What is Damage Incorporated?

An FPS that mixes in real-time strategy elements, and explores serious themes such as the mental trauma soldiers can face in battle. You lead a classified squad of soldiers as you take out home-grown terrorists around America.

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If you’ve been itching for a contemporary first-person shooter, Damage Inc. fits the bill. As leader of this U.S. antiterrorist unit, you must neutralize a number of gun-crazed paramilitary groups. This is the second MacSoft game to use Bungle’s Marathon engine (the other was Prime Target, reviewed Apr/97, p76). Although this 2D game engine has reached the end of its useful game life in a world that's quickly moving to 3D, Damage Inc. adds some neat twists,

You control a team of up to four Marines. Instead of running around shooting everything that moves, you actually have to plan with your troops to be effective. This adds a layer of strategy and complexity found in no other first-person shooter game.

Unfortunately, this coordination can be difficult. Your Marines don’t always move the way you expect them to, often scouting in the direction opposite to what you specify. The 1.1 updater (check it out on The Disc) supposedly makes them a bit smarter, so they don’t run into you as often as before, but I didn’t notice much difference.

The only sure way to control your team members is by using the map view to tell them exactly where to go, and this becomes tiresome.

True, the graphics aren’t as sophisticated as Marathon’s, but the weapons are fun. Best of all, each team member says different things to you on a mission. Vidiot, for instance, shouts,”Good shooting, Marine! Better him than you, and certainly better him than me!” Random sound bites from group members keep you entertained during combat.

All in all. Damage Inc. offers an interesting team twist and a good plot with a sense of humor.

Albright, Wade. (September 1997). Damage Inc. MacAddict. (pg. 74).

Download Damage Incorporated for Mac

Architecture

68K + PPC (FAT)

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver