Act of War, despite being nothing original has some mechanics of its own. For example, there are three ways of collecting money to fund your war effort: extracting oil, holding banks, capturing prisoners of war. Soldiers, when badly wounded stop fighting, most vehicles when destroyed leave a crewmember, both can be captured, what gives you small amount of money in the moment of capture and also you receive small amount of money over time, for every prisoner in prison camp. It is kind of weird - you are basically encouraged to create a little “slave camp”, but in the end, it results in a gameplay where letting your units die is heavily punished. Firstly, units get experienced during engagement and therefore get stronger. Secondly, by letting units die you waste precious resources invested in building your army. And enemy will capture your badly wounded soldiers and crewmembers, therefore will get more money and become stronger. Many people compare this game to C&C Generals; however, units in Act of War move faster and die faster. Experienced vehicles can one shot each other. Therefore, it is possible to strike swiftly and destroy a bulk of enemy force. Also infantry can lay ambushes in the woods. Moreover theme is different than C&C Generals - Act of War strives to be more “authentic”, most of the units have real life counterparts and there aren’t any goofy units like toxin tractor. Techno thriller like story, works good with the theme, it justifies usage of various contemporary military equipment and does good job of explaining reasons behind every mission. I’ve enjoyed the add-on, “High Treason” better - campaign has a little bit more plausible story and some missions are challenging. Also I personally had a great time with navy missions, coordinating ships to attack simultaneously in order to overwhelm enemy’s ship anti-missile defenses and positioning my ships, so they could protect each other. All in all, AoW is very solid game, I’ve loved it and I recommend it.
