The balance of the game is also off as the predators have a clear advantage in combat with a number of abilities such as stealth and vision enhancements that can quickly overcome both aliens and humans. For example, the aliens are geared toward simply throwing units into combat until the enemy is eliminated with little variation required. A one-dimensional approach can be adopted and applied to almost any circumstance as you attempt to overwhelm your enemy. One major problem is the lack of strategy required at what initially appears to be a game ripe for strategy. Unfortunately, the execution of those concepts really falls flat, failing to create a dynamic experience. There's entertainment to be had with Extinction, but expect a lot of hairpulling to go along with it. Moving your party into a new area too quickly can also lead to squad-killing ambushes, so you have to inch along and save frequently. When you send a large group to a spot on the map, at least one unit will take a strange alternate path and get annihilated. Much of the game is spent killing time while your units heal, your Predator's stealth energy recharges, or-worst yet-your troops find their way. It's not all chest-bursting excitement, though-like that guy with the long face said, the waiting is the hardest part. These intrinsic differences make each race's game worth playing, and you'll find diverse missions in each campaign, too. For example, traditional resource management has been mercifully stripped down: Predators collect skulls and Colonial marines repair atmospheric converters to earn points for upgrades or reinforcements, while Aliens use fallen foes to spawn their brood. This all might seem utterly simplistic to a PC RTS fan, but given a console's control limitations, keeping the game simple works out well in the long run.Įxtinction squeezes PC real-time-strategy gameplay onto consoles.and for the most part, it's a good fit. Extinction takes the best parts of a RTS game and brings it to the PlayStation 2, largely forgoing the menial tasks that just aren't suited for a console. Despite these faults, Extinction does a lot right, including the excellent control setup that isn't marred by endless menu screens. A lot of your success will depend on how many units you have and how good you are at zerging (throwing a mass amount of weak units at enemies). And even though this is a RTS game, there's not much strategy that you need to take into consideration aside from the obvious restrictions of each unit. Missions are usually seek-and-destroy missions, although they sometimes branch out into fix-it and survival missions, which are' well, the same thing. That means there's little resource management or structures to build, which might turn-off some RTS-fanatics, but it's for the best for a console RTS. Unlike most conventional RTS games,Extinction focuses primarily on combat.

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