Frozen Synapse

Occasionally when you play an FPS online, the desire to mind control your team to make them go where you want them to is gripping. Sorry, not gripping (silly thesaurus), it’s frustrating. It’s actually the most frustrating aspect of those games. So what if a tactical, team-based shooter was a turn based strategy instead? Brilliant idea, reader! Unfortunately for you, developers Mode 7 have beaten you to it. But don’t sue them for copyright infringement, because you’ll be hurting the developers of a really clever, fun and challenging game. Oh, and it was their idea, so you won’t win. Waste of money really.

Frozen Synapse is an indie game available on Steam and from the developer’s website. Throughout the game you are reminded frequently that it isn’t a high budget, Triple-A game, but that’s not a bad thing. As an example, the game has a very simplistic, future-styled art style. Looking at it, you’d be forgiven for thinking it might be somehow related to the TRON license. It pays off big the more you play the game. As you learn more tactics and are placing more commands, the clean simplistic graphics help keep what can become a very intensive battlefield from getting too cluttered.

So what does the game offer? Well a good place to start is the Single-player mode. Within, you’ll find a fairly quick tutorial, which fills you in on the very basic elements of gameplay. I’d like to stress here that it only covers the basics; for instance there are many options units have that are never even mentioned in the tutorial. Certain things are poorly explained, and whilst you don’t feel completely out of place, it does raise more questions than you had going into it. It’s easy to forgive things like this based on the indie origins of the game, but poor tutorials feel like a cardinal sin in this day and age.

As far as the campaign goes, it’s forgettable. There’s a story there about A.I.’s and digital cities and… well, it’s really hard to follow. The campaign consists of skirmishes against A.I. opponents, thinly thread together with the aforementioned “story.” An interesting benefit of the game’s system is that maps are randomly generated, so if you fail a mission (and you will) when replaying it, it’s not a case of trial and error. The game forces you to use strategy and learn the system, not the levels. Once you learn the system, there’s really no reason to keep playing the campaign. Especially when you get to the level where you have to gun down unarmed scientists based on your commanding officer telling you to “trust him.” It no doubt foreshadows a change in allegiance or something, but I digress.

Now on to the real reason you’re going to play Frozen Synapse the multiplayer. As I’ve hinted already, the game’s core mechanics are solid. Turn-based strategy games can sometimes focus on knowing the most about the game, not necessarily the player with the best strategy. The game allows for bluffing, double bluffing, it allows you to visualize every move for not only you, but your opponent. Before you even submit your turn as final, you can literally practice and visualize every possibility. As an example, in a match where you can only see your opponent’s units when you have line of sight on them, you can see what happens when the enemy goes left, and plan for that, then if they go right and plan for that too. Once you do all that, you then have to make the conclusion and try and submit a turn that will be most advantageous to you. Once both players submit their turns, the game acts out five second chunks in real time. After the time is up, you can reassess and the cycle continues. As you can imagine, if you’re trying to play smart, the game can take quite a while to play. Luckily, games can take as long as you want, and you can play several games at once. You’ll never be stuck for a game either; people are looking for games constantly and the community seems friendly. Plus, once a match is over, you can directly upload a copy of the game to YouTube in 720p, as seen below. It’s funny to watch a 30 minute match go by in 43 seconds, but it’s fun to watch both players high-level strategies go by in a blaze. The multiplayer features this game offers are the best selling point of the whole package, and when early adopters are getting two copies of the game, one for you, one for a friend, it shows that the developers know this.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh0FEtMEcrc[/youtube]

So as to leave the package fully covered, the soundtrack is forgettable and repetitive, menus are occasionally unintuitive, story contains humour that falls flat, the lack of voice over and the low budget qualities of the game can sometimes take a slight shine off an otherwise great little game.