Ground Control 2 begins in 2741 AD on a distant planet called Morning Star Prime — a world initially colonized during the 24th century by the Crayven Corporation from Earth. Morning Star Prime is but one of hundreds of planets discovered during mankind's re-emergence from the Third World War. After hundreds of years of peace, the Terran Empire is now expanding its borders and attempting to dominate the galaxy.

In Ground Control 2 there are three major factions: The Terran Empire, the North Star Alliance (NSA) and the alien race known as Virons.

The Northern Star Alliance is one of the few colonies that still resists the might of the Terran Empire. Their home planet, Morning Star Prime, has been under siege for many years and they valiantly continue the fight. Originally a colony of the now-defunct Crayven Corporation, the Alliance has survived due to strong leadership and resourcefulness. They are known as a resilient people and this shows in everything they do and create. Though the colony has only existed for a couple hundred years, they managed to construct a mighty space fleet, only to see it destroyed by the Empire.

The Terran Empire, a relatively new empire formed out of the ashes of the old mega corporations, is driving an iron willed offensive against the outer colonies and is now severely threatening the NSA home world planet Morning Star Prime. The goal of the Terran Empire is to to reconquer the outer colonies and reunite mankind at all costs. The Imperial military relies on advanced technology, using heavy hoverdynes, lethal plasma weapons as well as a seemingly endless supply of fresh legionnaires. Emperor Marcus Augustus has put the trust in his right hand agent, the most ruthless and successful, Imperator Vlaana Azleea, to bringing Morning Star Prime into the Imperial fold.

The Virons are extremely reclusive and xenophobic. Little else is known about them except that they are bipeds and are wielders of a highly advanced nano-organic technology. When negotiations with them failed, reports began coming of battles being fought in the Ragnarok Nebula, the unconfirmed location of the Viron homeworld. In these reports there are several references of Viron units "melding" on the battlefield to form completely new vehicles of destruction.

Without first reading the manual, I leapt immediately into play. I found three sections available to play: Tutorial, NSA and Viron.

Starting with the Tutorial, I found a fantastic introduction to the game and its controls. The Tutorial is also the kick off to the Campaign's storyline. The Tutorial gives you written instructions on what to do — as well as informing you verbally. This gives you the opportunity to see the game in action and shows you some of the basic units that you will be using throughout the game.

Within each of the three Campaign sections there are multiple scenarios. As you complete each, a new scenario will become available. Throughout the entire Campaign, the learning process for the game continues. For example, in most every scenario a new unit is introduced to you and you are given the opportunity to see it in action. In a few cases, when something really new comes along, you will again get a short training session — an example being when you start on the Viron phase of the Campaign.

As Captain Jacob Angelus and a member of the NSA, you will lead your troops into battle against the forces of Vlaana Azleea, the Terran Emperor's military commander who is tasked with subjugating the worlds of the NSA. Throughout the course of the Campaign you will have an opportunity to learn about your opponent as well as interact (through scripted video) with other members of the NSA. Occasional cut scenes are used to enhance the storyline and get you moving in new directions.

While in Campaign mode you will fight battles using NSA and Viron units. There are many different types of units for you to use: infantry, snipers, APC's, tanks, engineers and aerial units. Each unit has two separate modes — primary and secondary. By default, they are all in their primary mode.

For example, an NSA Engineer will drive around and shoot at any enemies that come near it, or be sent to repair damaged units (as it acts as both a mechanic and a medic). In its secondary mode, it becomes a stationary vehicle, and will repair everything that comes within its zone of control (which is visible on the monitor by a field of floating +'s). The infantry uses small arms in its primary mode, and switches over to LAW's in their secondary mode. Etc, etc. …

When you use Viron units, not only do you have a primary/secondary mode, but all units are capable of "merging" with like units. In some cases, this makes them more powerful and, in others, changes their functionality.

A Viron Engineer in primary mode is like any other unit — a combat unit. In secondary mode, it can still move around but can now repair/heal its fellow's; though its weapons become inoperative. Now, if you merge two Viron Engineers together, you get a Viron Mortar unit capable of firing a short range indirect weapon.

