The road that Conquest: Frontier Wars has been long and treacherous. Once under the wings of Digital Anvil, Conquest was looking to be one of the premier RTS games near the end of the century. Then Microsoft steps in and acquires Digital Anvil, leaving Conquest to die a slow death. However, members of the Digital Anvil team would defect, and start a new company, Fever Pitch Studios, and would continue what they have started with Conquest. It would take some time, but with the help of their new publisher, UbiSoft, Conquest would finally be able to hit stores. The road that Conquest would travel would take about three to four years, which gave Fever Pitch plenty of time to work on and optimize the game. The result is a game that is polished, stable, great to look at considering how long it has been in development, and fun to play. Conquest: Frontier Wars is a game that introduces some innovative and creative elements, while sticking to what has worked for previous real-time strategy games. If you are a fan of the legendary Starcraft, then you do not want to miss this one.

The story begins 200 years in the future where the exploring Terrans while traveling through the recently discovered wormholes, have somehow found themselves in the middle of a civil war with the alien species only known as Mantis. The presence of the Terrans now puts them at risk, as the Mantises have begun to focus their attacks on them. This new war sparks an alliance with another civilization, the highly intelligent, energy-based Celareons. Yet the tension between the two races could cause the alliance to collapse, allowing the Mantis to wipe out both the Terrans and the Celareons.

The story is very engaging, and you always have a chance to be a part of the story as it unfolds, instead of being a bystander and watching the story being told. The campaign consists of sixteen missions, and during the completion of certain missions, they will treat you to a CG cut scene, putting you right in the action. The voice acting can be cheesy at times, but not to the point where you do not pay attention to what they are saying. Unfortunately, you can only be apart of the Terran campaign, as there is no Mantis or Celareon campaign. But the time it will take many to complete the Terran campaign should more than compensate. An overall solid effort.

Gameplay:

Playing Conquest, I immediately got the impression that there was a lot of Star Trek and Starcraft influence behind this game. The races closely resemble the races in Starcraft, and the overall environment feels like something took straight out of a Star Trek episode. But to say that this game plays like a Star Trek or Starcraft game would be anything but the truth. For one, the game uses a multiple map system for you to play on. That basically means that they have no longer confined you and your opponent to just area of space like in previous strategy games. By using the worm holes, you can travel and colonize another part of space in no time at all. This feature alone adds a new element to strategy play, as you now must learn to control key sectors in space to keep yourself from being run over by the opposition.

Another feature is the game's use of a fleet system. Once you create an admiral, group some ships together to form a fleet, and give the fleet a general order, and once placed in an area, they will now travel with some intelligence, now being able to kill targets within their vicinity, and knowing when to retreat. This is a really cool feature because you can now trust your ships to do things on their own, and not always have to click to a certain area to keep them moving.

One of the other cool and unique features is the game's supply system. In a real combat situation, ammunition is not exhaustible, and you are required to reload quite a bit to continue the fight. This is something that the majority of real-time strategy games on the market have not implemented into their battle system, and those that had made its reloading and resupplying structure more difficult than it needs to be. And because the ships in Conquest do run out of ammo frequently, it certainly would not be fun to travel through four different star systems to attack an enemy, only to travel all the way back to reload. To help remedy this problem, Conquest features a supply station, and supply ships to reload your ships on the fly. This cool feature adds even more depth to this strategy game, because your ships having enough supplies will be an important factor to winning in this game.

Ore, gas, and crew are the resources that you must gather throughout the game. But to gather these resources, one must construct a base on the perimeter of a planet. The planets themselves will also contain one or all three of the harvestable resources mentioned above, but you will need to mine asteroids, nebulae, for more ore and gas. Other than defense platforms, all structures must be built on a planet. And because the planet cannot support every structure that you have in your arsenal, you will need to build structures on other planets in space. So having as many planets at your disposal will be key to maximizing the power of your race.

The computer AI is very intelligent and responsive. They are certainly not shy on taking the offensive, and will do so with force. When your fleet battles an AI-controlled fleet, they always go after your critical ships first, eventually leaving you helpless and defenseless. The only gripes that I have with the game are that with all these new features, there can be too much going on at times. Although the use of admirals and supply ships help quite a bit, when you play a skirmish on one of the 5+map levels, it can become quite busy, and the pace of the game can slow down. The learning curve to Conquest is quite long, due to everything that has been put into this game, but with time, and perhaps the use of a voice recognition product (i.e., : Gamecommander), the experience will be very fulfilling.

Graphics/Sound:

Conquest features 3D graphics, which are zoomable and rotatable, on a 2D plane. If you have played Star Trek: Armada, then you will notice some striking resemblances. On the surface, the ships and models are not the best that I have seen on the market, but they are more than sufficient. However, the beauty of the engine is when you zoom in. There you can see some detail that I was not expecting in this game. Units that are building structures or ships have little mechanical arms that move aggressively, harvesters extracting ore or gas, and watching the storage fields of the harvesters fill up with each extraction. The ships also show the extent of their damage, with parts of the outer hull gone, and exposing the damaged circuits. When a ship has been defeated, you will begin to see systematic explosions around the ship before it explodes. The damage effects are not as good as Dominion Wars, but are pleasing to look at nonetheless. The wormholes come to life as well when a ship is coming in or going out of it. The background is no slouch as well. The many stars light up the space, the nebulae gas clusters pulsate frequently, and the ore asteroids rotate nonstop. The in-game HUD seems bigger than it should be. While you have the option of removing it while playing, unless you have a product like gamevoice or gamecommander, you will need to learn the many hotkeys in the game to pull off a successful campaign.

The sound in the game seems like something found from your typical space movie. Everything from the background music to the laser fire, has sci-fi written all over it. For the most part, it is used very well, though I would question their use of a siren when a "mission alert" pops up on your screen. Nevertheless, the sound always gives you the feeling that you are apart of something special.

Multiplayer/Devices:

Using the ubi.com gaming portal, you can enter the lobby and set up a game with no problem at all. With the ability to play up to eight players, multiplayer gaming can be intense and nonstop. Though you may want to limit your sessions to four players, because I experienced some serious lag on the larger maps with just five people, all of which have a broadband connection. So having eight people in the game could work for or against you. Having eight people could mean a very long game, because of the multi-map system, expanding your empire could take some time.

With all of the hotkeys and the possible number of squads that you can create, having a device like Gamecommander or the MS Strategic Commander is highly recommended. It can literally cut your learning curve in half, as it did mine. Be warned that the hotkeys do not perform the same functions for every race, so you will need to create three different profiles for each race. So expect to have around 150 total commands for the game.

The Wrap-up:

Conquest: Frontier Wars is a game that effectively uses classic real-time strategy elements, while simultaneously showing that there is still a bit of innovation that can be used in the genre. For a game that has been in development for four years, it's good to see that Fever Pitch did not let that time go to waste. The scope of this game may turn away some gamers, but those who are will to stick it out, will find that the game has everything it needs to be a great game. This is one of the top RTS games of 2001, hands down.