If you like the army man games from good ol 64 days then this is a game to be on your radar as it's a massive scale rts/fps toy soldier game. I'll start off with the good: 1. Scale. The scale is one of the great selling points to this game you can have massive +50-+100 battles raging across the map (depends on your warscale/difficulty setting) really sells the idea that this is a toy war! 2. Hybrid gameplay. Hybrid gameplay, what does that mean? In this games context it has rts and fps at the same time meaning you can start building factories and units (or build a builder and they'll do this job for you) then go running off and shoot some tan baddies. I've always been drawn to games like these to satiate my want for a game that has the best of both worlds and really sells the idea that this is a large scale war that you're in charge of and can fight along with your comrades and use stratagy to one up your opponents another game that came so close but no cigar is good ol THQ game "The Outfit" i've always been on the lookout for games that can do a very niche genre as these but in amazing quality. 3. Customization. As you start you can go to the player profile and pick between 3.5 factions with a total from counting place holders (game is early access still) them being: army man (thing sarges heroes), blocko man (think lego), commando cody (action figures so think small soldiers with major chip hazard and friends), then there's the robots (look like metal arms glitch in the system type robots). each with their own unique units but not so much as to funnel you into one type of playstyle; each has a standard line of troops to fill frontlines combat like basic rifle troops, bazooka troops, tanks, planes, etc. While you have your choice of faction you can from there also customize your avatar/general which you can change all your guns, hats, backpacks (ammo, medical, parachute, camo, and more), grenades. Then comes the best of which and that is Your Retinue you can hire units from across your roster which will then be a unique unit that can level up and become stronger and you can hire as many as you want of the same kind too if you want, though you can only bring 20 of them with you at any time (for now?) so say you wanted a crack assault squad now you can by bringing say superb cqc group of flamethrowers and shotty's/smgs soldiers or a tank battalion if you feel like being an elite panzer division bring all t-9k2 tanks, or an air armada and bring all attack choppers and jet fighters while playing ride of the valkyries, now you can! 4. Replayability. There is a lot to do here; as you have 3 game modes conquest, skirmish, invasion. Conquest is as it sounds you have to conquer all the capture points to try and get point victory over all others and the capture points themselves are just a blank patch of ground with a opaque ring around it like so so many games even triple A** games shame on them! but the point is an actual garrisonable (don't need to get in it) building with sandbag cover for troops and once captured it will lend it's healing gun to your side and aid your troops near it. Then there's skirmish which is your classic deathmatch game mode where the point is to exterminate everyone that isn't you, sounds nice with love. Lastly there's invasion which is a horde mode in which there's two side a normal invasion which entails you defending against a waves of army troops from every faction which can be mixed in each wave. Then terror invasion which entails you defending against waves of zombies, insects (more later?) so chaff of zombies mixed with suicide zeds, fast zeds, spiders, ants, roaches, hornets. this game mode will be to test you on how well you know the game. And the biggest part of the replayability factor is the game is mod supported which you have the toy box mode where you can build your maps and place anything from objectives to building to units, factions, win conditions. etc. Then upload it to the workshop neat! Mod support is always a huge plus to any game! Then you have preferred game rules options here you can change player/enemy (if fighting just one enemy) colors and biggest one is war scale you can crank it from 1 being default to 10 massive battles. Now the bad/meh: 1. the clunky ui/controls/feel/graphics/options. I won't shy away from this but for others these are turn offs and makes sense from what we expect now a days, alot of the ui is there just not to the degree of quality most want and here it's not as bad as most say the buttons and responsiveness is solid they are designed instead of just a text without borders type crap you see in again most games even triple A** games but won't win any ms paint competitions they serve the game as much as they need to the descriptions on the other hand they do tell you features that a unit can do and they're stats simple and straight to the point but not extensive flush of the unit. Controls are responive and here best way i can describe it as floaty with some weight it's fine nothing to make you feel good like spider man swings or whatnot just serves the game as much as it needs to except somewhat janky climbing you can sometimes float up something or jank and either jump and hurdle over an edge or fall it's early access/indie for sure but doesn't fight you which is good and doesn't make movement feel frustrating it's again fine. The Graphics aren't anything to write home about but they are better than most indie games so there's that, they are nice/fine. You see minor details and you get simplicity where you don't need detail it's a plastic toy what do you expect from plastic in an indie game of this scale? Last are options this one sounds like nit picking but the lack of match options as what factions and colors do you want to fight? Are units outside of said factions rostor permitted to be used as a starting army? game points to win? or having your retinue in a certain formation/given order on start? where your starting position is instead of being tied to (for official maps) color? starting money? these are small and when you play don't make or break the game but would go a long way. 2. Balance. Yes this game has balance issues while 2 out of the 3.5 factions our of potential 5 are relatively balanced to each other the other 1.5 are out of this world it goes army man is weakest but most numerous and cheapest then the blocko man army followed by the robots (which don't have the full roster yet) then lastly the commando cody army which dunks on all the others as the block and army have a close power relation as the lego bros are slightly better and i mean slightly so in a vacuum 1v1 they'll win unless certain condition like who got alpha strike or distance of engagement tie into who will win the last two don't even bother with that notion as the robots are better marginally to the first two they can be dealt with and not feel like a slog but the commando's are just disgustingly OP they have at least double the stats of every other factions' units sure they cost the most but when your basic infantry man has the same health and nearly the same damage as an army man tank then you've got a problem and it makes fighting them a frustating slog a big thing to start with is the unit ranges you can say hey you can outnumber their units but that doesn't matter if their alpha strike can happen at nearly twice the distance and since they are so strong they usually kill in that first shot so if you have enough units to close the gap by then you then have to deal with the massive health and power difference while brawling which no unit will be able to but you say hey they are way more expensive than your units (playing other than commando) but that doesn't matter when they can build factories that'll pump out if not their best units for free so price becomes a thing of past. Sorry for the rant. game needs a rebalance. Steam is dumb and has a word limit look in comments for the rest.
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