The game's story puts you in the role of Jacob Angelus, a captain in the Northern Star Alliance. Your home planet, Morningstar Prime, is currently under siege by Imperial Terran forces led by the ruthless Imperator Vlaana. As you make your way through the campaign, an alien race, known as the Virons, will eventually get involved in both sides of the conflict. The game includes a pair of linear, 12-mission campaigns where you'll control the NSA forces and then the Virons. Though the storyline behooves you to play the campaigns in that order, you may choose to start on either campaign at the outset of the game.







As mentioned before, the most striking aspect of Ground Control II is its beautiful graphics engine. Maps are suitably large and vast with rolling terrain and thickets of lush forest. Bodies of water shimmer and reflect sunlight--images that take advantage of the advanced capabilities of the latest graphics cards. The units themselves are extremely detailed--they are fully articulated with moving parts and they can be seen rocking back as their cannons fire. You can also see infantry carrying miscellaneous pieces of equipment, such as the massive backpacks of ammo carried by NSA siege infantry. And if you zoom in close enough to foot soldiers, you can actually hear them marching across hard ground. While it is true that you lose a lot of this detail while you're zoomed out (which is more ideal for actually controlling the game), battles still seem suitably epic as you see opposing sides light up the field with missiles and streams of tracer fire. Artillery is especially impressive, like the shells that arc high overhead before crashing down.

Ground Control II: Operation Exodus Tech Info
Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
Developer: Massive Ent
Genre: Sci-Fi Real-Time Strategy
Release Date: Jun 23, 2004
ESRB: TEEN
ESRB Descriptors: Blood and Gore, Violence, Language

Game Information
Connectivity: Online, Local Area Network
Customization: Downloadable Content, Editing Tools, Custom Soundtracks
Online Modes: Competitive, Cooperative, Team Oriented
Number of Players: 1-8
DirectX Version: v9.0
Operating System: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP

Minimum System Requirements
System: 800MHz CPU or equivalent
RAM: 128 MB
Video Memory: 32 MB
Hard Drive Space: 500 MB
Other: 24x CD Rom, 56K modem