It's nice to see some hefty new content for free. Take the latest patch for World in Conflict, the incredibly gorgeous real time strategy game from Swedish developer Massive Entertainment. It adds four new maps that are more than just the same old assets re-arranged in a different order.

For instance, do_studio is a map of a Hollywood backlot. Instead of battling over the usual bunkers, town centers, and ports, you're fighting over sets for a disaster movie, a Western, an alien invasion movie, and Jurassic Park Dino World. "Yee haw, the Old West is ours!" the American commander proclaims when the Americans take the Western set. Of course, World in Conflict is great about destructible terrain, so all those fakes saloons and old timey facades aren't likely to remain standing for long. It might not look like a Western set once it's changed hands a few times.

There are also maps for a small picante Mexican town, an Apocalypse Now-inspired Vietnamese jungle, and a canal running playfully through a French village. Each maps has clever and distinctive touches. If I was a publisher, I would force you to pay for these. Because you probably would. They're that good.

I'm still so impressed with this engine. It is one of the most muscular and beautiful engines in any genre. It's a shame World in Conflict is pretty much limited to team-based gameplay. If it had a decent single-player campaign, an acceptable skirmish AI, and better support for head-to-head games between fewer players, it would be so much more than just a pretty engine. It would be one of the best RTSs ever made.

The quiet screenshot above from the new Mexican village map doesn't give you a good indication of how the game looks when it's angry. Here's an example of that: