First and foremost, I got this game for like 3,74€ or whatever, and for that price it's right on the mark. The normal price of 15€, however, is way, way out there for a product like this. That's why the thumb down.
The female voice in the opening sequence is talking about how this is "the most advanced tactical simulator which revolutionised the world of urban combat and is used throughout the world for training puposes in various military forces" etc. Well that's just utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, like claiming Paranormal Activity is actually composed of real life footage. I would describe this piece of software as a "silly little game", rather than a tactical simulator, and if this is "most advanced" I really wouldn't want to see what the less advanced versions look like.
Basically you have a team of four dudes (why is it always four? the SAS apparently assaulted the Iranian Embassy in London with some 30 soldiers, against six terrorists. The Russian military assaulted the Moscow theatre in 2002 with some 200 men if I remember correctly...), who you will use to clear rooms of enemies in scenarios which last about 2-15min of real time, and some 7-40 seconds of game time (talk about blitzkrieg!
) There aren't any terribly complicated tactics or techniques involved, you can tell your men to walk from waypoint to waypoint, stay still, or throw a flashbang or a granade. Firing at enemies is automatic. You give commands to your men simultaneously while the game is paused, and then press OK and the gametime advances by some 5 seconds or so, during which you have no control over what happens. After the 5 secs it's another order-giving turn in pausemode, and so on. There is no command to wait for two seconds and go, which means that when you're about to assault a room you either throw in a flashbang first and wait until the next turn to go in, by which time the effect of the bang has already worn away. Or, you can charge in right away with another soldier while another man is deploying the bang, which means that the guy assaulting the room has already dispatched all the baddies and maybe taken some damage himself by the time the flashbang goes off.
Completing the missions give you experience which improves your soldiers, and money which you can use to buy new gear and weapons. Some of the gear is strictly cosmetic, and has no impact on gameplay, such as sunglasses or uniforms in funny camos. For some reason one of the bulletproof vests is by far the best, with a +145 bonus to health (or something like that), while all the others have something like +20 bonus to health. And the superarmour is not even the most expensive one, and it has no drawbacks...
and yeah, in the true videogame fashion, the soldiers have a simple numerical value of health, which means that it doesn't matter how much lead they eat during a mission, if they finish with at least 1 health left they are ok in the next mission. Incredibly advanced and realistic.
So yeah, all in all, it's a casual little tactics game, with hardly any real substance and very little flavour or immersion. Maybe the devs made the opening video first, and actually intended to make a realistic tactics simulator, but once they had the graphics somewhat ready they just thought "f*ck it, anyone fancy a pint? Just wrap it up and publish it on Steam." I'm glad I only paid that four Euros for it.
Missä muussa pelissä voi oppia, että tappajamehiläisiä syömällä voi saada myrkkyjen sietokykyä? Siitä sitten sariinin kyllästämille kentille..