RAD Soldiers Review

Humor and smart controls can help to alleviate rough edges. In RAD Soldiers' case, humor is found in quite a bit of the writing, including how it introduces the game, the descriptions to be found in weapons and soldiers, and in the little animations that see skulking soldiers, bombs, and colorful maps as par for the course. The game itself is of the turn-based tactical variety, where tiles indicate where one can move, cover can be found behind various parts of the scenery, and touch-controls offer a fairly intuitive experience.

Each soldier has a set amount of actions they can perform in a given turn, and at the beginning of each match, a selection of load out that has been bought for them. Various soldiers have specific specialties, which allow for some more strategic deployment in where exactly to place them. As mentioned, the controls in particular are brilliant, which selecting a soldier and pointing them to move somewhere being fairly easy to accomplish. Pinching and its counterpart are used to zoom in or out, and rotation can be accomplished fairly easily by keeping on finger in place and swiping the other in the desired direction. It just feels right.

Which helps shuttle along the game in a fairly straightforward fashion. Unfortunately, the single player campaign seems to ramp up in difficulty quite quickly, but the mutliplayer options are much more kind to people who cannot necessarily play one entire session in a go. Instead, these are metered out whereby one person takes a turn, which then means they are free to go do something else until the opposing party has taken theirs. It does mean that the instantaneous action becomes less of a draw, but turn-based strategy can often be about other things. Like a long game of chess, however, it does mean keeping strategies in mind becomes a sport in and of itself.

If there are problems to be had it would be in how there does not seem to be any real curve to the gatekeeping mechanisms behind the acquisition of soldiers and weapons. Their purchase with in-game currency is quite steep, whereas RAD Bux can be earned in smaller amounts (or bought). It makes an otherwise stellar app a bit less appealing, as it would make a bit more sense to lure the player in before having steeper curves that require either more grinding (but with more options at hand) or more purchases. At the moment it seems a wall that doesn't quite let everyone in on what brilliance may be ahead.

Overall, there is fun to be had here, however. Objectives exist in the capture of rockets, but most matches seem to exist merely to kill each other, whereby it offers many an option to the player.

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