Conquest: Frontier Wars (PC)
	Developer Fever Pitch Studios Publisher Ubi Soft Entertainment Version 1.01 (Retail version with downloadable patch installed) Reviewed by Brad "Markup" Cole [Feedback] [Author Bio] Review Date January 31, 2002

Rating (out of 5.0) 3.0 out of 5.0*

Judge for yourself

Strengths Ability to control and move a large numbers of ships Can capture enemy space platforms Weaknesses Grainy video clips Single player campaign is lacking

Screenshots MORE SCREENSHOTS

* Notes Gaming Voice ratings are based on the technical and/or gameplay merits of a given product as well as the developer's choice of features and delivery of same. Our rating is not an endorsement of the thematic content of a given title. Gamers and parents are cautioned to determine if such content conflicts or coincides with their values and beliefs.

CFW is definitely worth looking into.

Therefore, when I first saw Conquest: Frontier Wars at my gaming store, I wasn't at all impressed. The box cover is as bland as it comes: a stark white background featuring three small images (an alien ship, a human, and some sort of robotic-thing) and the game's title. I thought about the game all of three seconds before moving on to a wall devoted to Gameboy, and that was it. I never gave CFW a second thought until I was asked to review the game for Gaming Voice about a month or so later.

After getting a chance to experience this game up close and personal, all I can say is: The person that designed the box cover for Conquest: Frontier Wars should be fired. They DID NOT do the game justice, and have probably hurt sales on what is a very respectable fleet-combat game.

Gameplay: Building and Battling Fleets

In Conquest: Frontier Wars, you command a fleet of space ships as well as various orbiting stations and satellites. You will use these forces to obliterate your opponent and complete mission objectives. I know, I know -- some of you are experiencing deja vu after reading this basic description, and you wouldn't be wrong in saying that CFW is similar to many other RTS (real-time strategy) games. Where it differs, though, is through such gameplay issues as unit control and supply line management.

Before we get to that aspect of the game, we'll start with some gameplay descriptions that many of you will find familiar. CFW has three races: the insect-like Mantis; the humans called Terrans; and the highly evolved Celareons (the robot-things on the cover). It also has three resources: ore (mined from planets or taken from asteroid fields); gas (harvested from planets or nebulae); and men (found on earth-like habitable planets). You can invest resources to develop improvements such as thicker ship hulls, improved ballistic weapons, and better radar. A fog of war covers areas you have not yet visited, and locations you have visited but currently have no troops in go "dark”.

[The player] must figure out how to keep your fleet properly outfitted during big battles.

At this point, the words "STARCRAFT CLONE" are coming from the lips of more than one reader. But, before you just dismiss this game as such, I should point out that there are a few differences. To begin with, Conquest players must deal with supply lines -- ships actually run out of ammunition, and creating valid supply lines can mean the difference between victory and defeat. This element adds a whole level of gameplay. You not only must figure out how to keep your fleet properly outfitted during big battles (ferrying in supply ships or actually building space platforms near heavy combat zones) but you can also destroy the supply lines of your enemy and leave them quite weak. Ships don't do a lot of good in combat if they can't fire their guns. As well, Conquest has one of the best selection of commands around. You can group various elements of your fleet to quick keys, establish patrol routes for them, and order all ships in a group to go at the same speed so that the heavy cruisers get to the battle at the same time as the lighter ships.

Then there's the little feature of battle wreckage: you can actually salvage materials from destroyed ships. Finally, Conquest: Frontier Wars allows players to use various troop ships to actually capture enemy space platforms instead of just destroying them. With this strategy, you can eventually create a fleet of ships from another race, though it takes a lot of resources to do so. What this adds to the game is the strategic question of whether to simply obliterate enemy platforms around planets and then build your own or spend the extra resources to create the vessels needed for taking over your opponent's platforms. This choice makes the game more interesting to those playing it. While not all of these elements individually are unique, together they make CFW a joy to play.

Single Player Game: Only One Race?!?

There are two options for the single player game: Quick Battles (a single "mission" where players can select the number of foes and what races will be played) and Campaign. Campaign also has two options: the primary campaign (which is terran based) or a brief training mission as one of the other two races. Because of the disappointing length of the "training missions" and the repetitive nature of "Quick Battles," the campaign is where most people in single player mode will spend their time.

As stated above, the main campaign in CFW is ONLY terran based; while you can gain the ships of other races in the campaign, the missions are played only from the view of the terrans. While only having one campaign may raise fears that the single player game will end too quickly, let me assure readers that the campaign is of a decent length -- not so long as the combined missions from all of the Starcraft race-campaigns, but certainly long enough for most players. In fact, while missions do have some diversity beyond blowing up the enemy, they actually end up getting tedious and repetitive about midway through. Still, I enjoyed playing quite a few of the missions, and that's what is important.

Multiplayer Game: Ubi.com!

The person that designed the box cover for Conquest: Frontier Wars should be fired.

Breaking the trend of having GameSpy be the primary arena for multiplayer gaming, Conquest: Frontier Wars can be played over Ubi Soft's game network, Ubi.com. The bad news is, there are very few people on Ubi.com that want to play CFW. So, while games like Rogue Spear: Black Thorn and Ghost Recon have hundreds of players on in prime time, CFW usually only has a few dozen. While a small multiplayer community can sometimes be a non-issue (see my Strifeshadow review for a good example), it IS a problem here because of how difficult it is to get a multiplayer game going. In fact, more often than not, all of the "forming" games were password locked when I wanted to play, and I was unable to join them. This was quite disappointing, and should be noted by multiplayer game fans out there.

Still, CFW has other multiplayer options. You can run it over a LAN, through a TCP/IP connection, and via a modem. So, if you have a few friends out there that enjoy fleet battle games, Conquest should not be overlooked.

Quick Comments

• The game does not come with a level editor.
• The ships are done nicely in 3D on a 2 dimensional background of space.
• The "video" segments and cutscenes appear grainy and outdated.
• There are humorous "commercials" added prior to receiving major orders. This is a very nice touch.
• Like dozens of other recent RTS games, CFW does not seem to like firewalls (or at least it didn't when I tried to use ZoneAlarm on Ubi.com).
• This game has gone on sale for $15.00 or less at numerous locations. At that price, it is a steal for RTS fans.

Conquest: Frontier Wars does not have the broad appeal of such RTS phenomenon as Starcraft, and probably won't be as enjoyable to the mainstream audience. For those that are interested in fleet battle games, though, CFW is definitely worth looking into. I enjoyed playing it, and I believe other RTS fans will, too.