What is Carrier Command?

[Danefrak 10]

I love Bohemia and this is the only game from them that I don't have. I have looked at it and am very confused, what genre is it? Whats the main draw? Is it similar to ArmA or is it completely different? It seems to have a great community especially in the modding department and I would love to become a part of it, I just don't know if it's the game for me.

PS: Xbox 360 or PC Version?

[RichardCranium 1]

Well, if you're an Old Fart (like me!), then you'd remember a game from the 1980s called Carrier Command. The Bohemia version diverges from the version mentioned at Wikipedia, but a lot of us from the old days really liked that game.

IMO, this version of the game attempts to do more than the old one (today's graphics are much better and the islands now have real terrain versus maybe a conical volcano or two back in the Old Days). I think the underlying story in the new version is absolute crap (sorry guys, but getting water from another solar system is stupid beyond belief), but the game play is better in some ways than the old game (you'd hope so after 30 years) and slightly disappointing in others.

I replay it fairly often (I have to reboot into Window to play it; I'm normally running Slackware64 on this machine, such as now as I type this.) and find it pretty fun. Your mileage may vary.

There were tactics in the old game that aren't possible in the new one:

1. You could deploy Walruses while the carrier was moving in the old game. Not possible in the new one (the way they are launched is completely different.).
   
2. The old game had a long range telemetry pod that you could stick on an aircraft (Manta) that allowed you control aircraft and ground vehicles across the entire map. Nothing similar in the new game.
   
3. The old game's ground vehicles had wire-guided missiles that you could steer into a target that you normally couldn't see. Nothing like that in the new game. (In fairness, the islands in the old game were pretty much pool tables. It wasn't hard to steer missiles in that environment but would be almost impossible to do it in the modern one. The new game has missiles that attempt to lock onto a target.)
   
4. Mantas in the old game (with the long range telemetry pod) could fly to a friendly island, land at the airstrip, refuel, and continue to fly somewhere else to attack a target. That allowed some really interesting strategies which, frankly, the current game does not. Aircraft carriers are all about projecting force far beyond their line of sight and they've been like that since the 1940s. In the current game, you have no way to control anything out of telemetry range and you have no way to refuel or rearm aircraft on friendly islands. You can refuel and rearm vehicles on islands, friendly or enemy.
   
5. While the enemy has some infantry-like things (droids), they don't act like infantry. (Standing in the open to be shot has not been part of infantry tactics since late 1914, if not earlier.) The old game, however, had nothing like infantry at all. The old game had carriers, flying things, and vehicles.
   
6. 
   

The new version has enemy vehicles to attack you when you invade an island (unlike the original). The new game also has jammers and firewalls to interfere with your hostile takeover of any given island (also unlike the original).

Get the PC version. There's also a demo available from Steam that will allow you to see if you like what they've done. I've been overall happy with my purchase.

[Danefrak 10]

Thanks so much for the detailed reply! I will look into the game some more!

[Dajunka 10]

They left a lot out of this version that made the original great. Shame, but there you have it. If they had traded the time spent programming the unwanted fps side of the game on some of these details, then they might have had a winner for everyone.

[Antares 1]

Great answer RichardCranium. Quick and to the point. I too, would prefer the PC version.

In the old version you could look at the reconstruction and building process at real time, meanwhile in the new game everything pops up just like that. For instances, if a production Island was conquered in carrier command, and you destroyed the control center, then you drop a defence pod on the same Island, you see, how the factory is going dismanteled, and a vulcano is created. Polygon by polygon. (Line after line until the wireframe is completed and then the Whole thing gets colored and a message appears, like, "Medusa is now a friendly Island")

This game by bohemia works in other way. Its focus is basically on the groundforces, the mantas are only a welcome support from the air with the restrictions already posted. And the rebuilding process is not shown, unless you click on the Island you are interested in, and peek on the building process bar, which shows the progress. The facilities are not dismantling automatically when you conquered the Island, they just cease to exist as enemy and are brought to the original strength in your colors. Carrier Command and Carrier Command Gaea Mission are two different games. The background story and the gameplay is in many ways different. Just play the demo, and try it. Always better to test it before buying it. Let us know if you like it.