War, the Game

Abso-lutely.

Its just a game of, is my number bigger than yours. No real strategy in the game, even the "economy" doesnt really effect this game.

If you want a game like this, go for anything else like Superpower 1 or 2. Much better games.

It's an incredibly simple RTS. It's good and fun with friends. I don't get all the bad reviews. It's simple, graphically and gameplay wise and that's a good thing.

Got this years ago on a sale, was fun for about those 7 hours that i got on record , then i stopped playing since its a very simple game and there werent any updates since release.

Now years ago wanted to have some fun with it again but it doesnt even start.

Don't be fooled by the nine minutes of this game that Steam says I "played." Actual play time was zero. I tried to start it and didn't even get a black screen. And that is too bad. I love classic Risk and a few reviews compared this game to that one. Unfortunately, I have had this game rotting away in my inventory for years, so I get no refund.

if you like Risk, it might be worth a try. Make sure that you can get a refund just in case it doesn't work.

Game wont start anymore, don't bother buying. tried using the -windowed launch command but that only gives me a small window the size of my thumb, and when i try to go full screen the game literaly goes "guess ill die" on me.

Pretty solid game. It is definitely not a traditional RTS. There's no base building, but more radically, every unit is the same in terms of power. Tanks are not directly more powerful than infantry. Don't get off the bus yet! Where they differ however is speed and maneuverability, as well as cost. And when firepower is taken out of the equation, those become much more important. Let's say your task is to take over Japan. You can quickly train slow moving infantry for cheap and potentially give the enemy time to build up their own forces, or you could build fast moving fighter squadrons at a higher price and try to hit the enemy early on before he/she can prepare a defense. Or for example you need to defend one of your cities against two armies. Do you send all your infantry against one at the risk of not being able to return in time to defend your city? Or do you send a smaller force of faster moving tanks to slow the other army down and buy time to bolster your defenses? It's a very unique style that I can't say I have seen in any other game.

I love this game because it is a very unique take on the rts genre. If you are looking for traditional base building, resource gathering, and specialized counter units, you should look elsewhere. This game is very simple and easy to learn the basics, but difficult ot master. Only 2 ground unit types, 2 air, and 2 sea. Each is 100% equal in strength to the other, so a $3.5B Bomber will be on equal footing with a $1B infantry unit. Once a battle starts there's not really much you can do to affect the outcome other than throw more units in. The key to this game is maneuvering. If an enemy is more poweful than you, the only way to win is to find where he's exposed and use faster, more expensive units, to go around their stronger forces to capture cities and hurt their economy, or attack isolated units before their main force catches up to whittle him down. I promise every single scenario is beatable if you find the right strategy.

PROS
Very unique
Very simple yet still challenging
Pretty good value, especially if on sale
Multiplayer

CONS
Honestly won't be very fun until you get to the large scale scenarios, which can take a while
No campaign
Multiplayer never has anyone on it

Very underrated game. If you're tired of traditional rts games and need something fresh, buy this game and give it a chance.

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The Gameplay:

So, with War, the Game one gets the basic RTS package, with the twist of your map being the entire earth and you having the topdown view on a sphere instead of the obligatory 2d map. Unlike many other games of this genre, War, the Game does not offer a main story-line, but instead various scenario missions - some also in multiplayer - which will reward you with a certain amount of stars when you fulfill specific extra conditions (these may vary from the time you required to the amount of money you spent etc.)
Also unlike many other RTS games, this game offers no possibility of base-building, and does not give all players the same starting conditions:
In the game you take control over one of the Earth's many nations, controlling their cities and armies. Cities have a certain income (I couldn't really figure out a pattern - for example Sydney with 4.6 million inhabitants generates 8 billion $/year, whilst Munich with 1.4 million inhabitants generates 16 billion $/year), so when you start with a great or a rich nation, you automatically have a headstart since your income over time and your starting army differs from other's. In multiplayer missions this leads to great imbalance (America for example has 14 starting cities (with a total income of 137.8 billion $/year)- all of them providing buildings that allow the creation of units - whilst Australia is stuck with 2 (with a total income of 16 billion $/year) ).
There are five building types, which are all preset, which takes away a great amount of flexibility and individual strategy since one usually has to resign to one of the very few tactics that always seem to work out fine.
In multiplayer getting to a lategame stage could get very interesting for sure, but the problem is that the game is very slow paced, resulting in the multiplayer games dragging on for hours - and without the option to save it's very hard to pull off a full game.
Now in singleplayer you can for one speed up the time and also save, but this mode really suffers from it's nonexistant versatility -> most of the missions have one and only one way to be beaten, whilst in the large scheme world wars the AI always goes back to their one strategy, making the game very monotonous.
The gameplay itself also is very basic, there are seven unit types:
Infantry, armor, jets, bombers, battleships, transporters and carriers. Now whilst all of these have their little twists about them, they all share the same firepower, resulting in the battles strategically devolving into 'Who can send more troops?'.
Now since the fighting is based around this strategy, the game's early stage is basically building units into a massive stack and waiting for money to be able to build more units to throw onto that massive stack.

