The Corporate Machine
Developed by: Stardock
Published by: Stardock
Reviewed By: Bill
Cuthbertson
Game Was: Supplied
05/02/01
The Way-Back Machine
Everything about playing
Michigan-based Stardock's The Corporate Machine is like taking a trip
back in time. The look, sound, and feel of the game makes it difficult not
to think of the days of Intel's 386s, when playing a computer game was a new
sort of diversion and when you could generally count on playing something
stable, accessible, and most-importantly, fun.
Of all the modern advances
in gaming, it seems like 'fun' is the feature becoming hardest to find. Good
computer gaming is about losing yourself in an adventure - it's about
playing a good game. The joy doesn't come from revolutionary
graphics, but from seeing a balanced and recognizable set of rules in
action. It comes from playing a game that is friendly, fair and challenging.
Seen with that half-nostalgic mindset, The Corporate Machine shines.
If the modern player can put aside his bias toward new technologies (and put
out of his mind the ennui that has become rabidly popular among modern
gaming "connoisseurs"), he'll find, in The Corporate Machine, a
rejuvenating and fresh diversion. He'll forget about if and how well his
system is running and for perhaps the first time in a long time, he'll have
a hearty amount of fun.
How to Succeed in
Business without Really Trying
A strong sign of what makes
The Corporate Machine a successful and truly immersive game, is how
it blends the traditional categories of interface, gameplay, and graphics,
into a unified system. You can't discuss Graphics without explaining the
Interface, and understanding Gameplay is inseparable from understanding the
information the graphics convey. Explaining the scheme verbally is probably
about four times more difficult than just letting the player have at it and
though I can tell you what the game is about, it probably wont sound very
fun. Only once you're at the keyboard, will the light come on and you'll
find yourself nodding with an appreciative, "Ah-ha".
The "point" of
the game is to effectively run a business. You select a product to sell
(cars, airplanes or computers, or download a soda pop schemata from
Stardock's Web site), and then go about creating the distribution, marketing
and engineering networks that will help you to monopolize the industry. As
the game's motto succinctly puts it: "Start a company. Take over the
world.".
Since I've worked in what I
consider to be the ugliest side of business, "PR", I'm actually
surprised that the very concept of The Corporate Machine didn't send
my stomach on some Dow Jones-like bowel dive. Truthfully, even those who
hate being a part of the Corporate Machine may find a great deal of pleasure
in playing it out.
The reviewer's copy of the
game did not include a printed manual. [Actually, it did. As I was
packing games to ship to reviewers, I left it on top of my filing cabinet
instead of in the box. My apologies.] Instead, the player accesses the rules
via a link at the game's Web site, bookmarked in the System directory during
installation (For the curious, the manual can be found at this link).
Like the best intuitive games, however (think Civilization II), you don't
need to read the rules.
Saving (Inter)Face
The Corporate Machine's
wonderful ease of play is due in large part to the game's very
straightforward interface, which integrates specified information with the
main map. Noting that the map is divided into regions (either in a
representative world map, the downloadable United States map, or in a
fantasy land), almost every bit of information in The Corporate Machine's
main view is color-coded. Icons toggle the color-coding to represent data
like Market Share, Employee Quality, and Regional Sales, and as you might
expect, brighter colors reflect positive activity while darker colors
represent degrees of inactivity.
With so much of the game
dependent on a clear look then, it's refreshing that the views provided are
so clean. They're likely too clean in fact and too "unpolished"
for gamers who are used to seeing their world in 32-bit. The play map can be
understood in an instant but it's not an eye-popper and is in fact very
DOS-like in its pixilated simplicity.
The other views provided,
such as the research screen, plant and facility maps, feature graphics that
are effectively rendered in a static, quasi-3D manner, like that of Age of
Kings and admittedly, the two looks don't match well. Thankfully, the
mismatched graphics do nothing to inhibit enjoyment of the game.
You begin The Corporate
Machine with a home base, a product, a salesman, and up to seven
opponents (either computer or human). The game does require that you log
onto Stardock.net to play multiplayer
games but after you've set-up or joined one, the play is exactly like single
player versus computer games.
You must research new
territories before being able to send your salesman in and you must begin
work immediately on both how to develop your product (and hiring the
engineers to do so) and expanding your customer base. In the location
management screen you can direct funds toward expanding or improving your
facility to improve employee skills, morale, as well as the number of
workers, marketers, and engineers available to you. The Corporate Machine
must be set in a "Right To Work" sort of world, as employees are
fired and hired at will.
It's Enough to Drive You
Crazy if You Let It
The Corporate Machine
is a manager's dream, allowing the player to create and execute fairly
complex plans to out-research, out-sell and outright defame the opposition.
The opposition however, is equally skilled and provides a very literal run
for your money. On the Beginner skill level, I found four opponents fairly
easy to beat but just a skill level above that and six or seven hours of
play later, I was still trying to whittle down the prominence of my one
remaining opponent from our almost perfect 50/50 market split.
Probably the greatest joy
of The Corporate Machine is that these computer opponents are so well
programmed as to put up such a challenge. The noticeable difference in AI at
each level goes a long way in establishing the longevity of the game. The
Corporate Machine can genuinely be compared to more traditional board
games like Othello and Chess in that the game is no less rewarding the
better you become.
At more advanced difficulty
levels there are no gimmicks to success, such as speedy mouse clicking or
utilizing some sort of super-queue (though you are allowed to queue up to 5
product enhancements in the research screen). You'll need to really master
your game before being able to beat the Difficult level, let alone the
appropriately ominous sounding "Lots of Pain" level. The ease at
which head-to-head and computer-controlled games are merged almost
guarantees a near-infinite variety of skill and experience levels to pit
yourself against.
A surprise and a treat was
the quality of the music. I can't tell if it's MIDI or orchestrated, but
it's very nice, relaxing and completely unobtrusive. If you attempt to build
or research something when you have too few liquid assets, a woman's voice
will politely admonish you: "Not enough money." If you've seen
David Swift's goofy but enjoyable musical (the title is one of the headers
above) then you can probably picture this woman, too.
The only bad sounds in the
bunch belong to your salesmen, who, for some reason makes silly, Alvin
& the Chipmunks like squeaks. They actually say things like
"You're the boss," and "Okaley-Dokaley," and I half
expected them to chime in with "The Christmas Song" toward the end
of every fiscal year.
The Bottom Line
The Corporate
Machine won't be up
for any Game of the Year awards, unless that year is 1988. There's just too
much outdated in the graphics department for this game to seduce a wide
following. And that's a genuine drag.
The
same schmucks who come home and want to forget about their nagging boss and
their irritating coworkers are probably exactly the type of people who would
enjoy a chance to take on the world with their notions of how a business
should run. The Corporate Machine
is a family diversion that most families will never hear about. That's sad
enough to make you wish it really was 1988, when there was less on the store
shelves to distract people from this very rewarding and enjoyable game.
You can purchase The
Corporate Machine directly from Stardock
using this link.
