Cortex Command is a great, action-packed, physics filled shooter by Datarealms, I came across it through the Demo CD of
PC Gamer June 2009. Of course it's only a demo, so many of the features of the full game (Not-yet-released, sadly) are not available.
But let's get on to the game itself, considering it won $2,500 (
IIRC) at the latest Independent Games Fesatival, my hopes were high as I booted it up for the first time. The loading took a while but after a quick disclaimer I was rewarded with a cool, handpainted introduction 'Slideshow' of sorts, accompanied by some quite good SID-metal music. The basic story is that a few hundred years from now, humans left their bodies and became disembodied brains, these brains could be easily kept in stasis and so space travel became possible, Earth created a thriving empire, but soon the demand for resources became too high and war broke out... This is where you come in. (And a friend as
CC can cater for up to 4 players on one
PC)
The tutorial helped me grab the basic concepts of gameplay
1) You are a brain in a bunker
2) Your brain can telepathically control remote bodies
3) These bodies must kill the other brain and stop yours from dying
4) They also dig for gold so you can buy more bodies
5) It's Red Team vs Green Team
Simple.
Crash-test Dummies killing each other with AK-47's, happens quite a lot in CC The tutorial went by swimmingly, My superior forces overwhelmed the enemy brain, then I made the mistake of not bothering with the other missions and leaping straight into a skirmish game, on Easy difficulty I wasn't expecting the game to get going for at least 1 minute. So, in my arrogance, I placed only a few troops, and a 'primary' body with a laser rifle (possibly the best in-game weapon
BTW) then, about 5 seconds after starting the game, whilst in control of my primary body, in comes an enemy dropship which discharges 5 decently-armed troops. I panic and my laser rifle eliminates the dropship, unfortunately because of the games crazily good physics this backfired as an explosion killed most of my troops, and flying debris killed of the rest, including the body I was occupying!
That was expensive... OK, now my brain is on it's own, I need to buy more troops! It's OK as I have enough Gold for a large army (as it says in the previous screenshot).
So what do I choose? There are several different kinds of bodies
1) The standard Bodies, which are mainly Zombies and Robots o_o
2) The 'Coalition' Bodies, which are light or heavy soldiers, equipable with a plethora of weaponry
3) The 'Dummy' Bodies, homicidal Crash-test dummies and the hardy Dreadnoughts
4) The 'Ronin' Bodies, a number of different troops whose only real difference is appearance
Yeah, yeah, these are OK, but there was really only one thing I wanted...
Fear the free crabs! OK, this wasn't the best choice, a crate full of crabs, as far as I can ascertain, the crabs don't actually do anything, but it was a hell of a lot of fun when this happened...
Crustacean Massacres like this happen all too often in CC... I needed to drop in more troops, as my crabs had done very little to the advancing enemy, Coalition troops seemed a sensible idea, but NOT the standard 'MK1' Delivery Rocket as it usually falls over after delivery, either falling over and crushing its cargo or incinerating them with it's exhaust. A small amount of firing on the rocket turns a routine troop insertion into a bloody nightmare...
Unfortunately, after my troops dropped in (on the far more reliable Dropship transport) and I wiped the floor with my opposition, my 6 minutes of Demo time ran out, and my Brain blew up. This is the main problem with the
CC demo, aside from campaign missions, you can't actually win...
Nevermind, I restart the game, I want to play again and again...
Summary: Cortex Command is a brilliant, addictive game with fun features including a level editor if you buy a registration key from DataRealms' website. The learning curve is steep-ish, but not unmanageable, Skrimishes can be unpredictable, but that is why the game is so good. Can't wait for the full version!
Hee, hee, I've got a laser rifle, that Dummy is SO boned... This screenshot is a good example of unpredictability, immediatly after this was taken the Dummy was mown down by friendly fire from a Dreadnought, which proceeded to get stuck trying to get down the shaft, with this entrance to my base blocked, i redirected my attentions elsewhere...
Hope you enjoyed this review!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Woops, I forgot to add that you can dowload the game for Mac or Windows from;
http://www.datarealms.com/games.php
Why thank you! I agree with you that it can be a bit tough on beginners, but not really tough