Pro:

• Spherical map
  
• Hilarious unit stacks (that reach the moon)
  
• Amazing soundtrack
  

Contra:

• Monotonous (It's basically always "CONQUER X!")
  
• Inflexible
  
• Unbalanced
  
• Hilarious unit stacks (that reach the moon)
  
• Very slow paced
  
[*]No saving in multiplayer

Summary:

Overall I give the game a 3.5/10 - for it offers no more than any other RTS game, has poor amount of content and thus gets stale very fast in addition to it suffering from too slow gameplay.

Simply put, the tactical and strategic depth of this game boils down to making sure you bring more units into a fight than your opponent. There is no strategy beyond that, there is no way to utilize terrain, unit composition or clever maneuvering to gain an advantage, making the game quite dull. This could change if they could introduce elements such as morale, training, military doctrine or technology to make things interesting, but I don't know if they have any plans to to that. Even Defcon, with incredibly simple units that perform exactly the same for every player, made combat far more engaging because unit position and strategy still mattered.

I don't even really dislike this game, to be honest, it just feels incomplete and unsatisfying.

Overly simplistic with an 'incomplete' taste to it

*Buyers Beware: It's been claimed by other users that the developers of this title have a nasty policy of handing out free keys to users, on the condition that they write a positive review for this game. Personally, I cannot speak to the validity of these claims, but I've seen this statement more than once. If true, this would call into question many of the positive reviews for this title, as it artificially inflates its appeal. I would only advise potential buyers to do their homework before handing over their money.

+ Advancement of time is visually represented by the orbit of Earth, and showcases a competent day/night cycle; time can also be advanced by 12 or 24 hours at the player's whim
+ Selecting from within stacks is practically implemented, in which individual units are cycled through the stack; this makes it easy to see what is selected and what will remain
+ Interesting and minimalist design; overall, the presentation feels unique and aesthetically pleasing
+ Soundtrack offers a selection of quirky and enjoyable tracks; lends the game a more casual feel
+ Cloud cover is visible, and can often be quite disorienting; lends a small, precious facet of realism that the game otherwise lacks entirely
+ Tutorial is comprehensive and helpful; more than adequate at walking the player through the nuances of gameplay

- Defense bonuses feel inadequate, and are relegated only to cities, of which there are precious few
- Unit variety is absolutely horrid; there is essentially one or two unit types for each arm of military (one type of infantry, one type of tank, three types of ship, two types of plane, for every faction)
- Multiplayer appears underpopulated
- All factions are absolutely identical; no distinctive units, advantages, or distinguishing traits, whatsoever
- No terrain - or artificial - features to exploit; all terrain is essentially flat and featureless, having no bearing on movement or combat
- Only deciding factor in battles is number stacks, regardless of force composition; if you have more units in your stack, you will win provided they cannot reinforce in time
- No option of tactical withdrawl; once forces are committed to a battle, they automatically fight to the death, and the player is helpless after the fact
- All units boast the same representitive strength; one infantry unit measures up, identically, to a tank or plane unit
- Things like maneuvering, reconnaissance, logistics, etc. are all completely nonexistant
- No resources to speak of
- Battle mechanics are overly simplistic; on the whole, the strategy and combat is not very stimulating

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A game with potential no doubt but you get the impression the dev has sorta given up on building on after a solid release. The globe design makes for an innovative and realistic experience but then again in other aspects it falls very short, such as the lack of terrain effects on movement (an obvious thing that would immediatly make the game more interesting and engaging), no artillery or long range missiles (bar for the very underwhelming nuclear bomb which isnt very nuclear). There's no reason why this game couldn't be fleshed out much more than it is. While I enjoy many of the levels, some of them seem more based on racing against the AI than actual strategy, particularly when it comes to endless stacking of units.

