Conflict Zone takes place in the year 2011 and the world is at constant conflict. There are two main groups battling each other: the International Corps For Peace and the GHOST organization. Battles takes place around the world but there's quite a twist on the whole political aspects of war; the ICP must "keep the peace" fighting a limited war that restricts them from truly escalating the war. ICP must rescues refugees, liberate cities, and perform other warm and fuzzy tasks because the media is keeping constant watch of the war efforts. Failure to keep up the ICP standards of justice (like shooting innocents, bombing the wrong target, etc.), will lead you to disfavor with the media and that impacts your resources (more on that later). The GHOST coalition also must watch what they do in front of the media, but it's rather in a devious way; showing off the weakness of their enemies, documenting you diabolical means, and manipulating the media to brainwash civilians in joining your army. As you can see, the media plays a major role in the game as they're the primary resource of money that funds your campaigns; gain favor with the media and you'll become more popular giving each respective military more incentive to fund your war effort with more money, new technologies and greater support. This is a new play mechanic introduced to the RTS genre; so long as you perform according to your military's standards, the money will keep rolling in. Having your resources reflect on your performance is a pretty interesting concept and it works pretty well in Conflict Zone.
Another concept is the advanced AI of units as they perform with greater or less ability according to their commander's popularity. As you progress further into the game, you'll be able to assign commanders to certain areas and depending upon your popularity and your aptitude in giving correct orders affects the performance of your commands. Your troops will attack with greater ferocity, better precision, and will often act of their own accord through the game's advanced AI. This is where the problems start to been seen, as more often than wanted enemies will act with weird randomness; vehicles will unnecessarily move around an area when you order them to remain stationary and units won't respond to attack even as they're getting attacked. Conflict Zone also demonstrates one of the problems that has plagued RTS titles all over where units will refuse to move when you direct them to. This problem is confounded doubly due to the difficult control system bound to the Dreamcast controller. One of the reasons why RTS titles aren't much fun to play on a console is the number of commands player's must know and master in order to effectively move troops, select certain units, choose upgrades, and make other necessary commands. CZ features a host of different button combinations that perform specific tasks and good luck trying to memorize all of them. Moving your cursor and selecting specific troops is pretty clunky and you'll know what I mean when you want to select a group of soldiers in the midst of a firefight. Of course, all of this can be alleviated with mouse and keyboard support and since the Dreamcast supports such handy devices, a Dreamcast owner who owns a keyboard and mouse might have an easier time playing a RTS title on the Dreamcast. Whoever had the bright idea to LEAVE OUT keyboard and mouse compatibility when bringing this PC title to the Dreamcast obviously wanted to frustrate Dreamcast players as much as possible.
Conflict Zone is pretty much dated when it comes to the visuals. Animation is lacking when it comes to the movement of individual units. The unit and vehicle models are pretty good, but they don't have much detail. Come battle time, there are some impressive explosions but just get ready for some slowdown when the action starts to really get hairy. Also, I'm not too sure about the death and destruction animations of units especially tank vehicles; when tank units are destroyed, they'll literally "jump" and spin in an almost toy-like manner before sinking into the ground. Cutsequences don't look great though there are some rather humorous sequences worth noting. What I found kinda odd was the lack of VGA support since this game originated from the PC.
As probably the last third party Dreamcast game, Conflict Zone is a letdown. Clunky controls, gameplay flaws, and uninspired visuals really hamper any enjoyment you may find with this RTS. The fact that it lacks keyboard and mouse support is unacceptable at this point in the life of the Dreamcast. Then again, it shouldn't surprise anyone given the fact that the system won't be getting much media attention anymore.
--Anthony Chau, IGNDC