In addition to the various vehicles you will have control over there are also hardpoints (anti-infantry guns, anti-tank guns, radar installations, etc) in the game that can be captured, repaired and manned; giving you hundreds of different unit types/modes to use in the game — more than enough to keep you busy for a very long time. Not only is the game diverse, but learning how to use them all is an experience all its own.

The graphics in the game are really amazing. When you view the battlefield from the maximum height, the infantry look like ants roaming about and the vehicles are distinguishable from their silhouettes. When you zoom in on the infantry and vehicles, or any other object in the game, they explode in wonderful detail and really come to life. Not being content to just stand around like stone lumps, infantry units that are not engaged in battle, or on the move, stay in dynamic motion scanning their surroundings. Vehicles expel exhaust, or puffs of distortion around their grav-drives. And, when they accelerate from a stationary position, the amount of exhaust momentarily increases.

Buildings, flora, fauna and the environment all come together in a visually stunning display of graphic design to create a very realistic backdrop to the game giving you the feel that you are moving through a real world. Water ripples, distorts and reflects objects around it. You will occasionally see flocks of birds moving across the sky. In the desert scenarios, there are rock and steam geysers everywhere. Night, day, rain, fog, wind and sand storms will all come together to make your life difficult as the environment and the world continue on its own schedule, not taking into account that you have a war to fight and battles to win.

On occasion you will discover that your area of effect and range for weapons and sighting will be inhibited by the current weather conditions. Sometimes this is a good thing as it may allow you to get close to that Pulsar Cannon without it turning you into protoplasmic slime. Though, it also means that you need to get even closer to it so that you can shoot at it … .

The UI and controls for Ground Control 2 are primarily driven through the use of the mouse, except for using the keyboard to change your camera position. You can nearly play the entire game using the mouse and the UI buttons that are visible on the screen at all times. Your options for units will display when you click on them, and only the options available to that unit are available to you. So, it makes it fairly easy to use. After going through the Tutorial, it was fairly easy to figure out each units capabilities and how to make them work. Finding what the best use for each unit is became an experiment in trial and error…

Sound effects in the game are very good. As you move around the map there is a change in the ambient sound to match your environment. You hear only those sounds within range of your viewpoint. I really liked the verbal responses from the units as they either confirmed your orders or informed you that they were not possible to fulfill. It definitely made a difference when things started to get busy and I didn't always have the time to really look at a map to see if I was sending them up a cliff or not.

Make sure to install the Map Editor after installing the game. I'm sure you will have fun playing with it, I did. The tutorial (which can be found at this URL: http://xed.massive.se/) will get you started on the editor and you can begin building your own scenarios. The Map editor is all real time and graphically driven. Everything you place on the map is in motion so you can see what the world will look like in the game as you build it.

The game concept is good, with the background and continuing storyline it gives you a reason for being there and a goal to reach — the survival of the population of the NSA. It's not just a mindless series of combat scenarios. The Campaign has some replayability to it as you can spend time experimenting with different tactics and difficulty levels. You can also use it for training to prepare yourself for the multiplayer side of the game.

Ground Control 2 was not difficult to learn how to play in terms of controlling the game and the units. Learning the actual use of the individual units will require quite a bit of experimentation and practice as there are quite a lot of them and each unit has a secondary mode that changes their function, in some cases dramatically. The design of the single player game is solid and straightforward, and makes it easy to jump right in and start playing.

Overall I give Ground Control 2 high marks in design, playability, stunning graphics and sheer fun. Though in general I have difficulty in real-time strategy games (I sometimes find myself focusing to much on a single area of the game and neglect the rest of the game), I had a blast playing it. My wife commented that I was spending too much time playing it and not enough time reviewing it. My only quibble about the game is that when the scenarios start, your in the game and running. There is no prep time to starting to units or even know what units you have. As a result, I often ended up wasting valuable time just getting the units available organized, and in some cases having to leap right into a firefight without having a clue what units I'm sending into battle — though I'm discovering that this is a typical issue with military style RTS's. I consider this such a minor quiblle that I highly recommend GC2 to anyone out there that is a gun-toting sci-fi fan.

Though I only touched on the single player part of the game, there are two other playing options. One is to play multiplayer over a LAN and the other is to play multiplayer through Massgate, an online service where you can link up with people from all over the world using the Gamespy arcade system. Assuming I can survive out in the world of live opponents, I'll continue this review with an update in the future.