With the Falkands mission, I was able to glitch win by simply having my fighters engage and withdraw from battle over and over until the enemy got worn down. It's a noble project no doubt but it might have been better to focus on quality over quanitity and perhaps scale things down to a more compact but more interesting theatre of war, a perfect example would have been the Ukraine crisis, with more fleshed out units, options, strategy and a better overall experience. See Vietnam 65 as a great example of a game playing to its strengths.

Pros:

Innovative idea, particularly having to naviate units around the curviture of theglobe makes it interesting

Has 'potential'


Cons:

Unfocused at times

Sometimes strategy takes a back seat over unit stacking or achieving what are ultimately linear objectives

The game somehow feels unbalanced at times, normally with the AI at a distinct advantage

Lack of what could have been nice additional details, effects of terrain, national border violations (more geopolitics)

The ally system on some levels is really basic and can take away from immersion.

A very fun little game. The graphics are clean but simple. The gameplay is very easy to pick up on. The campaign is fun and has quite alot of different missions to play. The achievements are fairly easy to obtain. Overall I give this game a rounding thumbs up.

Picked this up with a friend as it has multiplayer support. Expectations weren't high, but still well below what we were expecting. Multiplayer is limited to a few scenarios (which you have to unlock through single-player first!) and we didn't find a true free-play skirmish mode.

Single player is OK, but spoiled by an awful keyboard & mouse control scheme.

Do not buy. Go buy Risk or download TripleA.

War, the Game takes strategy back to fundamentals. It doesn't give the user dozens of different options and force them to tackle complex systems. No, War is more elegant in it's execution and gives the player a limited scope, requiring them to use strategy to outthink their opponent rather than sneaking an attack by in a thousand layers of choices. Combat is abstract and requires the player to decide where to manuever and where to sacrifice.

One feature I like about War is that no unit is better than another. Each adds exactly the same combat strength to a battle, but each unit has a unique ability. Tanks are fast, whereas Infantry can hunker down in defence. Fighters are some of the most powerful units, but there are a few principle zones they are limited to due to air field access. Bombers have further range, but cannot be based on carriers.

All of this makes for a game that has the elegance of a game like chess or go. Highly reccomended for strategy fans.

I've only played the game for an hour thus far, but besides the annoying tutorial hologram that keeps interrupting the game, this has proven to be a nice throwback to simpler strategy games. It's almost like RISK in real-time, except it includes just enough elements to keep it from being mind-numbingly boring. Despite this, it remains simple enough to be a decent way to relax.

I almost see it as the conventional (Non-nuclear) version of DEFCON. Yes, there are tactical nuclear weapons, but they're not the focus of the game like nukes are in DEFCON. (Or at least from what I can tell with a mere hour of play under my belt.)

I tentatively give it a strong 8/10, with updates sure to follow.

Just no. Any claims this game makes to realism is generous, and the reviews were carefully chosen. It's mixed Metacritic rating is closer to the mark.

In 'War..', you control one side battling one or more enemy sides. At your command is infantry, armored, fighters, bombers, carriers, battle fleets, transports and nukes. And that's it. With the exception of the nukes, everything has the same number of hit points, and other then a few minor tricks (aircraft in a battle don't take damage until all friendly land or sea units are destroyed, or transports and carriers don't do damage in naval battles), each one fights the same. Take Risk, toss in a little Rock Paper Scissors, and you have this game.

You can buy new units to help your conquest, but the interface for this is a bit unfriendly, and building up the money to reach that point can take awhile.

