Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

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Tension on Freedom Ridge

Although they now have a new company called Mythos, the Gollop brothers are probably still best known for their classic X-Com series of turn-based strategy games. Their latest title "Freedom Ridge" is something of a return to X-Com territory, with the player fighting alien invaders with a mixture of tactical combat, base building, resource management, and scientific research of captured alien technology.

In an interview with GameSpy.com, Julian Gollop explains that "we want to preserve the tension and suspense of the turn based tactical combat, and the relationship between strategic and tactical missions" that will be familiar to X-Com veterans, although Mythos have "extended the research system to include some aspects of diplomacy and espionage", and there are many important gameplay differences, particularly on the strategic level, where vehicle interception and combat is considerably improved compared to the original X-Com". And of course, this being the year 2000, "the isometric graphics have gone, in favour of a highly detailed 3D system with physics simulation". Expect to see the game appear some time early next year...