Labyrinth: The War on Terror

Again I request STEAM to add a Neutral option. I can't vote No, but the Yes is a stretch. First, the digital is well done. It mimics the boardgame proper, for "face to face" multiplayer and solo bot flowchart. Now the inclusion of a programmed computer opponent was promising and worth the investment. Alas only the GWOT Coalition is developed as such and surely puts a good challenge. Not having the other side with the same option leaves a feel of unfinished. Also the necessity to create a login with Playdek for multiplayer is really a pushback on a better review. All in all, pleasing game, equal to the boardgame. As a digital port is well done but fails at delivering what digital gamers look for - proper computer opponent.

Pretty terrible product. Recommended only if you already have an opponent to play against, and need to learn the rules beforehand and/or need an interface to play remotely - and even then, it still feels like a ripoff at the price. The game it's based on is fairly niche to start with - a board game recreating the post 9/11 'war on terror' between the US and Islamic fundamentalists, heavily inspired by the classic Cold War-based Twilight Struggle (which also has a PC port by the same developer). I could say a lot about it, but to summarise: if you like TS and the subject matter doesn't bother you, it's certainly worth a go - but if not, you're not missing that much. The problem here isn't the game itself, though - it's the software, which is frankly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. I don't know the story of the development, but I'd guess they started out thinking they could easily recycle a lot of the work from the TS game for a quick buck, but at some point in the process they lost interest and/or realised there wasn't actually much of a market. So they just got what they had into a barely-functional state and released it. The result is a frustrating mess which somehow manages to make even the recycled parts from TS much worse. It's a crappy, unfinished UI - unsortable hand, incomplete turn log, comically slow 'animations' that unfold inbetween lightning-quick reveals of card text and effects that can't be deciphered without rummaging through a non-chronological discard pile afterwards. Most crippling of all, you can't even see your opponent's hand size or the remaining deck size (the screenshots seem to show hand and deck counts, but they're not actually present in the game - did they photoshop them in!!?) If you can somehow tolerate all of that, you'll probably want to challenge yourself with a proper game at some point. Sadly the 'AI' opponent is 1. easily beatable, even for a beginner, and 2. inexplicably only available for one side (I say inexplicably, obviously they just couldn't be bothered coding the other side). Besides that there are automata opponents for each side, but they're very unsatisfying to play against and also easy to beat - and again, seem thrown-together and unfinished. And finally you might look for an online game - but unless you've been able to prearrange one, you'll be disappointed as there doesn't seem to be anyone on the servers at all. Rubbish.