The incredibly thick mid-90s computer animation aesthetic still works for some reason, and there are moments when I'll be goddamned if it isn't honestly, unironically, at least a little bit cool.

Which is surprising! I was expecting this one to be a pretty cringey revisit, given just how much time has passed and how focused it was on being proto-Internet-age cutting-edge. But a number of smart choices make it certainly not timeless, but at least dated in a consistent and assured way. Setting the game in a slightly skewed alternate universe a couple years into the future makes the goofier military stuff work intuitively, and from the very start, with the bravura game installation utility/cutscene(!!!), every UI choice cleverly frames the entire game as a war being mediated through computers, which obviously helps sell everything from the gameplay to the artifacted FMV cutscenes.

Lot of little problems like asinine AI and pathing glitches, and it's somewhat limited from a strategic standpoint, but what are you gonna do, it was more or less inventing a genre. Still fun to dive into for a bit, even if it's more a spectacle than a serious strategic challenge these days.