Frozen Synapse

Frozen Synapse is one of the best games of its genre in the last decade. It excels at the most crucial game mechanics as pointed out by other reviews. It even features a campaign, which in my opinion lacks a bit in depth, but this does not matter since the game is meant to be played in multi-player mode, which is excellent and was functional until the last update of the game. However, do not buy this game if you intend to play it on a Linux OS. The multi-player mode, does not work. I filed a bug in March 2017, the GOG support team wrote me they contacted the developers, but there hasn't been a bug fix that I know of and the bug still exists. The reason why I gave the game only one star is that the game is advertised to be playable on Linux which is mostly not the case. So if you intend to play Frozen Synapse on Linux, do NOT buy this game, at least not at the moment. I will update my review as soon as the game works again.

I came into Frozen Synapse totally blind, and came away totally impressed. The story is about overthrowing various powers throughout a city. I'll not say more, and while the writing is a bit dry, the characters and wit are good. Some of the characters were great, but overall, I'd consider the story a secondary element at best. The game is really all about the game. I've been playing the campaign, because unfortunately the multi-player has some issues, mostly with sore losers. The devs were looking into this, apparently more for the sequel, but no amount of updating the game will make good sports of bad ones. The campaign is nice, often brutal, but satisfying none the less. The AI can be predictable at times, but still very challenging. Outside of story specific characters, every unit I've ever used served some kind of purpose. Shotguns were great for close quarters, machine gunners for covering wide areas, snipers for long range, rockets for breaching, grenades for clearing without demolishing. There is a surprising and enjoyable level of tactics involved. I recommend the tutorial, which isn't really that difficult, and once you get a sense of how the mechanics work, you might begin to appreciate this games depth. You have to really plan your strategy. Being ham-fisted will get your team wasted, and being too careful will get your team cornered and wasted. Stages have a turn limit, so you have to really learn to be aggressive, but also very strategic. The presentation here is refreshingly slick. On the surface it may look like an old-school vector game, but inside every unit is a spray of red pixels waiting to be liberated by a bullet or an explosion. The animations and style of this game really fit the motif, and I found both very enjoyable.

FS is a unique combination of combat environment awareness, tactics and psychology with the emphasis being on the last. It has a very deep (start playing other modes other than dark extermination as soon as you dare) gameplay with tons of variations. I have to warn though, that many will find the game to be way too difficult / having too steep learning curve. I really feel that people are exaggerating this but it is true that the game has a seep learning curve. But as long as you play the game as it is meant to be played (against other people) the difficulty is set by your opponent not the game itself.

If you're looking for the ultimate tactics/strategy game, this is it -- the closest video games have ever gotten to chess. First of all, let's dismiss the Civilizations and such. Civ is great for a fun time, but playing against AI is just not a real challenge -- AI is incapable of really challenging you. Instead, it cheats, and your challenge is to find exploits it can't handle. So we need the ability to have relatively quick games so that other people can play with us. Turn based is generally better than real-time -- RTS games tend to devolve into 'who can click faster'. Frozen Synapse provides that ability, and it uses the awesome Wego system that is criminally underused in gaming: both players plan their turns, mock up what they think the opponent will do, and submit it. The game gets both inputs and resolves the turn. It gives the best of turn-based and realtime: deep thinking, but both more realistic and rapid than the approximation that is a turn, and players don't need to wait for each other nearly as much. Other advantages are that there aren't too many squad members to control, thus not over-burdening you with micromanagement as found in later turns in Civ games; the rules are simple, clear and deterministic; and since you can simulate everything before submitting your turn, there's no excuse of 'I didn't know that could happen'. There's nothing else out there like Frozen Synapse. The same dev tried to apply this formula to sports with Frozen Cortex, with mixed results. This is one of computer gaming's crowning achievements: the closest we have come to the depth and strategy of chess. Get it, and come play online.

It's all in these three words + nice soundtrack. You have to be prepared that some units accuracy will heavliy depend on random, and that leads to frustration on some levels (exactly as it was mentioned in previous feedbacks). Still I'm not disappointed.