Monday, September 15, 2003
"Strategic Assault" Not All That Strategic But Still Fun to Play
Posted by Doug Rausch in "SOFTWARE" @ 09:00 AM
Been raining all weekend? Burnt out on work? Neighbor taken your Sunday paper again? Just feeling like it's time to load up the battle tank, launch the gunboat, call in the attack helicopters, and invade your neighboring countries? Strategic Assault v1.85 by Xen Games may be the way to go. You won’t be launching a weekend long campaign but if you’re only looking for short, rapid battles read on.
When first picking up this game I was expecting to settle down for a long involved campaign across hundreds of miles of territory, worrying about supply lines, scouting out enemy positions, and building a force over "months" of time. That’s not what this game delivers, it never says it does, I guess I was just reading too much into the word "strategic" in the title. What this game does provide is challenging, if sometimes frustrating, tactical engagements, delivered with decent graphics, in a manner that despite my high expectations still kept me coming back again and again to win just one more battle.
First Task - Training
The first mission that you are presented with is actually a tutorial that walks you through the basic features of the game. This is actually a nice feature of this game, and you don’t really have a choice, you have to complete it to move onto more complex missions. You begin all missions with a satellite reconnaissance photo of the battlefield. Your bases are outlined in yellow, the enemy bases in green, and the strategic buildings in red. Forces are colored in a similar manner - your force yellow and enemy forces green. This brings up one of the things that I didn’t like about the game. You always have perfect intelligence. The satellite photo shows you all the enemy bases and at any time during the game you simply scroll around to find the enemy force position and composition. Resources that you would normally have to dedicate to reconnaissance missions are unnecessary and there is no fear of stumbling across the enemy when you are not ready.
Figure 1: Training Ground
The Mission
Your mission is simple: destroy the enemy base, their forces and factories. You begin with limited forces and must produce more to attack the enemy or defend your territory for any length of time. Production takes resources and although you begin the game with some resources, they are not enough to mount any type of effective offensive. To get more resources you must capture strategic buildings. These strategic buildings are unprotected as long as you get there first. Capturing a strategic building is as easy as touching it with one of your units. The building will turn yellow to show you own it and your resources will start to increase. If you don’t reach a strategic building first you will have to fight for it.
Capturing a strategic building satisfies two objectives: it gets you additional resources and denies resources to the enemy. The secret to this game is to get all the strategic buildings first and hold them long enough to deplete the enemy’s resource store. You can then build your own forces at your leisure to destroy your opponents' remaining forces. This brings up my second frustration with this game - most battles end up being a race to see who can tap the fastest to move forces, you or the computer. This game is not turn-based, i.e. you move then your opponent moves. Both sides are moving at the same time so he who hesitates is certainly lost. Although this does add a certain element of realism – no one takes turns in the real world – fast tapping often wins out over a well thought out attack plan.
Building Units
Figure 2 shows your base and a factory in the tutorial game (note the instructions to go attack the enemy). Most scenarios will start you off with at least one factory but it takes different types of factories to build different types of units such as light, heavy, or amphibious. If you have enough resources to build a unit you just tap on its picture to build it. Unfortunately, you cannot tell a factory to keep building tanks as resources allow. You have to explicitly tell it to build each tank. Just one more distracter when you need to be paying attention to the current battle.
Figure 2: Building Up Forces
Complexity Grows
As you complete a level you are promoted in rank and given a new challenge. Successive levels are challenging, with each growing in the level of complexity by varying terrain, placing the enemy in a better position, or giving the enemy more factories or units in the initial force lay down. Figures 3 shows a level requiring more naval action and Figure 4 gives an example of a level with the enemy in a superior starting position.
