ALFA: Antiterror is a turn based tactical combat simulator that lets the player control Russia's special operations force through a four episode campaign based on the real life experiences of former Alfa members. Here's the first part of an exclusive developer diary from Alfa Antiterror project producer Yaroslav Astakhov!

 "ALFA: Antiterror" is a turn based tactical combat simulator that lets the player control Russia's special operations force through a four episode campaign based on the real life experiences of former Alfa members. The game's campaign offers a player to visit many hot spots of the last 15 years. The game is more than 10 diverse danger filled missions broken down into a 4 episode Campaign that follows the exploits of Alfa team through historically based operations.

The "ALFA: Antiterror" campaign covers the period from 1983 till nowadays. A player will be offered to join the "ALFA" task force of KGB (State Security Committee) as a junior officer, starting his career during the Soviet Union military operations in Afghanistan in 1983 and finishing it nowadays in the rank of colonel of the same task force, but under FSB (Federal Security Service) command nowadays.

Generally speaking the campaign of "ALFA: Antiterror" is a story of an "ALFA" officer, some kind of his dairy or memoirs. He recalls his first coming to "ALFA" group, his first bloody battle in Afghanistan, then Chechnya, and finally the collapse and following recovery of his country. This is the first-person story that gives us an opportunity to feel deeply the real state of those events.

The game includes such events as Afghanistan War (1983-1988), the Soviet Union collapse and the rising surge of terror over the ruined Empire, then the First Chechen War (1994-1996), international terrorists' invasion in Dagestan (1999), then the Second Chechen War (1999-2000) and finally the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan (2001).

The game has many features and components that distinguish it from other similar projects. First of all these are realistic gameplay, true ballistics, attention to details, as well as succinct interface and finally modern high-standard graphics. Moreover the game uses its own detailed graphic engine, specially created for the game.
The modern high-standard graphics allows the player to become deeply engrossed in the gaming process. The "ALFA: Antiterror" graphics impresses deeply with its thoroughly detailed objects, photorealistic textures, multi-storied levels, clear textures, accurate models and many more. Exceptionally realistic 3D environments crammed with tactical terrain elements provide the player with endless strategic possibilities and mission replayability. The graphic engine uses all modern technologies including skeletal animation. Moreover, "ALFA: Antiterror" project has additional Intel Hyper Threading and SSE optimization, so the holders of Intel processors will have certain advantage.

Moreover the player will be able to plan out a squad's actions during the strategic phase and then watch how they are played out in real time as the units react to potential danger as it is uncovered. Since the game covers rather vast period of time, the equipment and weapons, which are available to the player, will change depending on the period of time. In general there are about 100 types of weapons in the game. All weapons imitate arsenal both adopted by Russian specnaz and regular forces and weapons made in other countries as well.

Tactical elements like true line of sight, line of hearing (earshot distance) and realistic camouflage provide the basis for a rich and immersive gaming experience.
The game has an expandable architecture, allowing the creation and the distribution of new maps, weapon and fighter models for download.
As multiplayer is in high-demand right now by the gaming community, the "ALFA Antiterror" provides a variety of multiplayer modes, including HotSeat, via e-mail, via LAN, via direct Internet connection. Multiplayer offers the choice of other special forces to be played as opposing teams or allied forces. Field teams of S.A.S (British), SWAT (US), GSG-9 (German), GIGN (French).

And finally the player will certainly enjoy the splendid soundtrack and impressive scale while playing "ALFA: Antiterror". So in comparison with other similar games the upcoming project "Alfa Antiterror" has a number of advantages and benefits.

The origins of "Alfa Antiterror"

Actually, the development of "Alfa Antiterror" project began with a strong positive impression of the popular "Combat Mission" game. There are very few realistic modern combat simulators; you could count them on the fingers of one hand, let alone RPG strategies. Also the 90-s came out as the golden age of world terrorism - this fact made dramatic impact on our minds, espe-cially considering that Russia is familiar with terrorism indeed.

We're quite confident that the most solid barrier between terrorists and Russian people are the special task force "ALFA". Inspired by the courage and heroic deeds of the Russian special anti-terror group "ALFA", we made an effort to create a realistic game, glorifying the hard days of their great job. The crucial role in "Alfa Antiterror" origin played President's George Bush speech, mention-ing the importance of computer games for greater strengthening of patriotism and freedom. Then we decided to create a game, which could do some kind of macrotask apart from entertainment purposes: to enhance the prestige of special task forces (not only Russian "ALFA", but also spe-cial task forces of other countries, since all of them have a common task - defend our lives from threat).

The development of the project began in year 2001. Then the game was called "Alfa project", but afterwards it was given a new name - "Alfa Antiterror".
"Alfa Antiterror" is a tactical strategy, which takes place in the period 1983-2001. The game's campaign offers a player to visit many hot spots of the last 15 years.
One of the main ideas of "Alfa Antiterror" project is to tell about the severe reality of special groups' work, struggling against terrorist forces. There are many games telling about World War II, but very few touching the present conflicts.

Here're 4 old screenshots - from the beginning part of development (2001):

Needless to say that nowadays the situation worldwide became more acute. Therefore the special task forces take on special significance, since they defend us against threats everyday al-ways remaining in the shadow. So the game is a praise to courage and bravery of people, who guard us from chaos of terrorism.
Since this year the well-known Group "A", famous for its more then 800 counterterrorist op-erations and fighting actions on the hot spots of Russia, celebrates its 30th anniversary the anti-terror theme became extremely important.

The game is totally based on the real events of our life. Almost every mission has its historical parallels, but the majority of the information used in the game still remains classified (confiden-tial). During the creation of the "Alfa Antiterror" project we have regularly consulted with ALFA team members, so you can certainly expect an accurate reflection of many Special Forces opera-tions in the game.

Here're 4 new screenshots (fall 2004):

And the plots were taken from the memories of ALFA team members - those who participated in the different operations and various actions, shoots and pictures of locations, including aerial shooting of Chechnya; some facts and materials were collected specially for the game. Initially we submitted for approval the scenarios of 12 missions to the Federal Security Ser-vice (FSB) Operation Center - they rejected 11 of them without giving any reason (for no reason whatever)! "It's impossible and that'll do ".

Therefore unfortunately we had to eliminate certain missions from the game including an ex-tremely interesting storm of airplane captured by terrorists. This information is absolutely confi-dential.  One of the main "Alfa Antiterror" consultants was the "ALFA" team legend - the Major-General in retirement Gennady Zaitsev. Other operative experts were engaged in the consulta-tions to make clear some details; but sometimes our project manager had been visiting the Op-eration Center.

related links: Alfa Antiterror Q&A, Game Factory Interactive (East European publisher)