frozen synapse 2

[Mr.TaLaL]

Prime’s top-down, simultaneous turn-based action pits two teams of micromanaged soldiers against one another in five-second bursts. You independently outline your squad members’ actions step by granular step with empowering precision, and once every strafe and corner check has been finetuned using the handy dry-run preview tool, you “prime” the turn and watch as your preset actions play out against your opponent’s in real time. “Was my shotgunner fast enough to make it past that window before the enemy sniper got into position? Did he turn left, as I predicted, or did he turn right?” Well, you’re about to find out!
Because you never quite know what your opponent will do next, every turn becomes a psychological duel – the winner, ultimately, is the player who can be more devious, who can cover all the angles, who can outflank and out think his opponent. In essence, it’s the perfect antidote for all those mindless run-and-gun shooters, relying entirely on tactics and a unique brand of predictive puzzle-solving rather than twitchy trigger fingers.
What’s amazing is how fair Prime is. Since soldiers simply follow commands, kills are determined by a number of factors: stance, cover, line of sight, range, weapon type, and more. Constantly trying to account for every factor while inputting commands occasionally made me long for the simplicity of chess. I also spent some early hours fighting with the combat interface, especially when trying to arrange a particularly complex series of commands. You can place and adjust waypoints, set multiple actions at each waypoint, and control the timing down to the split-second -- the level of nuance possible is absolutely daunting.
But that nuance is also what makes Prime such an amazing tactical sim. Once I overcame that brutal teething period (and learned the subtle but crucial differences between the Aim, Sweep, and Check commands), I quickly began to appreciate the deep well of tactics it afforded me. Instead wondering why the hell that stupid AI shotgunner killed my soldier even though my guy was already aiming the right direction, I was able to focus entirely on anticipating my opponent’s moves and embracing the thrill of a calculated risk. Importantly, this was all possible because Prime’s combat proved so consistent. After learning the ins and outs, I was rarely puzzled by an outcome. Either I screwed up or I won; it didn’t feel arbitrary.
 Not only are the mechanics thoughtful and engaging, Prime actually gives you plenty of ways to use them. There’s a full, story-driven single-player campaign that, depending on your play style, could easily devour a dozen hours. The dystopian cyberpunk narrative teeters on the edge of trite and often feels a bit scattered, but does eventually pay off, especially if you’re willing to read the expository text dumps between missions.
Beyond the story, the campaign excels at providing new and unpredictable scenarios to test your skills, made all the more unpredictable by the modular, semi-randomly generated battlefields. One mission gave me a trio of shotgunners and tasked me with defeating five snipers positioned on the opposite side of the board, which proved...tricky. Inventive scenarios like that, though occasionally frustrating, kept the experience as a whole fresh and surprising.
 As solid as the campaign and its AI enemies may be, the real stars of Prime are its multiplayer modes. This game is tailor-made for head-to-head competition, and thankfully, it gives every tool you could possibly need to orchestrate intense battles, including deeply customizable maps and match parameters, six different match types, and even a replay theater.
But the coolest part? Prime lets you play multiple matches at once in an asynchronous fashion. Opponent taking forever to finish setting his turn? Simply back out to the multiplayer menu, where you can easily track all your matches, and jump directly into the ones that require your attention. It’s smooth, intuitive, and helps combat turn-based multiplayer’s most common problem, though it still can’t eliminate it entirely. I often struggled to find opponents and endured many matches that became inactive almost immediately. That’s not really Prime’s fault, but it is the reality of situation currently.