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As bloated as the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) genre becomes every year, there are still a few good offerings that harness the older harvest-economy system. What is really surprising is how few developers venture into the realm of true tactical strategy. Last year Massive Entertainment released their Tactical RTS title and sales aside, this was easily one of the best strategy titles of 2000. The expansion pack, Ground Control: Dark Conspiracy, touches upon a lot that made the original great but it really doesn't add anything new to the overall experience. What makes of for this is the fact that this game expansion will only cost you the price of shipping. Dark Conspiracy's story takes off right where Ground Control left off. The first missions are built around the objective of escaping the planet before being overwhelmed by the remaining enemy forces in the area. The scripting is just as good as what we saw in the original. Mission scripting used to be a rare thing in this type of game, and it may be old hat now, but the use of it in many modern games is sometimes overstated. Ground Control and its expansion hit a very nice balance that can only be compared to Homeworld and Starcraft.
With the Ground Control engine it is still very easy to impress. At its time it produced beautiful visuals and fantastic environmental effects, and it still does. Unfortunately nothing completely new was done with it. There are some palette changes, and the new units look pretty cool, but aside from that Dark Conspiracy doesn't offer up any extra eye candy than what was offered before. Most all other In fact a lot of Dark Conspiracy seems to reflect the level of attention paid to the visuals. The sounds (and decent voicing), control, and the multiplayer aspects of the game have not been touched. The control system works always worked quite well. Aside from the camera and control scheme used in Sierra's Homeworld series, I cannot think of a control/camera scheme that would better fit this game anyway. As mentioned above decent voice acting makes a welcome encore appearance, which not only works to keep Dark Conspiracy audibly presentable, but also keep the transition of characters from the original very fluid. Dark Conspiracy is probably one of the best (and last) examples of an 'old school' expansion pack. As time has gone on the standards set for an expansion pack have grown pretty steep. This isn't a bad thing but taking Age of Empires II: The Conquerors as one of the latest examples, a person can really see how much an expansion has to affect a title in order for people to really appreciate it anymore. Dark Conspiracy's price tag is perhaps its best feature, and this reasoning sheds a bit of light on the whole 'free' thing. This is a good expansion, but for its time maybe not the best it could have been. Weird videogame politics aside, I really don't know why Sierra Studios and High Voltage Software decided to offer Dark Conspiracy as free add-on software. The production quality, save the cg portraits in mission briefings, is as high as what was found in the original Ground Control. It is obvious some work went into this expansion; so why is it free? This free offer may be a bit ominous in regards to the future of the Ground Control series, but why ask why? If you are interested in ordering Dark Conspiracy, just go to Sierra's Dark Conspiracy Site, and fill out the form. If you are interested in learning even more about this series check out Gaming Age's Ground Control Review.
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