Massive Assault

[TLDR: get at sale] Now, you might ask yourself how can a "very good game" have a 3/5 star rating (i.e.: mediocre). Well that's because, while Massive Assault is excellent in some areas, it's also lacking in others. I'll give you a short pro/cons description: Pro: - Competent AI - Secret Alliance feature meaning enemy might come from any side (random neutral country allies to you/enemy on every map) - land/sea/air combat - Laser Squad Nemesis / Frozen Synapse style of gameplay, with the player being able to undo moves or deployments - Hotseat mode (well, it USED to be the sh*t... In the 90s, I guess) - Transport units are actually helpful (can move furthest per turn out of all ground units) Con: - rather basic options; no button configuration - information can be hard to find sometime; tutorial won't hold your hand and will often give you info on how to defeat your enemy in current situation rather than how to do what's required to defeat enemies (not too much of an issue though, since the game has few rulesets, most used before in strategy games) - 13 units in total per side, with only skin differences, and all are unlocked from the first mission - besides the intro movie and "powerpoint" presentation that follows it, little to no other story given - "global" warfare is just a fancy way of saying they have a (somewhat) large map on which the campaign(s) take place; the maps stay the same but the situations change between missions (besides this, 24 more skirmish maps) Even with all these, this is still awesome game and, at the end of the day, you could think of them more like "nitpicks"... Problem is, they're quite a few nitpicks for a 10$ game. Also, there is a multiplayer option within the game that requires an account, but not sure if it's still functional, since it doesn't appear on the store page.

Pro's have been summed up in other review(s). I'd add old but decent graphics and the chess-like gameplay... The pro's make it a game I nearly would buy for my phone if it 'd be cheaper-and available. To the *cons* I would like to add: voice-acting sounds like it is done by the speech function on a russian computer (words like *spread* are pronounced as *spreed*) and the *story* is best described as an incomplete, uninspired and stale version of 1984 by George Orwell. I hereby opt for an extra genre named *stalefi* and put all games with this storyline (Earth-series) or its likes in there. Playing this game mostly made me feel how much more it could have been with just a bit more effort. The *money* you earn and use to recruit troops (the amounts of it) is not taken seriously: LAV's (Light Armored Vehicle) cost $1 to purchase; a tank $2. Conquering earns you more (single) dollars...it's just a number, I know, nevertheless... And, you just buy your units and put them on the battlefield during a *recruitment phase*; no research or development; just a limited amount of units. I found that rather boring in the end; however that simplicity is exactly what is liked by others. Fun? Yes, decent fun to chew away some *in-between* moments. Not the *one more turn* urge some other titles do possess...

Massive Assault has an interesting approach to combat, that differs from normal TBS games in several ways: - units always do a fixed amount of damage, even at low health - you cannot move into spaces of units destroyed in that round - first step into an enemry territory gives them money to raise guerillas at the start of their turn - territories free of enemies can build units at the end of your turn - freeing an enemy territory and capturing it's capital gives you a one time resource bonus to buy units All of this allows for some interesting tactics and strategies in both defense and offense and even though the game only has about a dozen units, it doesn't feel like it really needs more. Unfortunately, the AI seems to be broken. Campaign mode often came up with the message "This game appear to be broken. Please restore it." Which I did, and the message came again. Then I changed my tactics a bit, but to no avail. But when I did something stupid instead, the game went on without a problem. By this I surmise, that the AI crashes if you stray from the expected path. Therefore I cannot recommend this for the vs. AI gameplay, and for multiplayer I would recommend the superior Phantom Renaissance.

It's more like chess than typical turn-based strategy. There's no fog of war and you can see all enemy units clearly, recruiting an unit costs you just a symbolic $1 or $3. Similarly countries are also just symbolic - very small with just one city for the country. Really it's quite nice game when it works. There are however some very annoying bugs. I encountered "Game appear to be broken! Please restore it!" bug which I've been able to fix using an unofficial tool MassiveAssaultScnFixer. Unfortunately I also encountered a bug in Revolutionary Fire Campaign, step 7, causing mission refuse to load itself. It's apparently related to a bug with setting planes on carriers, known since 2002 which has been fixed long ago. Not entirely as it turns out. And I don't really feel like starting this particular campaign over, hoping this time it'll work, just to have this bug happen again after 6 missions.