Original War
| Original War | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Altar Interactive |
| Publisher(s) | Virgin Interactive |
| Platform(s) | PC |
| Release | PC:December 3 2001 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time tactics |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
Original War is a non-linear real-time tactics computer game developed by Altar and released by Virgin Interactive on December 3, 2001. It was re-released in the UK under the budget Sold Out label in 2004.
Different Times
As the game story develops it becomes clearer that the Russians are from a different universe - a consequence of the American time-travel and their successful moving of the resource Siberite to Alaska. Due to this, the Russians call the Siberite, Alaskite. As a consequence of the alaskite-movement, a number of Arabian sheiks and warlords hire mercenaries to prevent the Americans from acquiring the powerful resource and assure that oil remains as the primary energy source.
Time constantly changes due to the actions of all the sides involved. For example, in the Russian version of the universe Hitler never ascended to power and Trotsky was appointed the leader of the USSR.
The game story is freely based on sci-fi novel The Last Day of Creation (1981) by Wolfgang Jeschke.
Plot
During World War I American forces encounter an unknown device, along with an unknown mineral called Siberite. Decades later they find out that the mineral is a catalyst for cold fusion, and it is the fuel for the device named EON. After numerous experiments with Siberite and the EON, they finally realise that it is a time machine. But, by the time of the discovery, they have used all of the siberite and research stops. Then in the new millennia Americans find vast deposits of siberite in Siberia, and are able to extract enough of it to use the time-machine for small-scale time-travel. They come up with a plan to send a few dozens of U.S. Soldiers to Siberia, where they will travel 2 million years back in time, to move the Siberite to Alaska so that 2 million years later, the U.S. will rule time, thus being able to remove what they believe to be wrong from the time of man. The best of the best of the troops are selected, given an explanation of everything and are told that it is a one-way travel back in time. The Americans then travel back in time, move the Siberite to Alaska in peace, changing the course of history from the 1920's on. The alternative timeline has been created, the USSR never disappear, the U.S. is even more powerful than in the original timeline and a lot of other changes happens as well. This results in that the USSR ends up in the position of the U.S. in the original timeline, Soviet scientists has managed to find out about how the EON, which they call TAWAR, functions and has enough Siberite, or Alaskite as it is called in the alternative timeline, to send a large number of troops back in time to prevent the U.S. from moving the Alaskite to Alaska. Not an army, but still more troops than the U.S., in addition the Russians have the moment of surprise.
Americans
Note. Since this game is non-linear game, there exist numerous variations to the story, but this is the general one.
Prologue
The American side is shown through the travels of John Macmillan, with brief parts of John's life and happenings drawn in his dairy. The first diary page is of American scientists and top brass telling John about the EON. The next page shows American forces finding the EON during the First World War and taking it home to Area 51 to experiment on it. On the next page John is hand picked amongst others to join an expedition to Siberia. Enough Siberite was collected to allow the American forces to go 2,000,000 years back in time, but as John is standing before the EON he gets second thoughts of entering. The night before he had met a woman, Joan Fergusen. Joan is a backup scientist working on the EON in the American base in Siberia and will not travel with the others, John now has a reason for not going after all.
Mission 1 "Surprise Party"
After deciding to enter the EON, John finds himself alone upon a hill. John tries to contact the other American forces but is forced off the radio by a man named Powell. Suddenly, John spots unknown forces heading towards him, thanks to the vegetation they haven't seen him yet and John heads east into the forest. There he meets Bobby Brandon who is wounded, the unknown forces, unable to locate anyone, leaves the hill. As soon as the coast is clear, John is ordered to group up with one more American in the area and then head northeast. After heading northeast a short while, John and Bobby encounter the last American in the area, Cyrus Parker.
Right after meeting Cyrus, John gets a call on the radio from an unknown, English speaking man stating, "Head north now, we are sending a search party over". John decides to keep to the original orders. The group are just about to leave the area when they encounter two soldiers bearing the same uniform as the others John encountered earlier. The two soldiers call for reinforcements and start shooting at John and the others. The two soldiers are easily overcome and before the reinforcements are there, John, Bobby and Cyrus are safe.
Mission 2 "Stealing The Steel"
After escaping the unknown forces, assumed to be Russian, John, Cyrus and Bobby meet a fellow squad of U.S. troops under the leadership of Lisa Lawson. John then gets orders aired from Powell, he is to meet up with any other U.S forces in the area, and take over an outlying Russian building in the proximity of a Russian base. Powell says Russian, thereby confirming John's suspicions that the unknown forces are Russians. John accepts the orders, even though Cyrus Parker thinks it is a bad idea. Since John is of a higher rank than Lawson, John assumes control of the other squad and starts moving towards the Russian base.
