War of Freedom 2: The Heart of War by Caine Rotherham
Overview
Pull out your favorite book or get some cleaning done while you wait for this beast to load. Seriously, before starting this game, SHUT DOWN ALL OTHER PROGRAMS. WMP caused me hell trying to boot up this game. Enough about the load time though, because that's a very difficult element to control. The game seemed very remenisce of Hovendall Tactics. It has the same turn-based idea, only you get guns (very cool). Every person has a different range that they can shoot (can't tell what it is until you shoot, though). The game has a very good idea, it just had too many untied strings hanging out of this game. If you accidentaly pick the wrong person to move, too bad. If you click another person, then they both must move in the direction you specify. Then, after that they both must shoot to the same spot. The people must move on your turn. You aren't allowed to decide that you're going to stay in your spot and shoot. Additionaly, your enemies don't follow the same rules you do. They can shoot farther and move off-grid. Other than that though, the game was very fun and challenged the mind. You need to execute strategy and logic to overcome your enemies.Graphics
Decent. They weren't very high quality, but it did give a board-game feel. One saving element of this game was the mission screens. They looked very professional and bore no grammatical errors; a rare essential in Game Maker games.6/10
Audio
Good. The sound effects were realistic and the background music really gave a militarial feel while staying background music and not foreground music.7/10
Controls
Poor. You can't click on the spot you want to move to, which made me sad. Then, you have to hit space to activate shoot mode and move your hand to the mouse to aim your shot. When you're moving multiple people and trying to optimize time, moving your hand every second gets boring real fast.4/10
Replayability
Good. You can jump right back into the level you were at if you lose or quit. The map layout and numerous soldiers makes many different strategical possibilities.8/10
Target Appeal
Good. If you want a strategic military game, this is the best you can find if you get past the polish (or lack thereof).8/10
Game Flow
Decent. I won the training level and first level easy. The second level was damn near impossible. After that, it seemed to retain the same difficulty, perhaps only lowering your soldier count to increase the challenge. I was disappointed in this aspect. Also what goes into this category is game polish, which was just atrocious. I brought up most of these issues in the Overview.3/10