Open-Ended Europe…
In Aggression, the player takes control of one of the major players in the European scene during the early 20th century, namely England, France, Germany or Russia. Through sheer military might or clever use of diplomacy, the goal is to conquer the entire European continent and parts of North Africa under your banner. Not bad, not bad at all…
Fighting the...interface?
In its core, Aggression is a two layer RTS game, with a grand strategy overlay similar to an over-simplified Hearts of Iron and a Sudden Strike clone tactical and traditional RTS battles. As expected, all actions in both ‘layers’ are carried through by the mouse, having the ‘traditional’ group commands and shortcut keys for tactical battles. Unfortunately, the player is greeted by an artistic approach that dates back into the mid-90’s. The main screen taken over by the main map –strategic or tactical depending on the situation- and three rectangular sections at the bottom of the screen that contain the mini-map, additional information for the selected unit or city and the shortcut key ‘box’ reminiscent of the Sudden Strike series. Moreover, there’s a small strip at the top of the screen that holds the buttons for the Diplomacy, Statisticsand Research as well as information about the player’s economy. We’ve talked about our ‘gameplay over shiny graphics’ approach to games in general but being treated with an interface dated from the Amiga era is definitely not going to cut it today.
Some good, some bad…
Putting the dated interface aside, the actual game graphics are up to the task with a few pleasant surprises. The strategic map of Europe is a simplified version of the Total War series map with most major cities portrayed and the relevant characters such as generals, scientists and country leaders present. Although not awe-inspiring visuals it’s functional and accurate allowing for immediate situational awareness.
The same approach is carried over in the tactical battle visuals which offer two distinct viewing angles. At first there’s your usual 3D camera that gives a close perspective on the action and provides the best visual experience and then when the camera is fully zoomed out, the game switches to a top-down perspective that gives a better overall view of the battlefield, a definitely good design decision. Note has to be taken to the unit’s historical accuracy especially those in the WWI to mid-war era, one of Aggression’s pleasant surprises. In the early part of the game we were most of the units had the correct models and color schemes so expect to see early WWI equipment with accurate looks and performance. However as we get further into the timeline the age-old issue with German late-war vehicles is there: Yet again, another RTS game uses dark grey visuals for them, taking away a lot of the units believability.
I wonder, how many games will it take for developers to realize that WWII German vehicles after 1943 were painted in three-colored camouflage scheme and NOT in dark grey? Correct me if I’m wrong but we haven’t seen proper three-color camouflage scheme since the days of Steel Panthers…
As for infantry, individual soldiers seem to have ‘stiff’ animation sequences and lack that extra amount of detail. One of Aggression’s biggest assets in the graphics department is the destructible structures that get taken apart in a random way when pounded by heavy weapons such as artillery and air raids. Too bad that they drop neatly into their footprint and don’t fill a city streets with debris though. However, the excessive use of tracers from almost all units manages to distract the player instead of immersing him/her in the game.
To summarize, there’s nothing special and nothing inherently bad so far with the game’s visuals.
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Aggression Reign over Europe 
