An Art of War Review

An Art of War is an extremely tough game to classify, making for a tough game to review. It's sort of a cross between tower defense, turn based strategy, and line drawing. The combination of genres makes for some interesting game play, but there are some problems.

The game itself, other that the implacable genre, is fairly straightforward. There is a map with your team on one side and the enemy team on the other. Depending on the level (there are a total of 9), you must either defend your base, attack the enemy base, or both. You are given a set amount of turns to complete your mission, and a set amount of time to take each turn, just to speed things up a bit. Since each unit has a different set of skills (and you only get three per mission) you must choose your units wisely before the mission. Then, by using line drawing in the movement phase, deploy them to their fullest once the mission starts.

Once you get into the game it is pretty fun, and has some of the toughest AI I've seen in a while. After about level 2, the game gets pretty challenging, and I was playing on the medium difficulty. My biggest complaint is that the game feels a bit generic, which is hard for me because I'm usually so visually stunned by everything on the iPhone 4. The ground looks just a bit dull, none of the animations are amazing, and the sound effects are pretty lackluster. The whole package just wasn't anything to write home about, and I think that it really hurts the game.

If you are looking for a unique experience in the app store and enjoy turn based fighting, An Art of War may be a good bet. It's not perfect, but it is challenging... something that I can't say for many games that I see.