So I Tried… Carrier Command: Gaea Mission

Each edition of So I Tried… I will try a game that I have never played before. Will I find something new to love? Will I find something new to despise? I'll take a full half hour, no matter how bad it gets or how badly I do, to see if this is the game for me. This time I went for the PC version of Carrier Command: Gaea Mission.

What I thought it was

A mixture of strategy and third-person vehicle-based sci-fi combat, where you command the troops where to go but can take direct control of any of your units. I watched the trailer like two months ago; who knows if I’m remembering the correct game? In any case, strategy games aren’t my usual cup of tea, but I figured the “control any plane or tank” might impress me.

What it actually is

You play the grizzled elite officer being sent into a hostile situation on an alien planet under attack by enemy forces, while an unarmoured woman does everything the slightest bit technical for you. If this sounds familiar, that’s because Carrier Command: Gaea Mission appears to have started life as a Halo fan game with not nearly enough budget.

On a broader scale, you start the game having crashed on a planet and have to get your space marine butt from the landing site to take possession of an enemy aircraft carrier. Once you’re aboard, you can use your Walrus APC (capable of land and water-borne travel) to presumably take over a nearby island, and subsequent ones. But I kept getting destroyed before my timer expired, and I had to stop playing, so I’m just guessing.

Will I keep playing

There are some good ideas here, with first-person, third-person, and strategy styles of play available at the touch of a button. But the execution is clunky as hell. While running around at the start, for absolutely no reason, my dude would just slow down for a few steps. If I turned while stood too close to a wall, he would be pushed back because the collision box is apparently huge. The voice acting is bordering on Resident Evil’s “Jill Sandwich” quality, and the cutscene audio is mistimed to boot.

So no, I’m not returning to this game; it’s pretty bad, and I didn’t enjoy it.