with it. Or set a time limit on it to prevent your sluggish opponent from taking hours to plan his base. Also, if you're playing with the computer as well as a live opponent, you can choose which enemy AI you want to fight. Psygnosis is reportedly working on an online matchmaker service for multiplayer games... but from the sound of things, you shouldn't have any problems finding opponents. This game is going to be big.
Everything about Metal Fatigue rings with the quiet assurance of quality. Zono has never made a PC game before (they've done all their work on consoles), but that might be for the best: they don't labor under the restrictions of tradition. From the looks of things, they're really pushing the limits of real-time strategy, introducing new features that will no doubt be copied years down the road.
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