|
My first experience with strategy games on consoles came via none other than the highly regarded Advance Wars for GameBoy Advance, and upon playing and researching found out that AW borrowed a number of ideas from Military Madness. Military Madness on XBLA is actually a 3D remake of the old-school title that found its way on the TurboGrafx-16 back in the early 90’s a system that myself, and few others has had the joy of playing. So with that said, it is always interesting to play games that helped create a genre, specifically MM helped create the “console strategy” genre as a whole.
There isn’t much story to MM and because of how the game progresses it isn’t important. When starting up a campaign you learn that as the Union Earth forces you must stop the Axis-Xenon forces from controlling the moon. When starting out the game you aren’t really given any kind of tutorial either, making it difficult for newcomers, but if you are an RTS/strategy fan you should be able to figure out the hexagonal-directing gameplay pretty fast. This is ultimately the biggest crutch for the game is lack of explanation. While the game explains more of it in text tutorials, the only way to really understand the game is trial and error.
Battles play out on in-game cutscenes.
Unlike the original though, Military Madness for Xbox Live Arcade adds completely updated 3D visuals, and a online multiplayer component. The updated visuals though does little to make the game more exciting, because after all you are battling it out against rebel forces on the moon. The gameplay is simple enough to grasp though; you command your army’s tanks, infantry, air support, and more by clicking on a unit. When clicking on a unit you have an area of where you are allowed to travel with that unit. You can travel next to an opposing unit and from there can decide to fire upon them. Typically you will also have advantages projected to you by way of terrain or air advantages. You may also choose to surround the opposing forces with additional units. The more units surrounding, the more chances there are of you doing greater damage. The object is to either destroy all of the opposing unit’s forces, or capturing their base effectively ending the match. This is all fun and good, but the gameplay is pretty punishing if you aren’t the kind of person that likes strategy games in the first place. Often times the opposing forces will have factories that produce more and more baddies, and you will be badly outnumbered. In this case you have to play a kind of dance with the opposing forces around terrain that their units can’t traverse and vice-versa. It can be very addictive, and the game plays out more like a game of chess than any modern strategy especially because of the simple elements, but people more used to the modern RTS titles or just aren’t interested in strategy at all will probably find the game’s quick and dirty campaign jarring and unable to finish.
The biggest addition to this iteration of the game is online multiplayer that is if you can find a match. While reviewing the game it was pretty difficult to find a match so I had only actually played it twice personally, however every match played out well with no lag. You start out with some points that can help upgrade your units how you feel would be beneficial to the match, and the same kind of tactics and goals apply here as they do in the campaign.
Want a chance to win the game for free? Check out our thread in the forums!
| Share this: |
|  | | | |  |
|
|
|
6
|
|
|
6
|
|
|
8
|
|
|
9
|
|
|
7
|
|
|
6
|
|
|
|
|
Military Madness is a great oldie that many hardcore strategy fans will find a refreshing look back into the strategy vault and for 800 MS Points ($10) you can’t go wrong. While there isn’t anything particularly fabulous about the game’s presentation the core gameplay from the past is still there, and the simple layout is still challenging.
|
|
Discuss this in the forums!
|
| No one has posted a comment yet. Be the first one by logging in if need be and submitting your comment to the right. Be aware that we do not tolerate those who post "First" comments. If done enough times, you could be banned from posting comments. |
|
|
|
