Shattered Union review

I think it’s pretty safe to say that strategy games tend to feel astonishingly clunky when using a joypad. While those PC gamers among us will happily while away hour upon hour edging across the map in numerous strategy titles, the console based fraternity haven’t had much to shout. Though ports of some of the best PC based strategy titles have been shown off in great abundance, the likes of the Command and Conquer series making numerous appearances, the different control methods have always left the experience feeling a little diluted.

But with that particular series coming to a close many a moon ago, it’s been left to the handheld Advance Wars games to give the console gamers some strategic fun. But PopTop Software has decided that the Xbox owners among us need to sample this genre, and offer up Shattered Union.

A Modern Day Civil War

Instead of give us a fictional area, and an interesting set of characters to play with (a la Advance Wars), instead the story behind the goings on in Shattered Union is the complete disintegration of the United States of America (stop that cheering in the back). In a surprisingly detailed and interesting back-story, with the electorate being split on who to elect president (sound familiar?) and some outside intervention, the United States splits into 6 different factions, all of which are eager to use military might in order to control the entire territory. And as such, your task in the game is to take control of one faction, and use your brutal military strength to coerce your enemies to come around to your way of thinking.

Controlling your forces out on the battlefield isn’t a particularly easy task, especially for the strategy gaming novice. It’s then particularly disappointing to discover that instead of a helpful tutorial, allowing you to try out what you’ve learned immediately so to thoroughly implant it into your brain, your simply given a lengthy lecture in which the games controls and basic strategies are mentioned before you set on your way. Not really the best of starts for what’s expected to be quite a complicated title, full of depth.

The Field of Battle

The game map is split up into numerous areas, each of which controlled by one of the six competing factions. Each territory you control earns you a certain amount of revenues, which you can exchange purchase new items of warfare, or repair existing units. You have the decision here, whether to attack a competitor’s territory, and hopefully cause them enough damage in battle in order to take it as your own, or defend an area which you already occupy, and knock back the oncoming hordes.

Whichever you choose, you need to allocate a certain amount of units to that particular battle, which will then be unavailable for choosing for the rest of the turn. A hint of strategy and tactical involvement, but also the first signs of frustration and unpleasantness. Since units used to attack an opponents territory cant be used again that turn, until you begin to learn the right numbers to send forward, and when is the best time to attack/defend, you can find yourself winning one battle, only to find your forces heavily outnumbered in a following battle, and therefore lose one of your much loved territories.

Once a turn is instigated, and you’re involved in a battle, the camera zooms closer and you take direct control of your forces. The traditional bane of the turn based strategy title makes a much un-wanted appearance, the hex based grid system. At the beginning of each battle, you’ve the choice of deploying your troops manually, or letting the AI take care of that for you. Thankfully the AI included is reasonably intelligent, and easily capable of setting your forces out in a constructive manner. But if a specific tactic is what you think is required to achieve victory in battle, your much better manually deploying each individual unit, in the spot you think suits them best.

Once your troops have been set, you then individually move each and every unit, across the map, towards your enemy. For newcomers to the genre, this will be one period in particular which can only bring much tedium. As troops collide however, the real strategic meat on the Shattered Union bones starts to show its glistening beauty.

It’s Not the Car that’s the Star

Though the units themselves are numerous, and in great variety, it’s the maps themselves that are the stars. Te game remembers each and every action you take, and each has a future re-action which might not make an appearance for a huge number of turns. Though destroying a bridge may seem the perfect way to keep your enemies from flooding into your territory, if your attacked from elsewhere, you discover you’re destroyed your quick get away. But these aren’t just physical. If you find it all too exciting pummelling a city to rubble, your political rating will plummet as the media transmits news of your actions around the world. Not only will this make others much more wary of you in future, it also pushes your choices of ‘special powers’ towards the evil variety.

These special powers, short term boosts in essence, can give you a huge boost during battle in numerous ways. You might find yourself in possession of a few nuclear weapons if you’ve been particularly nasty, or even have the chance to heal some of your wounded units if you’ve been a good commander. Another touch of much needed strategy.

But then, I come right back to my opening sentence of this review. Controlling all this strategic might with your Xbox pad feels unnecessarily clunky and unwieldy. Though you won’t find it coming to your detriment in game, with the slow, turn based system playing out only as you can fit, it certainly makes you crave a mouse based control system.

Shattered Union’s problem is that it tries to cram far too much in, and instead lacks and kind of real depth in any area. The enemy AI is weak, and far too unwilling to take advantage of the many errors you’ll make early on. The hex based graphics are functional enough, as are the strategic menu’s, but lack the kind of dazzling effects that we crave. The steep difficulty curve too will only put off many would be strategy masters, and can only cause frustration, if lengthen out proceedings a little. A potentially strategic master, that falls by the wayside thanks to some poor tactical decisions during design and implementation. How ironic.