Gene Wars (MS-DOS)

They could have done with a few more polygons on those curved edges maybe.

Mission 1: Construct a base. Sounds simple enough.

Okay, this seems to be kind of like an RTS. I've got two guys to control, one makes buildings and the other studies creatures.

The game brings up helpful infoboxes whenever I try to select things, but eventually I manage to get them out of the way so I can build stuff. I put down an extractor to mine for 'goop', a power distributor to channel energy, then some solar panels to generate the power.

I told my geneticist to go study some plants to keep him occupied, but apparently that's not his thing as he's just standing there looking bored.

Oh shit, an indigenous creature and he's coming right for us!

Ah, the geneticist finally makes himself useful, stunning the creature and apparently scanning it too. This thing must be the mule they mentioned in the briefing.

Now I just need to get the rest of the base finished before any other mules wander by and murder my team. I'm not sure one guy is going to be able to defend against groups.

Mission complete! It seems I've mastered the basics of building solar panels.

The next mission gives me a botanist, and tells me to put some plants down and send 10 mules to the MULE ZONE. Planting stuff is straightfoward enough, once I figured out I could click plants to get seeds. Building a genepod is all I need to make mules and at 75 goop each they're not too pricey.

The trick is to get these down before the enemy mules come over and eat all my dudes.

This interface is just a little more awkward than it needs to be. It took me a while to figure out that I had to press the red button to build creatures. Also, there's no build queue.

Well, I lost a man to the wild mules, but it's all good. Everything I need is already in place.

All I have to do now is send my 10 mules to the mule zone and I'm done.

The next level is about learning how to recycle. First I grab some seeds from this new type of plant with my botanist.

Then I plant a field of them, and send an army of mules to harvest the crop! Recycling complete.

Fortunately it's a lot easier to keep my squad alive when I have an army of mules for protection. Not that's it's easy keeping track of an army of mules.

Next level! It looks a lot like the last level. This time I've got two zones to send units to.

I start by building up my base, and setting up a squad of mules for zone one. You know, I still have NO idea what that UFO is for.

Oh shit, zone one is full of enemy mules. These aren't just wild mules, the green ones are from a rival base and they're kicking my ass. They've already gotten through to my base and murdered one of my guys.

I need more mules, why the fuck isn't my mule maker working? What the hell does that icon mean, out of... oil? What? Screw it, I'll just build another genepod if that one's going to be awkward.

Also, between every order I give to a unit, I have to race back to the genepod to click the red button and make a new mule to send off to the zone because there's no build queue.

Crap, zone two is a slaughter too. I've only got 20 goop and I need at least 75 to make reinforcements.

It seems like I've really fucked this up.

Or maybe not!

The next level is going to take LONGER? Man, fuck that.

This game really wasn't much fun to me. It's irritating to control, it's not much to look at, and even when I got the hang of the basics it was still a pain in the ass.


Next game.