I just bought the game today, and so far I like it!
To demonstrate the game a bit, here are two of my multiplayer games I played today: one win, one draw. These were exported to youtube with the games own "export to youtube" -feature,
so these videos lack the planning phase which is between every turn, controls are hidden and the game uses autozoom in this recording. Also, all of these games were "dark", which means you don't automatically see where enemy is. The video shows locations of all soldiers, but in-game I didn't see where my enemy was unless I had Line Of Sight, or saw where he fired granades from etc. Well, I only see at the start of the game (starting positions), but not after that.
Too fully see what is going on, pause at the beginning (when guys first appear) and pause every few seconds. You also may want to watch these videos multiple times, so you do not miss anything they do. There is a planning phase every few seconds, so watching it in one go will only leave you confused.
Anyway, here they are:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4g-SVkz4qUI'm green, and it's my first game ever. Idea: Rockettroopper and machinegunner start at top left, I intend to fire rocket at enemy down right while taking him from rear with my 3rd guy. The machinegunner at top left is supposed to cover vs any enemy from downwards direction, but enemy machinegunner takes mine out, leaving the rocket-troopper alone. I do manage to take out the enemy on right, so it's even after first turn.
Problem here is: rockets have to be fired
manually. It means rocket trooppers will never fire automatically on sight. Also, rockets have to
hit something solid, or they'll fly forever and never explode, map border will not make a rocket explode. This means rockets and such are very hard to use. As you can see from my rocketguy dying in the upper left, during the game.
The game comes down to a 1v1 shootout, which I win barely.
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Fun fact: chats are incredibly well integrated into the game - in addition to private and in-game chats, there is an in-game irc chat you can enter, if you want to. It's like a public channel of the game. But here is the second game:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJJR6jhfEEoStart of the game planning phase: I'm green again. My machinegunner in the cube that's in middle of the screen can in theory take out the enemy machine gunner north of him, but after a couple of test simulations I see the red rocket-guy can shoot a rocket at my cube and take my guy out. So I decide best course of action is to run fast to left, and then turn around and defend versus two enemy guys in the north, if they decide to come south to the open area. Meanwhile my rocket guy (on left side of screen) will shoot a rocket at the wall shotgunner is hiding behind, so he can't just wait there in ambush and my shotgun guy will run down to meet enemy shotgunner, if he decides to run out. My guy on top right was the hard one: I had to test simulate over 20 different scenarios before coming up with one that would enable me kill both enemies, if they decided to peek into the room. I start the game and...
...it didn't go as planned. I was right about enemy rocket-guy shooting at my cube in the middle - good thing I ran out. Also, one of enemies peek into top right room and gets killed, just as I planned. But enemy shotgunner takes a route I didn't expect and kills both my rocket and shotgun guys! EEEK!
I run several scenarios of my machinegunner taking on enemy shotgunner, but my machinegunner dies every time, so I decide only way my machinegunner is going to live is to run away and hopefully ambush the shotugnner while he triest to rush into the room. My top right decides the other enemy machinegunner is sneaking north somewhere because I didn't see it, so I sneak to south door of the room and see if I can pick off the enemy shotgunner from far range, if he decides to come up and right from where he killed 2 of my guys.
I get a lucky strike as the 2nd enemy machinegunner triest to peek into the room from the exact door I'm sitting on, and I manage to kill him. My guy on the left isn't as lucky as enemy shotgunner overpowers him. Meanwhile in top left I start the search for enemy rocket guy. I find him, take a few shots but the rocketer runs away: I decide it's not a good idea to chase him downwards, because there are so many obstackles he can shoot rockets at. Instead I turn left and....I catch the enemy shotgunner running towards me! Thank god I didn't start going right: I would have died to enemy shotgunner shooting at my back.
Enemy rocketer shoots at me, misses barely, and the game ends to a draw.
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I think this game is great! What my videos did not show was the granade launcher: bit like rockets, but they do not break walls, instead granades bounce off walls and have a slightly lesser radius, also are slower so you have more time to run away from them.
What makes this game especially great is two thing in my opinion:
1)There is no luck involved. Everything is mathematically calculated, and if the test simulation shows something will happen in some way, it
will happen so when the turn is executed for real.
2)You have infinity to plan, test, and try out different things. This means also that your enemy has, so if you get bored waiting for your enemy to finish his turn, you can start another game! This way you can play multiple games at the same time, and game informs you when you get a next turn in a game you are not currently in, and shows all active "action is needed" -games. This way you will never be bored, and you will always have as much time as you need to take all scenarios into account.
Also, I should say, your guys are not always scattered around the map, sometimes each team starts in one corner of the map. For example, green on top left and red on bottom right. Also, all of the maps are randomly generated.
I say this was totally worth the 20€.
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Topic: Frozen Synapse (Read 5916 times)