Game:

StarCraft (1998)

Category:

Review

Duration: 29:25

10,990 views

25

I'm playing Tryst, a real-time strategy game by Blue Giant Interactive. The game is more straightforward and more polished but less innovative than the developer's previous RTS title APOX. The game's focus is on multiplayer, but there is a three-hour campaign to learn some of the mechanics. The skirmish mode, which can be played against AI bots or online, gives standard customization options, but there are only a few maps and two races. While the humans are very typical in their approach, the alien race allows you to combine some units on the battlefield to produce a more powerful variant, allowing you to change your strategy quickly without having to fully invest in new troops. Tryst has a very fast pace, where you must capture resource points to afford new units and structures. Each map includes annoying environmental hazards, like hostile plants and lava, that cannot be destroyed. Buildings are placed to unlock new units, for defense, or to increase the population cap. The flexible research tree provides several bonuses for each unit in the game, which allows you to tailor your upgrades to the specific units you use the most. All units will run out of ammunition, so you must capture an energy resource location near the enemy base to have any chance at a successful assault. Resource buildings are way too easy to capture, done so quickly even with a single unit. Conversely, the enemy headquarters is way too hard to destroy; even if you have an insurmountable lead in resource and unit production, it is exceedingly difficult to take out an opponent, due to high HQ health and manual ammunition resupply. Tryst is very susceptible to stalemates, which needlessly increases the amount of time it takes to determine a victor. The AI is competent enough at the game, as I was unable to tell the difference between human and computer opponents during online matches. Overall, Tryst is an approachable real-time strategy game that features a number of questionable design decisions that reduce its appeal.