Game Review - by StormDaemon
The sequel to CyberStorm brings with it the rare option of turn based or real time strategic combat and tries to deliver a fun and nice looking game. Due to the hard gameplay and not so great graphics, CyberStorm 2 fails in its attempt to try to simulate a good RTS game. Anyone who expects this to be Command & Conquer will be sorely disappointed, and even those who don't care what it might be will probably be disappointed.

Storyline:
CyberStorm 2 takes places in the StarSiege universe, years and years after the Cybrids have long been defeated. Eight corporations now vie for power throughout the universe, and when a new jumpgate is discovered, the corporations race to try to take control of it, because whoever has control of that jumpgate will have a huge amount of power within the universe. You are a Herc commander working for one of those corporations, and your job is to gain control of the star system and the jumpgate, all in the mean time keeping the other corporations at bay.

Features:
Not too many features abounded within this game, but it does allow for customization of units and manipulation of the pilots. The graphics aren't a good feature, and the sound is average, but if the graphics are ignored, the gameplay is not that bad. The menu system is really nice looking, and you have a number of options that include training, quickstart, single player, and multi-player. The training teaches you all that you need to know at a slow pace, which is both good and bad. The quickstart lets you specify what type of mission, where, what corporation, and levels of difficulty, or you can just leave it as a random mission. The single player option puts you into the campaign of taking control of the jumpgate, while the multi-player allows you to battle over the internet, network, or direct connection with other people.

Gameplay:
Real time strategy games are always interesting, but this was not at all. The game does allow for either turn based or real time game playing, and while turn based may be more strategic, real time usually is a lot more fun. Unfortunately, walking into battle and having 4 of your units destroyed in 10 seconds is ridiculous, especially when you only have 5 units for the mission. Even though the graphics were disappointing, as will later be shown, I did want to give the gameplay a chance, but considering that the mission was on the easiest level, and I had the best technology, having the mission end in failure about a minute after it started kind of detracted from my view of the game. I would hate to see what a hard mission is like, but even with the unreasonably hard difficulty, the control of the units was pretty much point and click, except for the fact that the units stayed in formation, which is rarely done in real time strategy games. Another bad part of the game was that the units needed to be told to attack time and time again, and they had to be moved close to the enemy. They don't move to range or anything, they just sit there and usually die. Even though the game looked promising, the gameplay was very disappointing.

Graphics:
The graphics were good looking in one sense, and really bad in another. In the good aspect, the still graphics were nice looking and the menus were done very well and futuristic looking, but due to the graphics engine or whatever, during combat, everything did not look good at all. At normal resolutions with a fast computer, the game was choppy, and why that occurs is beyond me because the game is 2D and not particularly detailed enough to warrant a huge amount of processor time. When in 640x480 mode, which ran smooth, the view screen was small and the graphics looked really bad. The explosions looked even worse, and considering the fact that thirty seconds into the game you are pretty much destroyed, it didn't help to have it all look really bad. The weapon effects were really bad too, especially at the "low" resolution of 640x480. I'm used to seeing those kinds of graphics at 320x200.

The only good graphics were the menus and the movies, which were both very nice and fit the game well. Unfortunately, due to the graphics engine, the rest of the game was brought down quite a bit.

Sound FX:
Just about everything in the game had sounds, from the mission details to the computer that talks to you during training. All of the vehicles and Hercs had their own little sounds, which were cute, but didn't make up for the graphics at all. An interesting part of all the sounds was that the game would talk to you and tell you about how to train and what mission was coming up, which did add to the game, but not too much. Since having a computer speak during a game is starting to become common place, CyberStorm 2 wasn't breaking any ground.

The music was really upbeat and had a kind of techno/rock mix to it, which is sure to please anyone who is into real time strategy games. While not classic music, it still did its job, but due to what was being seen on the screen, it wasn't able to grab much attention.

Overall:
CyberStorm 2: Corporate Wars had a nice idea, but failed to achieve its goals of being a real time strategy game. The turn based strategy was okay, with nothing to brag about, but with the poor graphics engine and average everything else, the entire game failed to live up to its potential. Even with promising ideas of both real time and turn based play, the game lost a lot of ground with its incredibly hard gameplay and substandard graphics, which was very disappointing. Therefore, anyone who likes the StarSiege universe might get a kick out of the game, but any hardcore strategy, real time or turn based, will be sorely disappointed.