Platform: PC
Genre: Real Time Strategy
Publisher: TBA
Developer: TKO Software
ETA: 2006

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For a long time, you could get PC real time strategy games for less than a dime a dozen. So it makes sense for game developers to make something controversial in order for it to stand out. And what's more controversial than religion? The forces of good and evil are set to fight each other on a post-apocalyptic Earth in TKO's upcoming title Heaven vs Hell.

It's easy enough to merely create a title meant to shock the public, but thankfully TKO is putting quite a bit of effort into making a quality RTS by introducing little tweaks into the formula. For instance, each and every individual unit can be tweaked for speed, power or defense, demanding that you find a good medium for a strategic balance. Each side can corrupt or purify the land - the legions of Hell will, naturally, turn the landscape into a fiery, ashen volcano, while Heaven will fill the land with bright green grass. Invading your opponents territory can potentially cause damage if you step on the wrong terrain. The graphics, even at the extremely early stage they were shown at in E3, show tremendous 
amounts of detail - all of the characters are normal mapped, and there's some particularly nice specular bloom effects on the holy shrines of the Good side. The Evil side shows off to 

incredibly nightmarish demon designs, with howling creatures held together by chains, fighting alongside gigantic maggots. One of the Hell buildings is a gigantic screaming head, which should illustrate how far TKO is going to show off something freakish.

Even though they're heavily focusing on graphics and gameplay, it's not to say that Heaven or Hell isn't designed to shock you. Amongst the usual resources to harvest, there are little human creatures on the board called Primians. The demonic side can capture the souls of these creatures and use them for nefarious purposes - 

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one structure has hordes of these guys crucified around a pool of blood, which brings to life more sadistic creatures. On the other hand, the angelic side seeks to "convert" the primians and exploit them for their work. Count on seeing biblically inspired angels and demons to show up as "hero" characters, as well as the ability to unleash plagues that would make Moses proud.

TKO is also catering heavily to the mod community. Included will be a stunningly versatile and user friendly modding tool, allowing you to easily modify the terrain and change texture map sets. You can view your work in real time, play actual battles, then pause and tweak as you see fit.

Despite being so early in development, Heaven vs. Hell shows quite a bit of promise - after all, can a RTS that features a unit like a Succubus really be all that bad? Although no publisher is currently lined up; Heaven vs. Hell is still a long ways off - the projected release date is late 2006. A console release is being considered, depending on whether Microsoft or Sony releases a keyboard/mouse combo for their next-gen systems.

Kurt Kalata

(August 8, 2005)