Gromada

Overview

It’s not every day your favorite planet gets invaded by hostile alien forces bent on galactic domination. Planet Gromada is the test-bed for new military units and the home of Kassandra, your beloved battle tank. Kassandra is just about to go online when Gromada gets invaded and, like every traditional action hero, you grab Kassandra and go off to kick some alien butt.

Gromada has a wonderfully simple story: the aliens arrive, attack, and capture most of the planet. It's up to you and your tank to blast your way through to their HQ and destroy their operations on this planet. I know what you’re thinking, a single tank against a planetwide military? It must be a suicide operation. Just remember one thing. You’re the hero.

Developed by Russian game publisher Buka Entertainment and aimed primarily at a younger child market,Gromada is a fun, destructive romp through wonderfully rendered alien landscapes. Piloting a tank with four weapon mounts and about fifteen weapons to find and choose from, you’ll parade over the landscape of an alien world, blowing up everything from helicopters to repair silos.

Gameplay, Controls, Interface

Gromada has next to no learning curve, as all you need to do to play is use the mouse. A single click is required to both move and shoot, while the number keys allow you to switch between weapons. All in all, the game is incredibly fun and easy to use. On a side note, there are approximately fifteen different weapons, ranging from lasers to missile launchers to high tech trebuchets.

There aren’t really any puzzles to speak of, since the most complex feature of this game is being able to blow things up whether they’re on the ground or in the air. That aside, Gromada is still quite enjoyable, a fun romp through 25 missions with a heavily armed tank.

The game progresses through several different environments, all completely alien looking, save for a ‘seasonal’ motif (eg. summer world, winter world, etc.), with varying degrees of destructible terrain. Another interesting feature is the non-linear mission design, allowing you to choose from up to four missions with any given path.

Difficulty

As a title aimed for children, the difficulty presented inGromada is perfectly balanced. The levels, while slightly frustrating at times, can usually be beaten handily. If you’re unable to beat the game at normal difficulty level, you can reset the game to the easy difficulty without abandoning your progress and, failing that, there are only three cheat codes that you need to beat the entire game.

Graphics

Gromada’s finest points are its graphics. Simple and elegant, the backgrounds and terrain for the game are easy to see and move through. Many of the weapons in the game have their own unique signature graphics and some of the explosions that occur when an opponent is destroyed are wonderful to watch. All of the graphics in the game are very detailed and well polished, leaving little room for complaint.

Parents of young or very sensitive children should be cautious when purchasing Gromada, as there is a lot of firepower being thrown around in this game. Any impact this can have on a child is obviously lessened by the very alien landscapes, bubbly cartoon-like characters, and a lack of any real violence, but it does still depict a lot of explosions and gunfire that some parents may object to.

Audio

Aside from the wide variety of ballistic and explosive sound effects, the sound isn’t much to hear in this title. None of the sound detracts from the game experience, and I’m sure any gamer interested in Gromada will be well satisfied with the variety of ‘boom’ sounds in this game.

System Requirements

Minimum: P133, 16MB RAM, 4X CD-ROM, 2MB SVGA Video Card, and Windows 95/98.

Reviewed On: AMD K6/2 400, 64MB RAM, 32X CD-ROM, 32MB Diamond V770U, Creative SB Awe 64, and Windows 95.

Bottom Line

It's got guns, it's got tanks, it's got large explosions. A huge load of missions and several different weapons to choose from make this a classic shoot’em up game, with enough substance to make for an instant kids' favorite.

Gromada is a game that is sure to entertain children for quite a long time, with a significant amount of variety and re-playability. It is obviously not the kind of game to appeal to most hardcore gamers, but if you’re a parent looking for a birthday or holiday gift for your children, I heartily recommend Gromada.