October 18, 1999 Web posted at: 1:13 p.m. EDT (1713 GMT) by Jason Samuel

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(IDG) -- Imagine Myth, Command & Conquer, and the movie Aliens mixed together under an impressive 3D engine, and you've got Ground Control.

This futuristic real-time strategy game from Swedish developer Massive revolves around a battle between human factions The Order of the New Dawn and Crayven Industries for control of a small-time alien planet in the middle of a larger ongoing war.

The single-player game will consist of two campaigns (one for each faction) of 15 missions each. Each campaign will take you through one side's domination of the world. You'll select units and outfit them in orbit, and then deploy them on the planet's surface via Aliens-style dropships. As in Myth, there's no resource management -- just a general budget that restricts you from using only the best units.

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On the planet, the action heats up. Tactical control of your units -- you won't control individual soldiers in GC -- is the foundation of victory. Hiding your men in the shadows of a huge cliff will decrease the enemy's accuracy; take the high ground, and your units' fire becomes more accurate. If any member of a squad survives a mission, that squad will gain veteran status for the next mission, and the accuracy of its fire will improve.

Ground Control's 3D engine pushes the envelope for outdoor polygon-based graphics. The clipping plane so noticeable in games like Drakan is almost nonexistent. You'll have a free-roaming camera that you can move from a zoomed-in view of a single soldier to a position so far away that you can't even see any members of a unit.

With air units, ground-based artillery, and old-fashioned firefights, combat can be an awesome light show. Though the fog of war will hide enemy units, the entire map will be exposed at the beginning of a mission so you can plan your strategy.

Multiplay will support up to eight people in deathmatch and capture-the-flag scenarios, and you'll also see unusual multiplayer options such as escort missions. Massive will also include a map editor with the game that will allow players to make multi- and single-player maps.

Expected to ship in the first quarter of next year, Ground Control already looks pretty far along in its alpha version. For a die-hard Myth fan like myself, this game will be a natural jump back into tactical and action-oriented real-time strategy. If you didn't like drunk dwarves throwing explosives at each other, or the resource building of C&C, Ground Control may be just what you're looking for in an RTS.