Broken Lines

tl;dr not very bad, just kinda bad. The tactical part is fine, and even feels good at times. The main problem I have is the none existent consequences of your choices. Through my first playthrough, I played as humanely as possible, not killing or even hitting a single civilian. After a few mission with 0 civilian casualty, I suddenly had a weird dialogue between the soldiers about how bad they felt from the civvies they killed. I just thought of it as a weird bug of some sort, but still suffered a morale loss (called cohesion in this game). Then a few missions later, I actually went out of my way to try and save civilian (spoiler alert, you can't if they are already dead). Okay whatever, but in the night that followed, I got the merchant coming to cry about his friend being dead and hinting it might be us. 2 choices: confess the killing, or play innocent. I "played innocent" despite fully knowing that I didn't kill a single f.cking one of them. But nope, major morale loss applied to both soldiers who engaged in the talking. And while there are way to recover some morale, it's like recovering 2 points for 1 character when yet another event removes 5 points out of 2 characters. I'm fine with a game telling me bad choices have consequences. But I just hate it when a game force feed me some morality BS when I did nothing wrong. And this isn't one of those "there's no black & white in war" kind of game with gray morality, or maybe I totally missed the point here. Anyway, that alone makes me give it a thumbs down. Don't give me choices if you're gonna act like I never had.

刚开始玩这款游戏，在还没发售的时候就有关注过，本以为会有些更艰难的选择，但是就目前已经通过的三关来说并算不上太艰难，可能更多的分歧点在于是要听老兵的意见优先保证生存，还是听新兵的意见采取充满正义感的行动，不过，基于玩家游玩的是一个英军小队，个人觉得在吵架的言辞方面应该体现的更有戏剧化一点才符合当时的时代背景，士兵的行动风格也略显美式的个人英雄主义色彩，并非英军强调的责任感和服从关系，希望制作组能做出些许改进，当然，或许游戏流程限制了更细节的人物刻画，但是个人仍然希望能在战斗中给每个人安排更多独特话语而非千篇一律，关于游戏性，本作有些过于强调侦察兵的重要性，却没有类似侦察兵的特性和武器，并且对于包抄迂回的限制过多，很多时候由于敌人的递进关系会在迂回包抄时提前触发敌人，嘛，当然，战场上谁也没法预料会不会遇到敌人倒是可以理解，但是这限制了战术性的发挥，至少在游戏里如此。 另外，个人感觉最大的问题还是在于游戏枪械效果失真，李恩菲尔德的威力和射程毫无疑问会比M1加兰德更优秀，毕竟M1加兰德的步枪定位是连发卡宾枪，强调连续作战能力，至于更换速度，个人觉得更取决于士兵训练而非枪械本身，标准的英军李恩菲尔德拥有一个十发子弹的桥夹，因此即便要拉栓，一个熟练士兵的射击频率也不一定会比M1加兰德的使用者更慢，诸如此类的问题还有很多，希望制作组能在这一方面更加用心，另外就是对于历史背景希望能交代的更明确一些，1944年的东欧理论上除了保加利亚和土耳其并不存在中立国，再加上救出的平民说的地名偏向斯拉夫语系，所以极有可能是在波兰或者南斯拉夫，而这又与前设自相矛盾，很难让人不去纠结这个地方究竟在哪，另外就是敌军士兵的服装，如果但从服装风格上来说这更像纳粹德国士兵，但是如果从配色上来看简直是战锤40K里的克里格死亡军团，希望制作组在这种细节上不要偷懒，否则确实有些对不起88块的售价，完善设定能给一个游戏增色很多，虽然一个2GB的游戏有如此高的完成度确实令人惊叹，但是毫无疑问后续的更新和更正是必须的，希望这88块能让我得到更好的游戏体验。

You will probably breeze through this game in couple of hours so it is recommended to buy this on discount (unless you want to go through campaign multiple times to experience multiple endings). You dont control the soldiers entirely, just their movement and some abilities, they fire at enemies automatically once they get close enough. Still it is nice mechanic that brings something new to the table and gameplay is fun and enjoyable.

Love XCOM and was looking for a similar game. Hasn't quite got the polish of XCOM, and is a little less tactical, but really enjoyed the game and the story. Overall very fun, just lacked a little depth to the combat. 8/10

