Cortex Command

I have had this game on my wishlist for quite a while now and I noticed it was on sale for the holidays. Has anyone tried it?

On the surface it seems to play a bit like a mixture of Worms, Liero and Soldat. But with resource gathering and base building mixed in. Unlike all of those games it also has complex physics engine that allows for some crazy and unexpected gameplay twists.

This video sums it up better than I could, it's very long but is action packed with a surprise twist ending. The quality is fairly low so watch it in fullscreen to compensate.

I had it from a humble bundle a long while back, and replayed it when it went on steam. It's definitely playable and can be fun but it does have issues. The campaign ai is dumb as rocks so you'll generally destroy them if your smart about it. The controls are also rather hard to learn and get used to. Still find them quite fiddly. That being said, its a tinkers dream. You can and will do and design some crazy stuff. I think I payed a couple bucks for it, and it was worth that at least.

It has so much promise, but I've owned it for a couple years and it still lacks polish. The mechanics are fun as hell and there's a ton of user made content, but don't expect a polished game. The physics engine is what this game is all about and that's stupid fun to play in.

It's too bad if it didn't really come together- dude's been working on it forever.

demonbox wrote:

It's too bad if it didn't really come together- dude's been working on it forever.

Well that's part of it from what I understand, he hasn't really been working on it as much as you think. Someone can correct me, but he is reputed to be the type who works when he feels like/enjoys it. Naturally this has made development really slow.

Well I watched some youtube videos and got curious enough to buy the game. It's HARD.

- The first thing you need to learn is that your jump jets are affected by what direction you are facing. If you want to go UP, you have to look up. Having played Soldat in the past this is VERY confusing to me. The lack of a mouse cursor really hurts here.
- You aim weapons with the mouse, but your cursor for aiming only shows up if you stand still for a moment and doesn't work at all while moving.
- The AI seems to have a much better vision range than you do. Even if I set my soldiers on sentry mode they sit like idiots while some guy off the screen guns them down.
- The physics are your greatest enemy. One exploding dropship will throw out enough debris to kill everything on half the map.

I have yet to win a single battle in campaign mode. I have been sticking with coalition troops and weapons to start with and they feel weak. Basic weapons like the assault rifle just don't do much damage and I lose most face to face fights. The organization of troops is also painfully awkward. The AI wins every time because they can manage something I can't which is get three guys together and have them walk toward my base while firing their guns. I keep trying to get my soldiers to do this but I can't make it work.

It's been a while since I played the game, but I find that putting someone as a lookout and then using someone else as bait works pretty well. Going in guns blazing also works stupidly well in some situations.

Tamren wrote:

Well I watched some youtube videos and got curious enough to buy the game. It's HARD.

- The first thing you need to learn is that your jump jets are affected by what direction you are facing. If you want to go UP, you have to look up. Having played Soldat in the past this is VERY confusing to me. The lack of a mouse cursor really hurts here.
- You aim weapons with the mouse, but your cursor for aiming only shows up if you stand still for a moment and doesn't work at all while moving.
- The AI seems to have a much better vision range than you do. Even if I set my soldiers on sentry mode they sit like idiots while some guy off the screen guns them down.
- The physics are your greatest enemy. One exploding dropship will throw out enough debris to kill everything on half the map.

I have yet to win a single battle in campaign mode. I have been sticking with coalition troops and weapons to start with and they feel weak. Basic weapons like the assault rifle just don't do much damage and I lose most face to face fights. The organization of troops is also painfully awkward. The AI wins every time because they can manage something I can't which is get three guys together and have them walk toward my base while firing their guns. I keep trying to get my soldiers to do this but I can't make it work.

You pretty much nail some of the issues I have with this game. I would love if it had the controls of soldat, it would be fantastic. The aiming reticule is horrible, it only really works if you keep your mouse close to you. I think overall the game plays better with a 360 controller it seems (never tried it though).

The ai was super easy to beat once I realized if I place some anti air around. That just annihilated them every time they tried to land, matches last 30 seconds top. Overall the ai can't handle the game which is all that surprising. Still with two people playing who really understand the game, then it hums.