STARFRONT: COLLISION

Call the exterminator; this one's got bugs!

Gameloft's slick-looking real-time strategy game Starfront: Collision sure was a hit in the iOS App Store—the majority of user reviews are for the full five stars. But when we played the Mac App Store port, it was full of bugs and hampered by a weak Al, though the solid multiplayer mode redeems it at least a little.

The well-worn story feels a bit unoriginal: The human Consortium battles with the alien, bug-like Myriad over the resource Xenodium. On the way, they encounter the machine-like Wardens, who perceive that theft has occurred and jump into the fray. Players can choose the Campaign mode, but must finish the Consortium levels before unlocking the Myriad or Wardens. Or pick Skirmish for a quick run against the Al on a single map.

Unfortunately, some major bugs interfere with gameplay. Units start to move randomly, and thanks to a poorly implemented full-screen mode, using the mouse to scroll can trigger hot corners (enabled in System Preferences > Desktop & Screensaver or Mission Control). Nothing like bringing up your widgets to obscure a battle!

You can't adjust the difficulty in Campaign mode, and seasoned RTS fans will find it rather easy. Skirmish mode has difficulty levels, but when we played on Expert and Pro, we found the Al lacking as it maximized what resources it had, but didn't build any more. But you won't play Starfront for its single-player Campaign or Skirmish games. The true attraction is the multiplayer feature, playable as LAN or online. Online play requires a Gameloft Live- account, and in the evenings, we got regular errors attempting to log in. But once you're in, the real RTS fun begins. You can play one-on-one, two-on-two, free play, or random, and you can also set difficulty levels. Multiplayer is still hampered by the technical bugs, but you're mercifully freed from the Al issues. We wish you could zoom out a little farther, but you can zoom in fairly deeply to see in detail some excellent graphics, which translated beautifully from the iOS version.

The bottom line. If you have an iPhone, consider taking the free version for a spin before you commit $10 to playing on the Mac. Hopefully the flaws can be fixed with updates from Gameloft, but even version 1.0.0 can be fun in multiplayer mode.

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