Tom Clancy's ruthless.com |
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Saturday December 12, 1998
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Tom Clancy's ruthless.com |
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Saturday December 12, 1998
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In this game, business is war! |
| Red
Storm Entertainment proves itself to be the 'different'
game developer. So far they've taken on games that no
other company would do. Such games include Rainbow Six,
Dominant Species and Politika. All of the games above
were either the first games like them or the best in
their genre. The only mediocre game I've seen come out of
Red Storm was SSN, which was their first title and even
it had its good qualities. Following Red Storm's 'tradition' of gaming comes ruthless.com. Ruthless is a mixture of business strategy and war strategy with the ability to run your software company anyway you like from a legal powerhouse, to a hackers complex or even just a straight up product producing software company, ruthless is truly a dynamic game in almost every way. When Red Storm started ruthless, their main goal was to make a game that was totally replayable - and it shows. Ruthless.com features six scenarios as well as a campaign. In each scenario or campaign, the player chooses from a list of 96 randomly generated CEO's to start with. Each CEO is generated to have one of sixteen traits. Then each player sets up their buildings. (The number of buildings you start with is specified by the scenario you are playing) There are a total of 9 departments to choose from and each building can have 6 total departments. After selecting your CEO and setting up your corporation, you choose which of the 16-20 stock market tiles you wish to put your buildings on. With so many options and variables it's nearly impossible to play the same scenario with the same configuration twice. Not to mention the CEO's running the other enemy corporations have their own unique traits. Some are crooks, who play dirty and are easily bought, while others play it nice and by the book. Finding weaknesses and exploiting them are what ruthless is all about. However, you're not limited to this. If you'd prefer to simply have a company that puts out quality products, then that's just fine. Just make sure you protect them and
Cutting a deal with an enemy corporation |
 Is it getting crowded, or is it just me? yourself against attacks from your not-so-nice competitors. Attacks can come in many shapes and forms. Both you and your enemies have the ability to hack, steal, lie, cheat, frame, kidnap, assassinate and even firebomb a corporation building and there are many more which I won't go into. With this many ways to be attacked, you have to be prepared for any kind of attack from any of your competing corporations. This means setting up firewalls, hiring 24 hour security forces and gaining legal immunities for selected buildings and departments. Ruthless, while containing some strategy war game elements, is more of a VERY competitive turn-based business simulation. After setting up your corporation you get into the meat of the game. One of the most difficult parts of this game is the steep learning curve. When I started playing the game, I assumed that to gain stock market tiles (the battle ground in ruthless) you simply had to make more quality products, but it's not that simple. If you are to succeed, you need to do some dirty work and disable an enemy corporation's hold on a group of tiles so you can take them yourself. But if you'd rather not play dirty, you can always hire other enemy corporations to do it for you...for a price. Taking and holding market tiles isn't like holding ground in your standard wargame. To hold your grip on the market, you have to be protected. Equally important, you need products to sell, as well as a good marketing department to sell those products. By the time you read this, ruthless.com should be hitting the shelves in the software retailer near you. ruthless.com is a sure winner to those interested, though it might be a little to complex for the average gamer. With nearly unlimited replay value, many features and options as well as 6 player multiplayer, ruthless has a lot going for it. |
Company: Category: NOTES: Interest: 92% TOTAL : 89% Requirements: Operating System: Memory: Hard Drive: Sound Card: Video:
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