'War' boasts some 20 odd scenarios, 3 of which make up a crash-course tutorial. The tutorial doesn't necessarily end there however, and will constantly interrupt your battles with well meaning advice. Incidentally, completing one part of this tutorial and advancing by a full day in game uses the same key (space bar), so if you press space too many times trying to shut the tutorial up your enemy is going to take advantage. You CAN turn the tutorial off, but since it's trying to help you and you're obstensibly a new player, is that wise?

The scenarios range from realistic (US counterinvasion of Kuwait, China vs. Taiwan) to unlikely (Britain vs. Zimbabwe over South Africa, China vs. Russia and Japan). There's a World War scenario I didn't try, as well as Global Domination. From YouTube videos it looks like the last is more of a sandbox game with multiple AI factions.

The description boasts of the game using a spherical globe. It does, and this is actually a pretty nice touch, but it's just not enough to save this game. It's a little too simplistic (though a decent AI), parts of the interface (like building units) is God awful, and memorizing its peculiar combat rules (what will attack what) isn't worth it.

Still, the game isn't unfixable. Fix the interface somewhat, maybe either add some more units or make the combat a little more engaging, and make a number of more realistic scenarios (or even giving players the chance to mod in their own scenarios) and you could have a fun little game here. Not one a wargamer can take seriously, but a way to pass a few hours.

Right this second however, you can spend your gaming dollars more effectively elsewhere.

Now overall, this is an entertaining game. It's simple and does what it says on the tin.


However.

-The flickering graphics are a nice idea, goes with the theme but sometimes it makes it damned hard to see whats going on and can eventually cause a little eye pain, not much but then most games there is none at all.
-The AI can be quite smart, but it can also be horrendously simple. Example-In a campaign where it is UN and allies in Asia against China I don't overly mind that most countries will just sit where they are, because alot of cities don't have recruiting facilities, but then you have India who may help immensely, Japan on the other hand just sit there building armies and won't go to help you even if your fighting the Chinese in one of there own cities.


So, can be fun, can be a drag. I haven't tried multiplayer yet.

It is worth the price, you will enjoy it. Just don't take it too seriously.

After a little over an hour with this game, I find its current state leaves much room for improvement.

It boasts simplicity, and that's exactly what it delivers in bulk. In this early stage, the rudimentary ideas seem promising but, in several cases, are incorrectly implemented. The game also seems to be missing some features, and it loses its appeal to boredom after a short time. All in all, I can't recommend it at the time of writing. However, I do think it's a title to keep an eye on, and with updates, may well improve.

Mix in a real set of awkward controls that doesn't use the keyboard to its full advantage, to an incredibly difficult game that does not seem to want to allow freedom outside an optimal strategy, and you have a game I wanted to stop playing after 20 minutes, but tried to suffer through more. In addition, the implementation of tutorials is down right HORRIBLE, which is crucial in an RTS game. This may be for the masochistic RTS fan, but stay far away if otherwise.

More commentary and gameplay footage here: http://youtu.be/oV6tcuv5ZR0

It's more or less a digital version of Risk. Unfortunately there appear to be a limited number of scenarios but it's not bad overall. However I do have some difficulty recommending at even this price point simply because in many ways it is extremely simple.

Now that I've had alittle more time to fiddle with it:

Pros:
- A nice simple version of Risk (as I'm sure you noted, also a con). Units have the same strength but do move at different speeds. Easy to understand and really reduces things to how well you can strategically/tactically manage things.
- The AI isn't that bad.
- Each scenario is fairly unique (in terms of what you need to accomplish and under what constraints).
- Game does an excellent job of explaining what everthing does and how you need to do it piece by piece (each of the early scenarios introduce something new and how to use it).

Cons:
- A nice simple version of Risk (as I'm sure you noted, also a pro). As all units have the same strength there isn't a ton of variety in what you see scenario to scenario.
- There are a few minor bugs I've noticed (it seems to love to minimize when I click things).
- The UI is a bit clunky and a little bit of work could have streamlined it considerably (you have to click on individual barracks/airbases/etc to generate units). Essentially you have to go to each place to build something new (although there isn't a ton of new unit generation - at least early on) which involves going to each city, finding the barracks/airbase/etc around the city, then clicking on what unit you want to build rather than from a nice menu.
- It's all scenarios, I assume they run out at some point but no global conquest type thing that I've seen.

I'll update it a bit more as I can accross other items of note.