he 3-D real-time strategy game Z: Steel Soldiers is a sequel to the 2-D real-time strategy game called simply Z. Both games cast the player in the role of Captain Zod and in command of an army of cantankerous, argumentative robots whose job it is to defeat an enemy army of similarly irascible robots. Zod did this so well in the first game that now, as the galaxy struggles toward peace, he has been shipped out to a nothing planet in the middle of nowhere with the idea of keeping him out of trouble. Zod, of course, is not the keeping-out-of-trouble type or there wouldn't be a game to play.
Like most real-time strategy games, Z:SS is about killing enemy units to capture resources so that more friendly units can be built to kill more enemy units to capture more resources and so on. The difference in this game is that there are no resource-collecting units. Instead, the battlefields are
divided into territories, each of which has a flag. All the player has to do is have one of their units capture the flag, and that territory's resources (money) go directly to the player's coffers. Until an enemy unit captures the flag back.
The armies in Z:SS are composed of a variety of types, from the simple footsoldiers (psychos) to demotion units, spies, snipers, tanks and aircraft. Bases, fire stations, radar towers and factories can all be built by the construction robots. Construction robots can also build or tear down bridges, and they can repair units and bases that have been damaged. All these units are commanded using the mouse and a context-sensitive pointer. There is a strategic map that lets the player jump the tactical view from place to place on the battle field, and there is a scrolling report log that updates the situation in the field. Double-clicking on a report changes the tactic view to where that report came in from.
A robotic whack-a-mole marathon
The capture-the-flag element of Z:SS is liberating. It frees players from one of the biggest headaches in RTS games. Fighting and building are enough for most players to keep track of. The simplicity of capturing territory eliminates the need to also keep checking back to see if foraging units have exhausted the resources they were commanded to collect and are simply standing idly about. That's the good news. The bad news is that it is hard to keep control of a flag after it has been captured. It only takes one unit to control a flag so they change hands quickly and often, particularly in the early part of the game.
Another element that may annoy some players is that all 30 scenarios seem to start the same way. A wave of the enemy wash over the player's territories. The player kills as quickly as he can, while frantically building to replace fallen units. The key to the game is surviving that first wave. If it can be beaten back, then there is usually a little space to grab some territory, set up defensive positions, and basically organize the player's forces into large units that can decisively strike back. The computer AI is good, but it is at its best when it is running small-unit groups, each with their own independent objectives. What it doesn't do as well is assemble large strike forces, and once the player gets far enough ahead to forge a large strike force of their own, then the computer units can be beaten piecemeal.
The controls in Z:SS are simple, but they require care. The active cursor means that a left click instead of a right click at the wrong time can send units marching toward the unit the player was trying to command them to repair. Nothing wrong with the repair unit getting closer to the damaged one, but without the repair instruction, the repair unit will just stand there next to the damaged one. It is simple enough to correct this idleness, but the game is played in real time, and every missed click,
every command that has to be issued twice, costs the player the chance to do something telling somewhere else on the field.
Z: Steel Soldiers starts out simply and slowly enough, but before long it becomes a full-fledged, whack-a-mole marathon as you jump from corner to corner of the map, trying to keep all your units supplied and fighting. This is not my favorite mode of game play, but there is a real pleasure in entering the sort of completely focused fugue state the game demands.
— Eric
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