The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge
The Dreamland Chronicles: Freedom Ridge is an unreleased video game for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 2 by Mythos Games. Developed by the team which produced X-COM: UFO Defense, including lead designer Julian Gollop, the game was planned to be "a remake of the first X-COM with 3D graphics," as the first of four games planned in the new series. Cancelled in 2001, the unfinished game was later bought and partially turned into UFO: Aftermath by Altar Interactive, which was in turn itself followed by two sequels. Some elements of the game are also present in Gollop's own Phoenix Point. Gameplay According to the GameSpot preview, the Freedom Ridge interface followed the three-tiered format of a rotatable and zoomable global strategy view, showing various cities areas of interest spread and an outline of the human (allied) and alien (enemy) zones of control (similar to the Geoscape in the X-COM: UFO Defense and also in accelerated real-time), a 3D isometric view tactical screen when the player controls a squad in turn-based combat, and a first-person view to control the squad's individual units while aiming their weapons. The game's environment was presented with a detailed 3D graphics and fully destructible ("floors, beams, and roofs can collapse, and entire buildings can be leveled if enough damage is sustained"). During the action sequences, the camera would switch from the isometric or first-person view for special effects such as to trail behind a fired missile. The project leader Julian Gollop later said it was "quite an ambitious project" of turn-based tactical strategy game, featuring such innovative elements as a destructible terrain system. He said that had it been released, The Dreamland Chronicles would be very similar in gameplay terms to the much later tactical role-playing game Valkyria Chronicles, released for the PlayStation 3 in 2008: "We had a third-person camera view behind your character with a bar representing your Action Points, which went down as you moved. When you went into shooting mode it went into a first-person view and you could select snap shots or aimed shots, which altered the size of an aiming circle on screen." Plot In the game, the humankind had lost Earth to the invading aliens following a devastating 70-day war against the dinosaurlike Saurans in the year 2003. In the aftermath of the war, the player takes command of a small resistance group named the Terran Liberation Army in a desperate struggle to regain the planet. They must scramble to protect the areas left in their control and find more supplies and troops, and capture aliens and their equipment to research the alien technology and use it against them. Along the way, human resistance uncovers the truth behind alien abductions, UFO conspiracies, and Area 51 ("Dreamland" is a name often used for Area 51, located near the location called Freedom Ridge), and soon discover other powerful forces at work, including another alien race other than the invaders (Reticulans) and the reclusive and mysterious Men in Black. Development Freedom Ridge was