Going in without much research towards the game I ended up being quite satisfied with Broken Lines. My first goal was to try and see what this game could resemble. It was not a traditional turn based strategy game where you could overwatch and take a shot with a hit or miss ratio. But it was also not an action isometric game as well so it was a bit of a mix from different gameplay variants that ended up being a refreshing yet positive experience. The mood is dark and gritty during the entire game. For every bit of hope there’s another challenge your team will face. And even if there’s no apparent danger the simple tension between different personalities will be enough to chain a negative (or positive) reaction making some relations more tense or easier to get along. You will need to manage a bit of supplies and make sure your team is well fed. Failing to do so will start to bring morale down or having to face harsh choices such making some soldiers starve so others can eat or divide the misery in an equal share, affecting all but not on a higher level. In order to prevent this, keep your supplies in stock, search for crates during the missions and you will be fine. As you progress the story you will have different choices to make. Sometimes the most obvious one could not be the better one to choose from. Your soldiers will vouch for their own opinions but you might never reach a scenario where they will all agree with each other (unless during certain key missions). To show empathy, misery, to let a prisoner live or die, to rob a civilian from the scarce food or leave them be will all have different effects on your soldiers. Remember that not all have the same good-guy-hero motivation. Before entering a main mission, you have some opportunities to try these choices as well as buying some goods, which you should do when possible as having a better weapon or a healing item can turn the mission greatly in your favor. Each mission is brief and does respect the player’s time, meaning it’s a great game to play in short bursts or if you just want a quick gaming session after a long time. As you go further in these missions you will face choices as to what to focus on, how to reach a certain location or if you want to focus on revenge, saving the life of civilians or just get something to improve morale. Remember, even if that is what you want there may be a turn of events so expect a different outcome which can affect the end game. My first run I was focused on saving too much of my money which meant going in with weaker weapons. By ignoring some crates during missions, food began to be scarce and right when I thought I was going to make it… my soldiers could not take it anymore. They did their best but when you reach a status where it’s not only your body that is giving up, but the mind as well it becomes very hard to keep momentum going forward. On my second playthrough it was a whole different story. I went in with the best weapons I could use, buying and even switching weapons from one soldier to another based on who I was choosing to start the mission. I kept supplies in stock. I always had some sort of bigger firepower such as a bazooka or a grenade to quickly get out of a difficult situation. This time around, I reached the ending. Whether it was a good or happy one, that is a whole different story as well. The game leaves many questions unanswered and that is okay. I tried to flee, I risked it going to the unknown and there was no guarantee I survived. Still, it was an ending and it felt good enough for closure despite not having all the answers I wanted. At around the 7 hour mark I reached the end game twice, when playing on the easier difficulty. There were more variants to be played, more different scenarios to find and unlock but at this time I felt like I had my fill with the game and I was happy with the time I invested in it.

10/10 would warcrime on the enemy again Besides that, this is a gem in the rough dirt. I wish the studio took more risks like this. Even if people actually expected a realistic WW2 game. In a nutshell, you fight off soldiers with gas masks while faced with moral choices. Do you help the civillians, or do your mission? I did the first option but... it treats me like as if i killed innocent people even if i didn't. So, clearly crunch time was involved and this was most likely the developer's first time doing a game. I don't blame em. Mistakes happen. I speedrunned this game in a few hours as well getting it in sale, so it's possible. I have not tried the expansion yet. Will do soon and will edit if it happens. Oh yeah. This game doesn't blow up your computer. I applaud the optimization too. Ta-ta.

This is a neat game with some issues. Overall, I'd recommend it, but at a 6/10. Choices you make such as prioritising civilians and avoiding their casualties weirdly.. get ignored. The game constantly assumes you have killed civilians. It... feels rather unpleasant. That said, it has some great details, an amazing aesthetic (Soldiers looking more sickly and messed up as they lose composure is actually great!) and genuinely fun gameplay. Not too overwhelming, but satisfying and difficult /enough/ at the standard settings. I wish they spruced up the story inconsistencies a bit and improved how they communicate important info to the player, but ah well. Let's hope their future games are better!

A fun and unique war game that has some of the real time tactics feel but without all the complexity of more traditional RTS. Feels strategic and satisfying to pull off maneuver and I found the interface pretty intuitive for the amount of control it allows over the characters.

Всем привет, прошел игру за 15ч. Игра увлекательная, механики очень простые, задания интересные, жаль, что нет возможности сразу пройти все задания, тогда можно было бы их все выполнить (приходилось выбирать то, что выгодней). Недостатком является и система диалогов между персонажами (судя по отчивками их практически никто не прочитывал), они абсолютно оказались бесполезными, и только портят отношения между персонажами, особенно во второй части игры. Рекомендую игру тем, кто любит неспешное прохождение или игры на подобие XCOM, где самое главное пошаговое передвижение персонажей. И тем кто любит военные стратегии. Враги заставяят ваших персонажей постоянно двигаться. Очень помогает мозгу для работы. (правда при выборе позиции игра сама подсказывает, какая позиция наилучшим образом подходит в данный момент). Хотелось бы, чтобы игра была более длинной и миссий было больше и разнообразней, а также возможность пройти все миссии (хотя бы для тех кто прошел всю игру).

takes a bit to get used to the timed stop-go action. once I did i could make some really neat sequences. I found a bit difficult to "attach" to the characters. A bit too random character development.