While heading towards the Russian base they meet a man named Paul Khattam, one of the scientists who worked on the EON. As they move closer to the Russian base they encounter a pile of dead, American troops, bringing disgust to the squad. After walking past the pile, they spot the Russian base and John decides that it is too dangerous for a frontal attack. The squad decides to attempt to flank the base and starts heading south of the base. As they cross a river they find two Russian soldiers in the midst of an execution of two American soldiers, the squad are able to kill the two soldiers before they are able to finish off one of the Americans, Paul Khattam is, as any other scientist in 2,000,000 BC, a skilled medic and aids the unconscious American soldier, once he wakes up he is mad to find his companion dead and decides to join up with the other soldiers to attack the Russians. They then proceed over some shallows and arrive in the vicinity the outlying building as well as two pilotless vehicles guarded by two soldiers. The Americans charge the vehicles, seizing both the vehicles as well as eliminating the guards and a driver whom they encounter. The outlying building is now left undefended and falls to the Americans, who notice that the building is crapped with supplies.
After the successful attack, major Powell radios Macmillan and orders him to attack the Russian base in the area, a small outpost consisting of 3 buildings, some defensive structures and a handful of men. After picking off the defensive bunkers one by one, with the aid of the vehicles, the base is stormed and the garrison extinct. John reports the objectives completed to Powell and receives a new objective, to collect as much as possible of the supplies in the outlying building and stuff it in the main depot of the outpost for extraction. Just a moment later, a heavy light and a loud sound, similar to what happened with John as he arrived through the EON, appears in front of one of the engineers. A Russian man appears and is quickly forced to surrender by the engineer, and brought to John. John decides to interrogate the Russian, a mechanic named Mikhail Berezov. He tells that he was not sent voluntarily, but forcibly by a man named Solyanov, the supposed president of Russia, elected in 2002. John says that it was Prokhorov who won that election, but Mikhail claims that Solyanov was elected in 2002 and has been president in 14 years since then. After the interrogation, John concludes that the man is from a different future.
Just as the Americans are preparing themselves to get the supplies by foot, two Russian supply-cars return to the base after a trip, the Americans open fire to the vehicles before they reach the depot, where the Russian is held, and manage to get one of the vehicles burning, forcing the crewman out to try to stop the fire. While the crewman is doing his utmost for this, the Americans are busy trying to get the other vehicle to stop as well, but fail. "Their commander's gonna be happy when that gets home" Parker says then, and John answers "So happy he'll send troops over". The American troops then notice that crewman is still working on his vehicle and quickly kills him and takes the transport. Thanks to the vehicle, one man alone takes four fifths of the supplies to the main depot, whilst the others are preparing for the arrival of the Russian attack force.
When the Russians do arrive, the Americans are more than prepared for attacks and the Russians are slaughtered. Major Powell then radios, telling he picked up a Russian broadcast telling of all the mess John has made for the Russians and congratulating John with a mission well done. Macmillan is then ordered to pack up, take the supplies and meet with Andy Cornell to break through the Russian line and make it to Alpha base, the American main base.
Russians
Prologue
The Russian campaign is considered campaign #2, being harder than the American one. Here you play as a Russian mechanic nicknamed "Burlak", an excellent mechanic loyal to the people of Russia. The Russians are aware of the U.S. troops present in Siberia when they step into the Tawar, but are surprised when they find that even though they travelled in squads, they appear scattered in both location and time. In the Russian campaign, Burlak has fewer choices than John Macmillan because of the arrogant Red Army leadership.
