[b]A little Draughty[/b]
Draughts or Checkers, whatever you want to call it, it's a pretty simple but still tactical board game.
You move each piece diagonally around the board gobbling up your opponents men, get a piece to the farthest row from you and it gets an "upgrade" to a king, a piece with a super power, it can move backwards!
It's not the most complicated game in the world, but I used to love playing it as a kid, it was strategic and tactical but still pretty simple to learn.
[b]Educated Checkers[/b]
Chess, now that's a game on a whole other level, sure, it's pretty much the same checkers board you're used to but gone are the uniform pieces with their identical moves, now there's a small army of characters you can move across the board, each type having its own special movement and area of attack.
If checkers is a junior tactical game then chess is checkers with a high school education.
[b]Space Chess[/b]
Now, imagine a game of chess, but replace the chequered board with the star speckled blanket of space, change the knights, bishops, kings and queens into space vessels with different movement capabilities and areas of attack, digitize the game onto the PC, give it some animated visuals and atmospheric sounds then throw in a narrative to keep things interesting.
You know what you've got? Human Extinction Simulator, a turn based, tactical space title from Machine 22.
[b]Galactic Flavour[/b]
Human Extinction Simulator sees humanity struggle to survive an alien attack, each scenario pushes the story forward as humanity defends and retreats against the alien onslaught.
Whilst the narrative is a little dry and only delivered in flavour text at the start of each scenario, (don't get expecting whizzy cut scenes, it's not that sort game) it does do a good job of setting a "Battlestar Galactica" type tone to the proceedings as your military struggles to protect transports full of evacuees and slow down the aggressive destruction wrought by the evil Navassian fleet.
[b]Simulated Scenarios[/b]
The game is comprised of seven scenarios, each with several missions (simulations) which play out another chapter of the story, you'll be defending transports, saving key personel and launching daring raids into the heart of enemy territory,
The initial scenario serves as a tutorial and introduction to the story.
It does a pretty good job of introducing you to the game mechanics, which as I mentioned, is a lot like a game of chess.
[b]Fields of Fire[/b]
In Human Extinction Simulator you control a fleet of ships, both big and small, each ship type has its own weapons systems with their own unique ranges and fields of fire.
These areas of attack might not necessarily fall in front of a ship, dependent on the weapons attached, the fields of fire can fall to the sides of a vessel too.
Some weapons are more powerful than others, so keeping ships at the right range from their target to do the maximum amount of damage is one of the many considerations you'll need to make whilst playing.
Another important part of the tactics in this game is coverage, much like the game of chess, you're going to want to try and keep ships covered by other units, the enemy will think twice about moving to take out a squadron of fighters if he knows that it will leave him vulnerable to volley from a battleship on the next turn.
[b]Point and Shoot[/b]
Along with the different weapon ranges and damage types, you'll also need to think about ship movement.
Human Extinction Simulator adopts a hex based approach to movement, different ship types can move a different number of hexes each turn and can have different turning arcs depending on their size and speed.
Taking into account turning arcs to line up shots, anticipating where you think the enemy will ships will move to and how you should move your own to ensure they'll be pointing in the right direction to respond requires a keen tactical mind.
[b]The Dark Souls Strategy[/b]
This is a game that will challenge you.
You will lose, you'll replay a mission, you'll lose again, this can become frustrating but when you finally do achieve your goals in a given mission you get such a feeling of accomplishment it's worth all the effort.
Challenge is what makes victory worthwhile, without it winning is meaningless, and winning in Human Extinction Simulator means A LOT!
[b]It Looks Hexy[/b]
Visually, it's a top down, hex affair, which always limits graphical showmanship somewhat, but flashy graphics aren't what this type of game is about.
The backdrops are pretty and the ships themselves are crisp, detailed and show damage as their condition deteriorates throughout a battle.
The interface is clean and intuitive and firing ranges are shown clearly on the hex grid when you select a ship which is a huge help.
Sound is also perfectly serviceable from the zaps of little lasers to the beefy bangs of a ship you really couldn't afford to lose exploding into pieces.
[b]Hard Thinker[/b]
The AI is spot on, it doesn't cheat, but it is clever,
The Navassians are crafty bastards, even if you've got a handle on all the ship movements and weapon ranges, you'll still find them doing something unexpected, it refreshing (and frustrating) to have such a worthy artificial foe, this is all the more important as Human Extinction Simulator is a single player only game, but the AI is likely to be a tougher opponent than your friends would have been anyway!
[b]Measure of a Man[/b]
At the start of this review, I compared checkers to chess, well if chess is checkers with a high school education then Human Extinction Simulator is Chess with a PHD.
Human Extinction Simulator is both a highly frustrating and highly rewarding tactical game.
Whilst some will find the game too challenging and its top down hex based style unappealing, fans of hex based strategy shouldn't hesitate to give Human Extinction Simulator a look.
Yes, it's a tough game, but how you face defeat is more the measure of a man than a thousand victories.
As the great Carl Sagen said
[i]"Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception"[/i]
How will you fare?
( To view the full review (and others) please take the time to visit [url=http://www.review-well.com/]Review-Well.Com [/url] )