Figure 3: Send in the Marines
Figure 4: River Crossing
A Perfect View on the Battlespace
Most of your time is spent in Radar mode. It is from this mode that you can move your units and attack the enemy. In addition to giving you a view on the specific patch of ground you are currently observing you have a composite display in the lower left which shows the whole battlefield and all the unit locations. As I said earlier this perfect intelligence tends to detract from the realism of the game. Figure 5 shows the enemy force positioned around their base, a factory, and a captured strategic building with its dome colored green to show which force owns it.
Figure 5: Enemy Camp
Although you cannot create waypoints to gather your forces prior to an attack, you can group your forces together and move them as a single unit. The numbers one through four next to the directional arrows at the bottom of the screen allow you to control these groups of units. The units in a group move at each individual units own best speed, so your groups tend to get strung out over longer treks, especially if they are composed of both light and heavy forces. This individual movement opens your groups up to significant battle damage as the heavier, more lethal equipment is left behind as the lighter armored units speed ahead. Engaging in combat on the way to a destination also causes a group to forget where it was going. If the group wins the engagement it is happy to sit in the middle of no-man’s land until you give it another order.
Under Attack!
Opposing units will automatically engage each other when they get within range. If you want to attack another unit, just drive into it. This typically works well enough. Direct a group of your forces to the enemy base and they will try and take the base as well as engage the enemy forces around it. Sometimes you do need to get involved with positioning individual units as your forces have a habit of taking the most direct route to an enemy unit thereby shooting into rocks or trees rather than choosing the best avenue of approach for direct fire.
Graphics as a whole are done very well throughout the game and during battles it is very satisfying to sit back and watch the battle ensue as multiple units maneuver, fire, take hits, and explode all over your screen. You’ll probably turn the music off soon after starting the game but the other sound effects are adequate. I eventually turned those off as well but typically that was because I didn’t want folks to know I was taking the next ridge rather than jotting down staff meeting notes.
Figure 6: Battle Ground
Gotchas
Several improvements could be made which would propel this game to the next level and push the need for more player strategy.
The software can be downloaded from Handango or purchased for $5.99 (affiliate link).
Specifications
This program will work on any color Pocket PC. The program takes up 1 MB of RAM on the device and requires 1.5 MB to run.
Conclusions
Even though I found myself wanting several enhancements to the game you can't beat it for the price. If you enjoy military action games you will get your money's worth from Strategic Assault.
When first picking up this game I was expecting to settle down for a long involved campaign across hundreds of miles of territory, worrying about supply lines, scouting out enemy positions, and building a force over "months" of time. That’s not what this game delivers, it never says it does, I guess I was just reading too much into the word "strategic" in the title. What this game does provide is challenging, if sometimes frustrating, tactical engagements, delivered with decent graphics, in a manner that despite my high expectations still kept me coming back again and again to win just one more battle.
First Task - Training
The first mission that you are presented with is actually a tutorial that walks you through the basic features of the game. This is actually a nice feature of this game, and you don’t really have a choice, you have to complete it to move onto more complex missions. You begin all missions with a satellite reconnaissance photo of the battlefield. Your bases are outlined in yellow, the enemy bases in green, and the strategic buildings in red. Forces are colored in a similar manner - your force yellow and enemy forces green. This brings up one of the things that I didn’t like about the game. You always have perfect intelligence. The satellite photo shows you all the enemy bases and at any time during the game you simply scroll around to find the enemy force position and composition. Resources that you would normally have to dedicate to reconnaissance missions are unnecessary and there is no fear of stumbling across the enemy when you are not ready.
Figure 1: Training Ground
The Mission
Your mission is simple: destroy the enemy base, their forces and factories. You begin with limited forces and must produce more to attack the enemy or defend your territory for any length of time. Production takes resources and although you begin the game with some resources, they are not enough to mount any type of effective offensive. To get more resources you must capture strategic buildings. These strategic buildings are unprotected as long as you get there first. Capturing a strategic building is as easy as touching it with one of your units. The building will turn yellow to show you own it and your resources will start to increase. If you don’t reach a strategic building first you will have to fight for it.
