Before I talk about this game, I should mention my interaction with the people who worked on it. The artist is someone who I've met at a couple of events, and who has been a very friendly guy. The designer and programmer is a guy who I've have had an online argument with on the subject of Procedural design vs. Pre-made content. Not a bile-filled argument, mind you, but a polite and productive one that makes you consider and develop your position. So all in all, I think the guys that made this are pretty cool guys. I was also interested to see what developer Alex Vostrov would create with his love of procedural design.
I am of the opinion that strategy games and tactics games are best when they focus on one or the other, rather than a little of both. I don't like most RTS games for this reason, preferring 4X games for Strategy and Tactics games for, well, tactics. (The exception being the Total War games, which do a good job of seperating the strategy and tactics within the game, by having a Grand Strategy game with tactical battles). This game falls firmly into the genre of tactics games, specifically Real Time Tactics, which is something of a rare beast.
The basic premise of the game is you control a squad of space marines who have to fight off swarms of aliens. And when I say swarms, I mean swarms.
The game revolves around the idea of brains vs. numbers. You are outnumbered by aliens hundreds times over, and they will keep spawning from their hives. You have to use your tactical abilities to face the mindless hoards of aliens. You begin the game with one base. You must capture all the control points, which contain alien hives, and turn them into bases. As you capture points, you gain build-points, which you can use to train your units, build turrets and other buildings, and research technologies.
What this all ads up to is a limited resource with which you can customize your team to fit your play-style and your tactical needs. You can give your guys flame throwers for crowd control, give one a sniper rifle to take out enemy towers from a distance, recruit an extra unit, give your units recovering health, build towers to help defend key points on the map, among many other options. The game also lets you sell back the things you buy for a refund of you build-points, allowing to reallocate them as you please.
It is important to keep modifying your team build and your tactics because of one of this game's most important features. As you capture control points, the aliens will gain random adaptations. These can range from new unit types, to improved towers, to pods that spawn clone versions of your own units. This not only leads to a increase in difficulty as the game progresses, but also to new and interesting situations emerging from the combinations of these random mutations. Because of this, you'll have to keep adapting your tactics to the changing threat from the aliens.
The other problem I have is that the game is often hard to win, but also easy not to lose. I've maybe lost one game at most, but I've quit a few games when I ended up in a stalemate where I couldn't capture any more points, but could defend the points I already had. The enemies are dumb (as they should be, they're alien bugs) and therefore won't shift their strategy when attacking, and they don't gain a mutation unless you capture one of their hives. This means the game often ends up in a holding pattern. Sometimes this gives you time to plan a strategy that can let you advance, but sometimes the mix of mutations and map layout means you can't make any headway, leading to a stalemate.
However, despite these issues, I definitely enjoy this game. When the game is at its best, it's really intense, and the victories feel hard earned. You feel occasionally overwhelmed, but through tactical planning, you can turn the tides in the battle most times. The game really pulls off the feeling its trying to go for very well. The swarms of enemies are massive, and there's always a moment of panic when the aliens mutate and you have to quickly manage some new threat.
At the time of writing, the game is in Beta and is available for $15 here. Once it goes out of beta, the price will go up to $20.
-Alec
I am of the opinion that strategy games and tactics games are best when they focus on one or the other, rather than a little of both. I don't like most RTS games for this reason, preferring 4X games for Strategy and Tactics games for, well, tactics. (The exception being the Total War games, which do a good job of seperating the strategy and tactics within the game, by having a Grand Strategy game with tactical battles). This game falls firmly into the genre of tactics games, specifically Real Time Tactics, which is something of a rare beast.
The basic premise of the game is you control a squad of space marines who have to fight off swarms of aliens. And when I say swarms, I mean swarms.
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| AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! |
What this all ads up to is a limited resource with which you can customize your team to fit your play-style and your tactical needs. You can give your guys flame throwers for crowd control, give one a sniper rifle to take out enemy towers from a distance, recruit an extra unit, give your units recovering health, build towers to help defend key points on the map, among many other options. The game also lets you sell back the things you buy for a refund of you build-points, allowing to reallocate them as you please.It is important to keep modifying your team build and your tactics because of one of this game's most important features. As you capture control points, the aliens will gain random adaptations. These can range from new unit types, to improved towers, to pods that spawn clone versions of your own units. This not only leads to a increase in difficulty as the game progresses, but also to new and interesting situations emerging from the combinations of these random mutations. Because of this, you'll have to keep adapting your tactics to the changing threat from the aliens.
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This, however, leads to one of two problems I have with this game. Because of the random nature of both the enemy's adaptations and the layout of the level, the difficulty can shift quite a bit from game to game. Enemy hives clustered together and powerful adaptations can increase the difficulty dramatically, whereas more manageable adaptations and natural choke-points in the level can make the game much easier. To some extent it comes down to luck of the draw.The other problem I have is that the game is often hard to win, but also easy not to lose. I've maybe lost one game at most, but I've quit a few games when I ended up in a stalemate where I couldn't capture any more points, but could defend the points I already had. The enemies are dumb (as they should be, they're alien bugs) and therefore won't shift their strategy when attacking, and they don't gain a mutation unless you capture one of their hives. This means the game often ends up in a holding pattern. Sometimes this gives you time to plan a strategy that can let you advance, but sometimes the mix of mutations and map layout means you can't make any headway, leading to a stalemate.
However, despite these issues, I definitely enjoy this game. When the game is at its best, it's really intense, and the victories feel hard earned. You feel occasionally overwhelmed, but through tactical planning, you can turn the tides in the battle most times. The game really pulls off the feeling its trying to go for very well. The swarms of enemies are massive, and there's always a moment of panic when the aliens mutate and you have to quickly manage some new threat.
At the time of writing, the game is in Beta and is available for $15 here. Once it goes out of beta, the price will go up to $20.
-Alec
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