Game Details Developer: Petroglyph

Publisher: Grey Boc

Platform: Windows

Release Date: Jan. 23, 2015

Price: $50

Links: Steam | Official website Petroglyph: Grey Boc: WindowsJan. 23, 2015: $50

The multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre is definitely a hot commodity in the gaming industry. Every brand and publisher seems to be dipping its toes into the waters plumbed by League of Legends and Dota 2. The genre didn’t spring fully formed from those modern games, though; its current success owes a debt to a genre that has largely fallen away in the interim—the real-time strategy (RTS) game.

To remembers how big RTS games were, you need to have been playing games since before Blizzard added “World of” to its Warcraft franchise. That moment was the beginning of the RTS decline; even Starcraft 2, one of Blizzard's RTS pillars, has seen its popularity plunge in favor of MOBAs' free-to-play pastures.

But the RTS genre is now getting some new attention in the form of Grey Goo. This indie outing comes courtesy of Petroglyph Studios, a developer made up from remnants of the old RTS masters at Westwood Studios (Command and Conquer, Dune II). While Petroglyph has been around for more than a decade, its last notable creation was Universe at War: Earth Assault, a 2007 release that was a flagship of Games for Windows Live (remember that?). Can Grey Goo revitalize a genre?

Simple story, enhanced interface

Grey Goo is a throwback to the simplistic storylines of the RTS games of old. You have your three warring factions, a sci-fi super-substance that fuels everyone's economies, and the promise of a greater, fourth threat that just might bring them all together in the end. "Grey goo" might as well describe the game's premise, given that it's an indistinguishable glob of science fiction game tropes catalyzed by some surprisingly plentiful (and gorgeous) cutscenes.

Those very same pre-rendered sequences explain the heady meaning behind the game's title. The blobby, silver "Goo" faction is based on the real-life theory that self-replicating nanomachines could one day consume all matter on Earth. As you might expect, that puts the machines at odds with the other two races: the post-industrial alien race of Betas and a high-science future vision of humanity.

Grey Goo is so unrelentingly self-serious about its more high-concept elements (such as the grasping nature of humans or the Goo itself) that it actually became endearing by the end. Pass or fail, it's clear that someone believed in what they were writing, even if they didn't have the time or budget to get there completely. Sometimes the story beats land, such as the somber notes on humanity's attitude toward space exploration. Other times, they don't.





















While the story doesn’t innovate, the subtle user interface enhancements help advance the genre, and Grey Goo has clearly taken a few design cues from the rise of the MOBA. Much like RTS games of old, Grey Goo lets players control everything from unit production to base building with the stroke of a few hotkeys. This game's addition is taking each of those hotkeys and putting them in plain sight.

Grey Goo maps structures, light and heavy units, and technology are mapped to the QWER keys, much like the spell activation keys in Dota 2. Once inside any of these menus, some combination of the same four strokes will produce the proper structure or unit. The overall effect makes running a base feel similar to controlling a single hero in a MOBA, letting players make the minute decisions that govern construction flow easily and, above all, quickly.

An unforgiving campaign

The emphasis on speed is immediately apparent in the single-player campaign. There really isn't a second to lose; even on normal or easy difficulties, enemies will rush your base the instant they feel confident enough to do so. In my experience, that meant about two minutes of unburdened prep time in the earliest missions. It also meant an absolutely incredible amount of restarting as I learned how to build efficiently.

My problem in those first restart-filled matches was that I didn't have a specific "build" in mind for my base. In the competitive scenes around games like StarCraft and even Dota 2, matches are won and lost by build orders—the ability to select and execute one of several proven strategies faster than your opponent. In a typical RTS, that's not an issue during the campaign mode, which usually allows players to be more experimental and lackadaisical as they poke and prod the systems to figure out how to play and win.

Not so in Grey Goo. I quickly learned that if I wasn't building two factories immediately after constructing my refinery, I was effectively finished. To the game's credit, the hotkey-based, on-screen menu makes just that sort of action smoother than most games of this type. It even provides a fighting game-style move list under every item, reminding you what combination of button presses will produce the desired unit.

These same key-press combos are mostly reusable across all three races. The human, Beta, and Goo factions each have their own tank, bomber, and artillery equivalents. Each also have a single overpowered "epic" unit—an airship, robot, or giant blob of silver that lumbers across the battlefield slightly slower than the rest of the game’s units, completely at odds with the pace set by the controls.

My biggest problem with Grey Goo, and the one that makes it so difficult to review, is that the three factions seem far too similar. Visual and numerical differences do exist between the three factions and their units (the Goo, in particular, stand out from the other two), but in my time with the game, it was tough to tell how significant these differences really are.

While the game surfaces numbers like a unit’s armor and damage output, these don’t tell the whole story of a unit. Factors like production time, resource cost, and movement speed need consideration when crafting a fighting force, but it’s not yet clear which factions have the “best” numbers in which of these areas. Do the Goo’s Destructors outrange the Beta’s Guardians? Is it more cost-effective to first build a third factory or a second refinery? This is the game’s competitive “language,” and it has yet to be written by players.

The concern may seem esoteric, but in a game built from the ground up to encourage rush tactics, this kind of data can be critical to making decisions. It will likely become more important when the game’s multiplayer suite reaches an audience. As it is, the level of information available just doesn’t cut it.

The campaign doesn’t give much explanation for things like build orders, squad composition, or the rock-paper-scissors interplay of which units counter which. It’s going to be on the community of players to discover these strategies on their own, using a horde of minds to bash their collective head against theories until something sticks. Grey Goo could absolutely set such a community alight and make for a fine multiplayer experience over time.

It's tough to speculate about what "could be," though. All I can do right now is praise the game for what I know it gets right (a forward-thinking and accessible control scheme) and damn it for what it gets wrong (a frustrating and at times forgettable campaign).

I will say this for Grey Goo: I'll be watching its competitive scene, or lack thereof, with a lot of interest.

The good

A fluid, progressive interface that advances a long-dormant genre

Gorgeous CGI cutscenes that recall the genre’s good old days

Story is presented with a confidence that becomes endearing over time

Strong voice acting and overall story direction

The bad

Hesitation of any kind is punished immediately

Steep learning curve requires a lot of experimenting and restarting at first

Most units feel like reskins of their factional counterparts

A paper-thin plot that can’t support the game’s more lofty ideas

The ugly

Powerful, painfully slow epic units mean you'll spend a lot of time watching your giant robot walk from point A to point B

Verdict: Grey Goo is definitely a throwback, albeit one with some compelling innovations. Those who remember the heyday of the RTS genre should get a kick out of it, while the unprepared may be scared away.