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Harv -> A Few Thoughts... (2/12/2014 4:15:02 PM)
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So I clicked on the Buy Me Now! button as soon as I woke up, and it was conveniently downloaded by the time i was out of the shower and had coffee made. A few clicks to install, and off I went.
I'm running this using Parallels on my iMac, and everything seems to be working perfectly with this setup. Windows can't be run in Coherence or the game loses focus, but that isn't unexpected and isn't an issue. As I'm running two monitors it can be challenging to scroll the map to the right as the mouse can slip over to the next monitor, but again isn't an issue and is just part of my setup. The game seems to run in full screen only, which is alright, but an option to run it in a window would be nice too.
Anyhoo, I dove into the game without even opening up the manual, as I like to get a feel for the UI without any hand holding. I chose the scenario "A Partisan Defence" as I remember seeing it mentioned somewhere, and thought it would be a good test of my "skill" with some uber grey counters. Turns to I have no skill (yet?) and lost miserably on Normal difficulty, but the game system and UI made perfect sense to me. I had to crank the map scroll speed down to 1 and make the buttons large (tough to hit at 2560x1440 resolution), but otherwise everything played along smoothly and as expected. If I were to recommend any changes, it would be to elevate the button row somewhat so there was less chance of accidentally scrolling the map, and move the Finished/Unselect/Pass button up and to the left for the same reason.
The graphics are quite nice, and I assume true to the physical board game. There is some blurring as you zoom out, and as the zoom levels have quite large steps (only 4 it looks like?) there really isn't a way to see a little more map while also having the counters nice and sharp. If there were a few more zoom levels/steps added it would make for a better experience I think. Sound is fine, and does well enough that I don't turn the effects off and make my own *pew pew* noises when shooting at the enemy.
Gameplay I really can't speak to as I had absolutely no idea what the numbers, modifiers or die rolls meant, but it looked like when I did something stupid I was punished, and vice versa. I generated a Hero somehow, which was cool, and I got to see the flamethrower in action, which was cooler. The AI popped out of stone building cover a couple of times which didn't seem too smart, but I don't know if that was to try and draw fire so my guys could be shot at by another unit, or if it just isn't too intelligent. A few more games once I go through the tutorials and more fully understand the system will help with that determination.
So after a half hour I'm quite pleased overall, and can see spending quite a lot of time playing through the supplied scenarios and campaigns. I'm probably overstating the obvious, but this would be a Perfect fit for the iPad/tablet and would love to see it brought over to that platform if at all possible. Oh, and the flavour text when exiting got a laugh too. [:)]
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