Mission 1 "We Are The Champions"
Burlak arrives about a year after the first Russian soldiers arrived, and momentarily encounter a "hunting squad" of Russian troops. The Russian tactic is to kill all American soldiers as soon as they arrive, so that they have no idea whatsoever of the Russian troops, thus responding to every radio-broadcast. After joining the hunting squad in the killing of an American, the lieutenant of the squad receives an order to attack a small American outpost in the area. They head north, and even though Burlak only has a pistol and limited body-armor, he too is going to fight. As they approach the proximity of the base, a bunker opens fire on them and the lieutenant falls to the ground. The squad, left without a leader, retreats out of sight of the bunker, there the squad wonder about what to do now, when Burlak states that the orders for the lieutenant still remains valid. Burlak then assumes, temporarily, control of the squad and starts scouting for others way into the base. Eventually they find another way in, and not just that, they also encounter another Russian soldier in the area whom joins the attack. When they attack the base, they not only have the high-ground, they also attack from the north-east of the base, the best escape-route for the ones in the base, should they decide to flee. If anyone attempted to flee in another direction, they would find themselves shot from a distance and hitting the flat-grounds. They open fire at the bunker, and the woman in the bunker calls for help from a man called Tim Gladstone, who is the commander of the tiny outpost. Next thing you know, the Russians find themselves under attack by apemen, an unknown semi-human species, but are able to eliminate them and focus their fire back on the bunker. Eventually the woman in the bunker dies and the commander, left alone in the outpost, is attempting an escape, however he quickly finds himself dead on the ground. Burlak see now that the base is liberated, now remains the task of levelling it, something which is quickly done. Now they set out on the journey to the Russian base, but on the way they receives a distress call from a newly-arrived Russian woman. They answer the call and see her under attack by native apemen, unlike the apeman they last encountered, these were not wearing American clothes. The squad quickly eliminates the apemen and finds that the woman is a scientist, and after she has looked over everyone's wounds, the squad continues towards the Russian base.
Gameplay
Original War is distinctive from most RTS-games due to many reasons, the most distinctive feature is the fact that you are unable to train new soldiers. However, you are able to draft the local apemen in the area into your army, using scientists in a similar way of the converting priests in Age Of Empires. In addition you can, with the appropriate research, build computer-run vehicles and turrets. Both monkeys and computers are generally worse in combat than the human units. Another distinctive feature is the resources; there are three different types of resources in the game: Crates, which is the general resource, oil, which is a resource used mostly early- and midgame, and Siberite/Alaskite, which makes the most effective power, the most powerful engines and weapons and gives you useful research-abilities. Oil and Siberite/Alaskite are collected in a not too unusual way, you send out scientists to locate the deposits, and then build the appropriate building for a steady, infinite stream of the resource. Crates however are being sent from the future and generally arrives in a steady stream on the map, the trick is to localise where they have appeared, since this is random, to some extent since most maps in the game are programmed so that the crates arrive around certain locations. The American and Arabian teams are able to use Optoelectronics to locate the exact location of the crate that arrive, while the Russians, who have focused on time-based technology, are able to predict a perimeter where the crates will arrive a few seconds before they have arrived, giving them a head-off to the location.
Original War has a blend of RPG, each of your units has different movement speed, armor and firepower, for instance, an average human unit has a speed of 10, but some have 12 or 8. Technology exists that allows for higher firepower, but there is none for movement or armor. Every human or apeman unit has its own name, unique portrait, unique stats and unique xp requirements for levelling in a skill. Four kits exist, each with their own responding skill. The soldier kit has the combat skill, the engineer has the engineering skill, the mechanic has the mechanical skill and the scientist has the scientific skills. In addition each team has its own unique kit, all these respond to the combat skill. Monkeys can only be soldiers or engineers in Original War, but nevertheless they have all the four skills, but they do most of the time all start on zero. Each skill has its own xp-counter which is used to determine when you will gain a level in that skill. Xp is gained in a number of ways, the most usual one is by performing acts related to the skill. Also, when using the required kit, the experience will be gained more quickly. In the campaign you gain extra xp after each mission, the farther into the game you are, the more xp you gain, also, how many of the various demands (often sidequests) for each mission you meet also counts for the number of xp you gain at the end of the mission. This is added together and you get a high number of experience, you then choose what skill to focus most on your xp on, the three other skills only gain a small, equal between them, amount.
Original War Support
In January/February 2005, Stuart "Stucuk" Carey asked Altar Interactive (Now known as Altar Games) for permission to maintain Original War and they agreed. In June 2005 work began on the first patch v1.03, which primarily added basic Mod support to Original War. OWS (Original War Support) site was very basic when the first patch was launched in November. In December 2005 a forum was created and then a front end to the site.
On January 20th 2006 www.owsupport.com was bought for the site. It was around the time the forum was created that Beta Testers started to help with the patches (Finding bugs, Offering Ideas, etc). Over the course of 2006 OW has become more and more stable, with bugs removed, exploits removed and features added.
Original War Clanbase
Clanbase is a statistics system for Original War. When users do a ranked game with 1.07 or above the match results are sent to Clanbase where the data is processed and points are awarded to the winning team. Clanbase was created by Yuri Stratov and is maintained by Yuri.