Original War

The Good
LET'S TALK GAME-PLAY

• Integrated tutorial instead of having to choose whether to take one (and feel like a pansy) or just get dropped into it.
• Most missions are beaten acceptably within 2-4 tries, which is about the level of difficulty I prefer. I want to be challenged but not to be dominated by a game.
• The fact that units level up, and are not replaced if killed makes this one RTS where the people, and not the buildings, are what you care about.
• The vehicle designs are logical, I appreciate the fact that solar and gasoline based vehicles are offered at the same time - making it your choice where to construct a base.
• The choices you make actually have consequence instead of being flavour text - alliances can form and fall apart, and people live and die by your choices.

LET'S TALK GRAPHICS

• Polished, not whimsical, but practical.
• The gore level was appreciable, you should feel bad when Cpt. Parker dies, and it's easier to feel bad when he's bleeding out down there on the ground.
• Colour Palette is appropriate
• Resolution & Unit Size is almost the best I've seen - you can almost see the faces of individual units, but not quite. This prevents the characters from being either too large or small.

LET'S TALK SOUND

• The voice acting is good. Not great, but good.
• The music varies, at best it's above par, at worst I think I've heard better SNES tracks.
• Sound effects are average, although the vehicle noises could use some refining.

LET'S TALK STORY

• The sketchbook sections are genius, by far my favourite aspect of this game and at times what kept me playing. Kudos for those.
• The intrigue with the different nations pursuing each other through time is above par for RTS games, which are typically territorial.

LET'S TALK VALUE

• For $5.99 I feel I got a great game.

The Bad
LET'S TALK GAME-PLAY

• I really do like the idea that people are irreplaceable, but if we're going to make this an important tactical decision can I please have turn-based as an option? I'm not a hard-core RTS guy, but most aren't either, and this game (frankly) wouldn't appeal to hard-core RTS guys because of the limitation on unit production.
• Mission difficulty can ramp unfairly at times, and more often that not there are going to be hidden objectives that you need to die the first time to be properly prepared for. Dying all the time can be a little desensitizing.

LET'S TALK GRAPHICS

• Nothing to complain about here, it actually aged well.

LET'S TALK SOUND

• Some of the music can grate after a while, GoG offers the soundtrack separately for almost every game you buy ... I wasn't much inclined to put this in my play list.

LET'S TALK STORY

• This is a story where s$#@ runs downhill. It isn't a happy story, but it steals the triumphant moments from you and lingers on your failures. Give me a break, how about a pat on the back?

The Bottom Line
This is the kind of game I really want to like, because it's intelligent, original, and has a good story concept. Sadly I didn't take to this game very well at all. There was that initial euphoria you feel with a new game, but it quickly wore off and I just stopped playing. Yeah, I only paid $6, and I'm glad of that. It's not a bad game, I just didn't like it. The general consensus of 66pts is bang on, a little above average, unique, but not great.