Perimeter - PC

This real-time strategy title, originating from Russia, introduces a number of new gameplay elements to the usual resource management/combat concept of the popular genre, which consequently offer new challenges to both the game’s single and multiplayer modes. Chiefly is the concept of terraforming, which is a key element throughout the game that sees you restructuring the landscape in order to make best use of your surrounding environment.

Perimeter is set in a future universe where the earth is dying and many different civilisations are in a race across a newly discovered galaxy to colonise the only suitable planet. The resulting journey sees you exploring new worlds and battling against other civilisations and indigenous species in order to acquire energy to continue your search for a new home planet.

The main gameplay concept is built around territory seizure, with you having to carry out the aforementioned terraforming upon the game’s diverse alien landscapes in order to extract vital energy supplies to power structures, units and the titular perimeter force shield, which is one of the key strategical elements, protecting you from attack. As a result, for the first time in RTS gaming, the landscape is a tactical participant in combat and base development as you and indigenous natural forces fight to change the physical structure of the game world.

The energy drawn from a planet's surface allows you to build devices, which in turn enable you to collect further energy reserves and expand and defend your territory with a wide variety of units and structures. Ultimately, the aim is to acquire enough energy to activate a portal to transport you to a new world - one step closer to a new home planet - before other civilisations beat you to it.
With 27 scenario driven missions, over 30 morphable units, 24 structure types, 30 single player maps, and five multiplayer maps (with which 1-4 players can battle it out over a LAN or the Internet), Perimeter has plenty on offer for the average RTS fan. Its new slant on the traditional gameplay concept also breathes a bit of new life into the proceedings. more