Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great
Score: 89% ESRB: Teen Publisher: Matrix Games Developer: Koios Works Media: Download/2 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: Turn-Based Strategy
Graphics & Sound: Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great may not look like much at first, but upon closer inspection you’ll find that it’s jam-packed full of style. Since the game is modeled around hard-core, tabletop war games, everything in it looks like it could have come from a fish tank. When units die in combat, a hand swoops over and picks them off – the trees have “plastic” bases, and the terrain looks like it’s made of Styrofoam. The sound is also pretty good. The ambient musical score is hauntingly Mediterranean and adds a lot to the feel of this historical game. The sound effects aren’t anything to write home about, but they do the job and round out a decent audio experience.
Gameplay: Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great puts you in the role of Alexander the Great as he conquers much of the known world, and trounces the occupants of Central Asia while doing so. History buffs will do nothing short of getting their jolly’s off when playing this game. It is painstakingly accurate of the time, and who could pass up the chance to step into Alexander’s sandals and see what it was like to be one of the greatest conquerors of all time? Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great draws heavily from tabletop war games. This is already blatantly apparent in the graphics. Games are played in a pseudo turn-based fashion (more on this later), and winning doesn’t mean crushing your enemy entirely. Instead, victory points are used to determine the victor. Victory points are gained by accomplishing objectives, killing enemy units, and keeping your troops safe all at the same time. The person with the most victory points at the end of the game wins. You can either play the game in single battle stints, or you can take on the Campaign. As you progress through the Campaign, you unlock more maps that you can use for the single battles. The Campaign mode is another testament to the tabletop roots this game has. As you complete each mission, you get a certain amount of spoils that you can spend on your army. You can purchase more units or train your current ones so they perform better in the upcoming fights. This aspect really makes you feel like you own the army just like a tabletop gamer owns their own army, and it makes for a unique fighting experience. Another board game influence is the special cards you can purchase in between battles. These cards are rather expensive, but they are powerful enough to possibly turn the tide of battle at crucial moments. They can be used on different units in either a defensive or offensive manner. Relying on the cards alone will spell certain death for your troops, but their presence is certainly appreciated when the going gets rough. While the A.I. in this game is good, Multiplayer is where the real action is. Setting up your troops and issuing commands against a human while they do the same is nerve-wrackingly wonderful. You can only play against one other person at a time, but the fact that Multiplayer support is included is enough to get by on.
Difficulty: While Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is one of those “easy to learn, hard to master” games, it falls a bit too heavily on the hard to master side. Most of the controls and functions in the game are intuitive after a bit of practice, and the instruction manual is as streamlined as it is stylish (the pictures of actual miniatures give it a nice touch). However, the timed missions and the inclusion of the fog-of-war can make things a bit harrowing at times. But with a bit of planning (o.k., a lot of planning), players shouldn’t be stuck in a rut for too long.
Game Mechanics: The pseudo turn-based core of the game I mentioned earlier is broken up into three phases. The first is the Command Phase. This is where you issue orders to all of your troops. These are usually move, attack, or turn to face orders. Your opponent does the same, and when you are both ready, the game plays out a third of the turn using the orders given to the troops in real time. This means that the enemy units you wanted to attack may have moved, new enemies may have come out of the fog, and you may be forced to rethink some tactics. Now for the second phase, the Reaction Phase. Some units, depending on what terrain they are on, the savvy of their commander, or a number of other variables, will get to react and you can issue them new orders. It’s kind of like a mini Command Phase. Once that is finished, the second third of the turn plays out in another bit of real-time action. The Reserve Phase comes last, and this is where you get to utilize units you kept at bay at the beginning of the turn. This is a crucial phase as it can cement your tactical victory, or, on the other hand, a weakness in your own lines can be exploited. Despite throwing difficult battles at you from the beginning of the Campaign, Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great is a breath of fresh air that should be enjoyed by all strategy enthusiasts. It may not be everybody’s “cup of meat” at first glance, but given enough time this game could easily become a turn-based classic. Hopefully there will be more like it in the future, and hopefully each will be tweaked a bit more to perfection.
-Snow Chainz, GameVortex Communications AKA Andrew Horwitz
Minimum System Requirements: 500 MHz Pentium III, 128 MB, 64 MB 3D Video Card, 1 GB free hard drive space, 8X CD-ROM, DirectX 9.0b, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP   Test System: Windows XP, 1.4GHz AMD Athlon, GeForce FX 128 MB video card, 40 gig hard drive, 56x CD-ROM, 256MB DDR Ram, Sound Blaster Live! sound card, Cable Modem Internet connection
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