Capturing a strategic building satisfies two objectives: it gets you additional resources and denies resources to the enemy. The secret to this game is to get all the strategic buildings first and hold them long enough to deplete the enemy’s resource store. You can then build your own forces at your leisure to destroy your opponents' remaining forces. This brings up my second frustration with this game - most battles end up being a race to see who can tap the fastest to move forces, you or the computer. This game is not turn-based, i.e. you move then your opponent moves. Both sides are moving at the same time so he who hesitates is certainly lost. Although this does add a certain element of realism – no one takes turns in the real world – fast tapping often wins out over a well thought out attack plan.
Building Units
Figure 2 shows your base and a factory in the tutorial game (note the instructions to go attack the enemy). Most scenarios will start you off with at least one factory but it takes different types of factories to build different types of units such as light, heavy, or amphibious. If you have enough resources to build a unit you just tap on its picture to build it. Unfortunately, you cannot tell a factory to keep building tanks as resources allow. You have to explicitly tell it to build each tank. Just one more distracter when you need to be paying attention to the current battle.
Figure 2: Building Up Forces
Complexity Grows
As you complete a level you are promoted in rank and given a new challenge. Successive levels are challenging, with each growing in the level of complexity by varying terrain, placing the enemy in a better position, or giving the enemy more factories or units in the initial force lay down. Figures 3 shows a level requiring more naval action and Figure 4 gives an example of a level with the enemy in a superior starting position.
Figure 3: Send in the Marines
Figure 4: River Crossing
A Perfect View on the Battlespace
Most of your time is spent in Radar mode. It is from this mode that you can move your units and attack the enemy. In addition to giving you a view on the specific patch of ground you are currently observing you have a composite display in the lower left which shows the whole battlefield and all the unit locations. As I said earlier this perfect intelligence tends to detract from the realism of the game. Figure 5 shows the enemy force positioned around their base, a factory, and a captured strategic building with its dome colored green to show which force owns it.
Figure 5: Enemy Camp
Although you cannot create waypoints to gather your forces prior to an attack, you can group your forces together and move them as a single unit. The numbers one through four next to the directional arrows at the bottom of the screen allow you to control these groups of units. The units in a group move at each individual units own best speed, so your groups tend to get strung out over longer treks, especially if they are composed of both light and heavy forces. This individual movement opens your groups up to significant battle damage as the heavier, more lethal equipment is left behind as the lighter armored units speed ahead. Engaging in combat on the way to a destination also causes a group to forget where it was going. If the group wins the engagement it is happy to sit in the middle of no-man’s land until you give it another order.
Under Attack!
Opposing units will automatically engage each other when they get within range. If you want to attack another unit, just drive into it. This typically works well enough. Direct a group of your forces to the enemy base and they will try and take the base as well as engage the enemy forces around it. Sometimes you do need to get involved with positioning individual units as your forces have a habit of taking the most direct route to an enemy unit thereby shooting into rocks or trees rather than choosing the best avenue of approach for direct fire.
Graphics as a whole are done very well throughout the game and during battles it is very satisfying to sit back and watch the battle ensue as multiple units maneuver, fire, take hits, and explode all over your screen. You’ll probably turn the music off soon after starting the game but the other sound effects are adequate. I eventually turned those off as well but typically that was because I didn’t want folks to know I was taking the next ridge rather than jotting down staff meeting notes.
Figure 6: Battle Ground
Gotchas
Several improvements could be made which would propel this game to the next level and push the need for more player strategy.
- Always perfect intelligence (i.e. no fog of war)
- No ability to do waypoints
- Winning relies too much on how fast you click
The software can be downloaded from Handango or purchased for $5.99 (affiliate link).
Specifications
This program will work on any color Pocket PC. The program takes up 1 MB of RAM on the device and requires 1.5 MB to run.
Conclusions
Even though I found myself wanting several enhancements to the game you can't beat it for the price. If you enjoy military action games you will get your money's worth from Strategic Assault.
