On rare occasions, a game comes along where it's evident that the developer strived to offer the best possible gameplay experience. Instead of relying on a huge marketing budget, name recognition or hype, the design team focuses on simplifying the game mechanics to create a solid, no nonsense title. Massive Assault is just that. Offering a very simple gameplay, which is easy to learn but hard to master, great game balance, solid A.I. and surprisingly lavish graphics, it has the potential to become a classic.
Game mechanics
It's apparent that Massive Assault is based on a tabletop strategy game. This turn-based strategy title has a very limited number of units, defined by only very basic statistics and features. You won't find any complicated resource gathering or base building features here, and the story is as relevant to the gameplay as that in Monopoly. Still, the game is surprisingly entertaining and addictive, largely thanks to its superb balance and easy to understand basic principles.
The story behind the game could hardly be more generic: In a distant future, nations create two blocs, one reminiscent of today's democracies and the other seemingly ruled by communists and other tyrants. They battle over various planets, and it's up to you to lead the good guys to victory, whoever the good guys may be.
The game offers three modes of single player experience, as well as a multiplayer match. In the single player mode, you can either play a scenario, a campaign or a world war where you square off against an enemy over a large territory. Scenarios and campaigns have predefined units and positions for both sides, and thus are largely tactical in nature, while the world wars require strategic thinking.
The only resource you'll need is money, and that's automatically generated from every territory you have completely under your control. While the income is relatively low, even the few units you can purchase may significantly alter the balance of power, so it becomes crucial for the player not only to expand his territory, but also to deny more countries from the enemy. To do so, the gamer has only a very limited arsenal of thirteen different units, both ground-based and naval. Each unit has a limited set of stats: hit points, firepower, movement, combat radius and price. Every round, their action is limited to a maximum of one movement, followed by combat (never the other way around).
Both sides have identical units, and thanks to their limited stats and very simple combat mechanics, learning how to play the game is a matter of minutes. However, mastering it is a whole different story. As the player soon realizes, the computer opponent is extremely well equipped to handle any kind of tactical combat. All the A.I. has to do is to calculate a way to maximize damage every turn, while protecting its vulnerable units. The computer handles these tasks very well, and takes advantage of every mistake you make. For the player, the first couple of battles may be frustrating, as it is a little difficult to think of how to deploy units every turn to deal the greatest amount of punishment, while staying out of the enemy's range. Once you encounter longer-range units, such as bombers and rocket launchers, the enemy will be unforgiving every time you leave one of your expensive units within his combat range.
When it comes to strategic thinking, however, the A.I. is not all that great. World war has one special rule, which greatly increases the replay value of the game, and makes every game unique. The initial world map is full of neutral countries. Each side gets a certain number of randomly selected secret allies, which are countries that appear neutral, but which in fact belong to you or the enemy. Each turn, you can reveal a secret ally, which will allow you to raise an army there and attack a neighbor. However, once attacked, the neighbor automatically belongs to the opponent, who can raise guerrilla forces to fight you off. If that neighbor is in fact a secret ally, the enemy can reveal it, raise a regular army in addition to the guerrilla, and all hell breaks loose.
However, this is the first instance where the computer doesn't seem to think well. He always declares all his allies in a succession of turns, making it easy for the player to pick off true neutral countries one by one. In many of my world wars, it made sense to keep a key ally secret and declare it at the best possible time to maximize my attack power or delay the enemy's invasion of my core territories for several turns.
The computer makes several other mistakes that are easy to exploit, from overreacting to threats, through not taking into account the fact that units disembarking from transports are allowed to fire, to raising the wrong kind of units for the surrounding terrain. As such, it takes only a world war or two for the player to learn the ins and outs of the overall game, and turn his attention to the much tougher scenarios and campaigns. Then, of course, there is the multiplayer.
The game offers two multiplayer modes. The hotseat mode is less awkward than in other games, thanks to the fact that there is no fog of war, and thus the players don't have to turn away when their opponents are making their moves. The Internet play, on the other hand, is very drawn out. The game doesn't support direct connections like some other turn-based games, such as Civilization II Multiplayer or Incubation, but only allows a modified play by e-mail game. The developer offers a central server where players upload and download turns, which can turn a simple two-hour battle into a weeklong affair. Fortunately, the game allows for simultaneous games.
Currently, the multiplayer game suffers from two problems. First, a ladder system where all wins and defeats are counted encourages some players to abandon a game. Massive Assault has no mechanism to automatically end a game prematurely when someone doesn't submit his turn for a while, which means that some games will never be finished, especially those that you were winning. The second problem is the same that plagued Moonbase Commander last year. There are simply too few players on-line, and as the current player community becomes more experienced, breaking into multiplayer gaming will be increasingly difficult for novice players.
Technical considerations
The game's hardware requirements are adequate, and I haven't experienced any technical difficulties at all. It installed properly on all three computers I tested it on, and the title never crashed on me. The only gripe I have is that when there is a large number of units on the field, such as on large world maps, it can take the computer up to two minutes to calculate its turn, even on my Athlon XP 1800+ with 512MB of RAM. During this time, the computer locks up, and all I can do is to stare at a progress bar. I would welcome the option to scroll around the map; at least I'd be able to prepare for my next turn.
Gameplay - 9
The game is very well balanced, and it has been kept deliberately simple to keep the learning curve low. The basic game mechanics remind me of another great turn-based strategy, Moonbase Commander, as they are as hard to master, and require a great deal of tactical thinking. Unlike that game, however, Massive Assault does not rely on the player's hand-eye coordination at all, and instead features good, pure turn-based entertainment. The single player game offers tons of fun, and once you get on-line you may be hooked for months to come. While the tactical A.I. is one of the best I've ever seen, the computer's strategic thinking leaves a lot to be desired, which is why I couldn't give gameplay a perfect score.
Graphics - 10
Massive Assault has by far the best graphics I have ever seen in a turn-based game. All six worlds have been beautifully rendered, and I never got tired watching the units attacking each other. In addition, the game offers free camera movement and very intuitive camera controls, which allows you to assess a tactical situation from all angles, or simply stroll around and enjoy the visuals.
Sound - 6
Sound is the weakest part of the game. The music is on a short loop, and thus very repetitive. The victory music reminds me a little of a similar tune in an older Heroes of Might and Magic game. There is only one voiceover, a female voice with an accent. While at the beginning you may think of the voice as exotic, after some time you may find it a little annoying, despite the relatively wide range of comments available for every situation. I was hoping to have a different voice for each side, like it was done in Moonbase Commander, but I was disappointed. Thankfully, the units don't acknowledge your commands.
Replay value - 9
The replay value for this game is very high. At $40, the game offers fair value, and then some. I spent over two weeks playing nothing else but Massive Assault, and this game won't leave my hard drive anytime soon. To add to the replay value, the developer has recently released twelve new scenarios, and has announced that a scenario editor would follow soon. Considering the small but devoted community around the game, this could mean many more scenarios in the future.
Overall - 8.8
Massive Assault is the best strategy game I have played this year. It offers just the right mix of features I'm looking for in a good game: great balance, easy to learn basic principles and a behavior that is tightly controlled by the developer. All this allows for a very challenging A.I. on a tactical level and great multiplayer gaming with a lack of exploits and cheats. The developer, however, went even further and designed graphics never before seen in a turn-based strategy game. Were it not for the rather bland sound and a lacking strategic A.I., this game would have become the surprise hit of the year.
