Shattered Union

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $12.74

Features:

• Help reunify the U.S. in this modern 3-D tactical war game
• Fight across the U.S. in wake of terrorism and nuclear destruction of D.C.
• Play as 1 of 7 different factions; fully destructible terrain/environment
• Non-linear mission progression; real-time resolution of turned-based moves
• Online and offline multiplayer on all platforms

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Intresting war game [Posted on 2006-02-22]
You can make it as hard or easy as you want. If you enjoy combined arms warfare you should enjoy.

Shattered Union [Posted on 2006-03-25]
This is a great turn-based game in the vein of Panzer General. But its simplified mechanics make it easy learn for somebody who never played this type of game before. Also, this game has really nice 3D graphics - a rarity for this genre. The entire USA is rendered in a really nice abstract way, with great camera controls, and you don't need a powerful CPU to see it really well, but you WILL need a 128 mg video card. Word of WARNING, though. This game could cause hard system lock-ups and it has other persistent BUGS. And the developer doesn't really support the product and there will never be a patch!
Honestly, I loved the game so much, I decided to replace my 4 year old computer in order to play Shattered Union. Wouldn't you know it, most of the bugs are still manifest with my new rig as well, although no more system locks, making the game playable in most modes. And remember, there is NO CUSTOMER SUPPORT. Buy at your own risk.

Shattered Union = Shattered Opportunity, but still alot of fun!! [Posted on 2006-07-11]
I haven't purchased any computer game since Medieval Total War (even though I've been wanting to buy Total War Rome: Barbarian Invasion) because I only like strategy games and so few of those types of games are made despite the obvious popularity of this genre.

Shattered Union is a fun game that takes place in the near future time when the U.S. has disintegrated from external and internal pressures and it's your job as the player of one of the factions to reunite the nation by force of arms.

You have a strategic map and a tactical map that allow you to plan and undertake your conquests as well as defense from opposing factions led by the A.I. of your computer as well as available LAN play.

I enjoyed playing the game but was disappointed in the obvious lack of diplomatic abilities between factions and also between your faction and the spoiler nation, Russia. If the game allowed funds transfers between factions, I would love to be able to keep weak factions alive so that they could keep up pressure on stronger factions as I pushed across the map.

I was also disappointed in the fact that you can only build up to a certain amount of units no matter how much of the strategic map you control. Other obvious negatives are that your infantry can not hop on some mechanized unit for transport purposes. And the lack of naval units, which could be used for bombardment of ocean bordering territories was also sadly missing.

It would also have been nice if there were more news updates and additional animated sequences to add to the excitement. I remember a great global computer wargame called "Command HQ" which after everytime your troops entered a city, an animated sequence would have civilians standing on the sidewalks cheering as your troops entered to liberate the city. That game came out about 17 years ago and it's A.I. and added storyline is still superior to anything else out there.

That's not to say that "Shattered Union" wasn't fun and doesn't have its' pluses. It does, but the game could have been so much more and the opportunity was squandered.

Nevertheless, I still enjoyed the game and as for strategic and tactical plans, another reviewer covered some of that very well but here's my take on what I did that led me through a very successful game:

I spent my money on as many Abrams and FSC (advanced) tanks as I could afford. I would also add a couple of Vulcan Anti-Aircraft units to defend my tank colums. I also added 4 Apaches, 3 or 4 B-2 bombers, 2 Thunderbolt bombers, 2 or 3 Fighter Jets, 2 Engineer units, and 2 Defense Towers.

As I grew in territories, I eliminated my Defense Towers and Engineers and added more Battle Tanks. So, even when I was the defender, I would take the offense almost immediately. Nothing terrorizes an attacker more than when the defender takes the initiative and thunders columns of tanks and bombers into his deployment zone!! I would destroy my opponent's airpower as fast as possible. I would decimate entire groups of land units using bombers and Apache helicopters thus allowing my tanks to race to the rear of the front-lines and blast whatever remained!!

The sooner you take control of the skies, the sooner you can win the battle. If you can locate the enemy's airfield and destroy it, it eliminates his ability to use any bombers or fighters in that tactical battle.

Another great strategy was that I would slice up the opposing factions up on the Strategic map and isolate their territories from each other. By doing that, I found that this particular faction would give up isolated territories without a fight!

As others have noted, I didn't like the fact that if you used units to attack or defend in a turn, you couldn't use them again against another faction that same turn. That just made no sense and took away some of the fun. Also, there is no option that allows you to turn off the "fog of war" so that you can see where all the enemy units are located. Considering that in reality we have satellites that can see such things right now, it would have been nice to assume that ability in the game as well should the player decide to implement that feature. Even so, I would use my Apache units to scout out the territory because of their large line of sight and then use my fighter jets to protect them from enemy jets. Plus, my jet patrols would give me further line of sight so I could see far into the map and know pretty much where enemy units awaited me.

It would be great if the software developer would expand and improve the game but even as it stands, it's still a fun strategy game and I do highly recommend it to all us strategy game-starved fans out there.

Lastly, save your game constantly because the game has bugs which will occasionally crash the game. Sadly, no patches are available to fix these issues.

I enjoy bombing Texas [Posted on 2006-08-09]
Given all thats happening in the world and in this country I would say that the stroyline of this game is not far fetched. Shattered Union opens with a wonderfully exciting cinimatic sequence that ultimately leads to the nuclear destruction of Washington D.C. and later the sessesion of California, Texas and neighboring states.

Ultimately the United States is balkanized into six different psedo-states. (Although scant information is provided as to how these states came into existance and why they're fighting each other.)

Once you select a faction it's time to try to reunify the country. Each faction is more or less the same, with the exception that they start with different amounts of money and each has one special Megatank that moves really slow but packs a huge punch.

The best part about the game is planning deployment of your troops and fighting the battles. I spent many a night laying waste to city after city. Dallas was especially fun to drop bombs on. (Yeah I messed with Texas, whatcha gonna do about it. JK)

But while the game play was fun there were so many other options that could have been explored. Like for example hiring another writer to complete the back story. A diplomacy option and resource management. You have to think that if something like this were to happen it would be very difficult for the Midwest states to get oil, or the Pacific Northwest or South to get food.

I didn't find the graphics to be particularly bad, but they weren't exceptional. And unless you have a home network with a few friends you can pretty much forget about playing this game online, because everytime Ive logged on there were no opposing human players to rumble against.

Personally I think this game was great, but it could have used just a few finishing touches to make it a fantastic game.

The Second Civil War [Posted on 2007-02-06]
I loved this game because it gave me the chance to do what I've always wanted to do. Go to war against oppression, reunite the Union and show the world that the Confederate soldiers aren't all bad men. I recommend this to everyone looking to add a chapter to America's tale. (Or to anyone who wishes to haul off and drop napalm on San Francisco!)

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