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E3 was filled with noise, girls and strategy games. After playing Wartorn for only a few minutes, the beautiful graphics and innovative control zoned out anything that was happening around me.

by Trevor Hateley
(07/19/98)

The Goods
Quick Peek: Wartorn will be one of the most customizable strategy games ever on the PC. Excellent interface and elementary controls should make this game easier to play than you would expect. The polygonal 3D graphics will make Wartorn stand out from the new RTS games.
Release Date: Fall 1998
Developer: Eyst
Publisher Impact
Homepage: WarTorn
I was wandering around the dark West halls at E3, making my way past noisy announcers, giant monitors, and oversized game characters. I caught site of an Asian girl dancing in a cage to promote some game zine or whatever… she was extraordinary. Dyed golden hair, a small sailor moon outfit, and legs like an ice skater… did I mention she was in a cage? OI! Right after security pried my fingers off the bars, I walked around trying to find a game that was worthy enough to be immortalized in my big notebook. All I found were over-hyped titles and sexy booth girls. The flashing lights, noise, games, and girls started to get to me, so I escaped to the East halls.

East halls are usually where the smaller companies are set up, and this place is very relaxing, it's well lit, massage booths set up here and there, the women are fat, and you can actually get a decent interview. Some guy from Impact yanked me out of the crowd and asked me to try out WarTorn. I figured I would amuse him by playing the game for a minute or two and then get back on my way. The first thing that I noticed was that it was a real time strategy but with polygonal 3D graphics. It didn't resemble any RTS that I had seen, because this one could be viewed at any camera angle you could think of. You can move your camera to an overhead view like C&C, and then swoop down to view the tail of an airplane while it attacks an enemy base.

I started to fiddle around with the controls and interface and found some innovative features right off the bat. This was the game I was looking for. I whipped out my big notebook, started jotting down some features, and began an attack on some enemy boats. This game had grabbed my attention, and I greedily stayed at the booth making others stand and watch me play. Big 3D hills, customizable units, colored lighting, night combat, complex resource management, 32 different teams, formation editor, 30 some tournaments, explosions with destructive shockwaves… and did I mention my planes were bombing a whole fleet of enemy ships? I zoomed the camera in and watched those babies sink in all of their 3D glory.

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