BCT Commander

BCT Commander was one of the better Star Trek strategy games ever made, and it won a ton of awards at the 2007 THQ Sports Primetime awards. Now it's heading to the Xbox 360, and the PC.

The gameplay is more interesting than it may first appear, and gamers will be able to set the game's graphics to their hearts' content. It's being developed by the same team that made Battlestar Galactica for PC, and it's a typical action RTS.

The premise is simple: Players command a single fleet of elite ships to take out enemy forces. Once the battle is over, players will have to keep moving the units of their fleets and building facilities. The game will also have some interesting features that will be worthy of praise, including, but are not limited to, a galaxy map, secret cloaking technology, and a modular war engine.

Eschewing the other real-time strategy games in the genre, some of the sci-fi setting in the game will be more interactive, such as technological advancements. For instance, players will be able to move units through the futuristic cities of enemy fleets, and in the demonstration we watched, there was a giant submarine that exploded and eventually exploded, killing thousands of enemies.

Etherlords will also have a social networking feature, such as using users' Facebook and Twitter accounts, and it will be possible to group and create up to four players' characters for your team, with one on either side of the team. The game will also have a character generator, which is similar to Civ III's fame system. We saw a little bit of the social networking in the demonstration, and it gave us a glimpse of how players will interact with one another. However, the biggest difference between the traditional and innovative approach is that instead of having to build up a team of characters, players will need to build a squad and then choose the appropriate technologies to participate in combat.

Finally, it was clear that the game would support full online multiplayer sessions and be compatible with the Xbox Live network.

The game will feature a number of features that aren't in Civ III, but they will be expanded over the course of the game. Most notably, players will be able to try out four-versus-four multiplayer battles against each other, with the winner being the player with the most advanced technology. The game will support matches that have just three teams in a single team and will feature cooperative gameplay.

The game will also feature multiplayer modes that support up to four players in addition to head-to-head multiplayer. The company has made a number of improvements to the core game that should help players who prefer to play cooperatively with others. The game will now have streamlined combat, which should make it easier for players to make use of powerful weapons and make use of the game's siege-block system. The company also made sure that the AI was improved, and the number of units in the game has been reduced. To help out the computer, the AI has also been upgraded. For instance, you can now read your units' objectives in real time, and it will get faster while they're in the game. In addition, the game will now have better mission guidance, which should help give new players a better sense of their surroundings.

Firaxis has also added in more support for new players. The game will support up to 32 players in a multiplayer game, and thanks to a dynamic multiplayer code, each player will be able to select a specific battle (such as attacking an enemy base, capturing it, or seizing it) and let the computer guide him or her to his or her demise. For a more specific list of supported players, check out the official Firaxis Web site.

GameSpot: We've heard a few concerns over the fact that the game's artificial intelligence, for instance, is too complex for basic player-versus-player combat. Is this because the game will let you play with more than 20 players in any given map, or are there some features that have yet to be implemented in the finished game that should make it even more difficult to get the hang of?

Steve Miller: As a developer, we focus on gameplay that is fun for the long haul, and we don't want to impose a burden on you if you spend too much time playing the game alone. One of the biggest challenges in development for the artificial intelligence was to ensure that the AI was fully integrated, and we've found that AI players will play a huge part in that.

GS: Could you tell us a bit more about the game's art style? Will the game make use of some of the different character models that are available in the game? How has the art style evolved? How much customization will we expect from the finished product?

Steve Miller: Our art style has evolved from the previous two games in the series, with some additions here and there.