Ground Control

Ground Control closed out the nineties with a genuine technical showcase of where real-time strategy could go once stripped of resource gathering. In a distant future, the Crayven Corporation clashes with the religious Order of the New Dawn over colonies, and the player doesn't command an economy but a landing force. Before each mission you assemble several squads from the available unit types, choose their equipment and specialization, and whatever lands on the surface is everything you have to win the mission with. Reinforcements arrive only when the scenario allows it, so losses are real losses.

In gameplay terms this is pure tactics. Units have behavior modes, formations, and abilities, terrain elevation affects both range and sight, forests and rocks provide cover, and artillery without scouting eyes fires blind. Battles between infantry squads, armored vehicles, and aircraft form a clear system of counters, where correctly deploying one squad against an exposed weakness decides an engagement faster than any reserve force could. The campaign is complemented by narration with voiced characters, and the game also offered multiplayer, where the same squad-building system proved surprisingly balanced.

What drew the most attention at the time, however, was the presentation. A fully three-dimensional engine allowed the camera to freely rotate and zoom in all the way to individual soldiers, maps felt sprawling and cinematic, and the lighting effects and explosions ranked among the best available on graphics accelerators in the year 2000. Reviewers praised the game for its looks as well as its nerve in dropping base-building, though some players sorely missed the usual construction layer. A sequel followed later, and the game was also distributed for free, which keeps it an easily accessible showcase of the genre's tactical branch. Today it's mainly a pleasantly short, tight campaign without wasted menu-clicking, one that shows that stripping strategy of its economy doesn't impoverish it, but instead shifts attention to decision-making on the battlefield.