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A game that needs quite a bit more polish in order to achieve the same level of success as its brethren.

Some strategy franchises such as Command and Conquer and Warcraft have become so popular that they’ve almost become a part of mainstream culture. Ask most casual gamers about Blizzard’s RTS series, and more often than not they’ll recognize the name and understand what you’re talking about.

Ask those same folks about Strategy First’s RTS series Earth 2150, and you’re likely to get the same stares normally reserved for street urchins. However – as we all know – popularity does not equal quality, and the Earth 2150 series has built itself a very strong following.

Earth 2150: Lost Souls is the third entry in the trilogy, a saga that chronicles the destruction of Earth from a nuclear catastrophe and the exodus of some of the human population to Mars. Unfortunately, some folks got left behind, and Earth 2150: Lost Souls focuses on the struggles of three separate factions as they attempt to get the H-E-double-hockey-sticks of the doomed big blue marble, while also seeking revenge against the people that left them behind to die.

Lost Souls breaks humanity up into three parts. First, you have the technologically backwards, but determined Eurasian Dynasty. These folks still rely on old weapons and vehicles, but what they lack in smarts they make up for in numbers.

The second group you’ll meet is the Lunar Corporation, a more or less peaceful group that make up for their pacifist leanings with some of the best scientists and technology available in the game. Where the Eurasian Dynasty does their business with tanks and ‘copters, the Lunars use super quick fighter craft and seeded meteor showers to defend and attack.

Finally, you have the United Civilized States, which are basically your typical American stereotypes. These guys love a good fight, and they’ll bring it hard with units such as mechs and anti-gravity crafts.

During the course of the single-player campaign, you’ll get to play as each of these factions as the story line takes you through each of their perspectives. The developers have done a nice job of making the three factions different from one another, and even go as far as giving each group a unique looking interface to further immerse gamers into the story.

Sure, Lost Souls brings back some standard RTS conventions such as base-building, resource collecting, and (unfortunately) the tank rush. However, the developers at Zuxxez also have a few innovative tricks up their sleeves to break the monotony.

For example, rather than rely on cookie-cutter units, Lost Souls allows players to “roll their own” vehicles and attack craft. You can take different research routes to determine which types of weapon and chassis upgrades you wish to pursue, and then can create your own customized army. The ability to tweak your army to meet the exact needs of the mission at hand is very enjoyable, and the option to save your creations to disk is an excellent addition as well.

Another interesting addition to the game is the ability to take your units underground to a separate subterranean map. In some scenarios, you’ll need to use drilling equipment to bore your way through mountains, and that will allow you to “pop up” unannounced close to the enemy. The use of tunnels definitely adds another strategy level to the proceedings.

One very pleasant aspect of Earth 2150: Lost Souls is that it is not a garden variety click-fest. The use of strategy is very key in this title, and if you think you’ll just be able to blindly tank rush your way through the scenarios you’re sadly mistaken (although the “tank rush” is still a viable tactic in some instances). Thought must be put into which technologies you research, which path you’ll take to engage the enemy, how you build your customized army, and an array of other decisions that ultimately have a large effect on the outcome of the game. This “deepness” carries itself over to the multiplayer options (which use a matchmaking service known as “Moon-Net”) and the skirmish modes as well.

Earth 2150: Lost Souls should definitely cater to the folks that like plenty of meat on their RTS’ bones. You’ll need to block some time away to make it through these missions – it’s not uncommon to find yourself still banging away at a scenario at the 90 minute mark. Of course, if most of that time is spend sitting around waiting for your units so mine resources or build tanks, length is not always a good thing…

Despite all the innovations mentioned above, and the refreshing choice the developers made to not dumb down their product, Earth 2150: Lost Souls can be very frustrating at times, and downright boring at others. There is a definite problem with pacing in the game – there were times that I literally would Alt-TAB out to other applications while my units collected resources and researched technology. While as a reviewer this did allow me time to take notes during game play, I don’t think the average gamer appreciates having to find other ways to entertain himself during game play.

Another major problem with Earth 2150: Lost Souls is the confusing control scheme, which is only compounded by the title’s murky graphics (it’s very difficult to tell units apart) and its absolutely anemic printed manual. Despite include several tutorials to get folks started, it definitely will take some experimenting to finally figure out how to make your way around the game. With games like Age of Empires churning out amazingly-intuitive interfaces for complex games, there’s no excuse for a mess like the Lost Souls interface. Casual gamers should approach with caution.

The manual that comes with the game is almost totally useless, and offers next to no help in deciphering the control scheme. The 70 page PDF (grrrrr...) manual is much better, but this game definitely loses points for not including a proper printed manual. In my mind, it’s a big slap in the face to your customers when you force them to spend their money printing out something that should’ve been included out-of-the-box. It simply looks bush league.

This problem could’ve been rectified with a little more on-screen information, but developers don’t deliver the goods here, either. Frankly, without a better interface and more readily-available help, Strategy First can forget about the Earth 2150 franchise ever breaking out of its hardcore niche. Hell, I’ve been playing games for 20 years and I felt alienated!

What a critique on Lost Souls really boils down to is whether the negatives of a horrid interface and bad pacing outweigh the positives such as custom unit building, and the need for real strategizing during the missions. I’m guessing that the hardcore strategy gamers will be a little more forgiving of the developer’s control scheme and graphics decisions, while the folks looking to jump right into the game will get very frustrated very quickly.

Despite all the charm and uniqueness of Lost Souls, I must say I fell into the latter camp for the most part. I expect a little more polish in my RTS’s, and with Age of Mythology right around the corner recommending Earth 2150: Lost Souls is a hard thing for this reviewer to do.

If you’ve got a ton of spare time, and maybe a book to read during the slower parts, you may get enough out of the challenging game play to warrant a purchase. However, to me Earth 2150: Lost Souls is a game that needs quite a bit more polish in order to achieve the same level of success as its brethren in the RTS genre. There are bits of brilliance in here, but they are too few and far between for my liking.

Reviewed by Michael Askounes, PC Gameworld.