Frozen Synapse – Beta Review

My first review, you know I am a bit nervous. Well here it is, Frozen synapse, a game that basically is an updated version of chess. Well a much better version of chess with shotguns and rocket launchers. That still is probably an unfair representation, go me a big word, of the game it reminds me of the thing I loved about the original Rainbow Six, the planning phase.

I remember the thrill of executing a plan that I had spent time preparing to take down terrorist, then realizing, crap that won’t work an enemy has changed position so a rethink or the plan goes totally disastrous and bam my team just died so I would reload and try again.  The biggest issue with the campaign I had was I had no reason to replay it purely and simply because as soon as you have a plan on a level that work it always, in my experience worked.

That doesn’t work in the Frozen Synapse Single Player Campaign the levels are in the developers words “Semi-Randomly Generated.” When I read this I was expecting enemy positions to change as well as my own, this was not the case. After replaying a few missions i encountered a completely different game, forcing me develop new tactics to win. This adds a lot of replay ability which i did not expect.

Campaign map. Looks can be deceiving.

You may be thinking, well it just sounds like a skirmish on randomly generated map, you are partially right but there is a story, a good one from what i have played of the campaign, to follow with varying objectives each with varying degrees of difficulty. I dislike escort missions, not because they’re bad I am just not particularly good at them at them.

If you are wondering how this planning thing works, to be fair I probably should of said this further up in the review but it’s my review and i have quite got the structure write yet. Lets have a look at the most common game played in multiplayer, I’ll review that further down, Dark Extermination, a death match of sorts.

Each player starts off with the same units at various points on the map. Both players can see where their opponent’s units start off and that’s it. From there each player plans their turn, each turn last 5 seconds but you have as long as you want to plan. During the planning phase a player can make a guess as to what their opponent is planning and see how a plan will pan out. They can then either change thier plan if the outcome wasn’t as desired or commit to it and see how the Turn actually plays out. Bear in mind after the initial start you will no longer know exactly where your opponents so it could end up being a game of cat and mouse.

A game I had with a friend:-

This game lasted 4 turns (20 seconds) but took longer to plan obviously this is was exported to YouTube using one of frozen synapse’ the included features the export button again I quite like it to be honest.

I must admit I have never used a replay function so much in a game, every match I played I have watched at least once to get a feel of how my opponents play so I can beat I can learn the movements and tactics and formulate new ways of bringing the hurt. 

Considering this game is in Beta it pretty much perfect in my opinion there are a few snags particularly with the interface if you’re using the built in IRC to chat with the community it seems to take either to be to small to read what’s going on or to big and in your face to see what’s going on in game. Again this is a small nag and doesn’t affect game quality in my opinion. Even though this is in beta I have never not been able to find a match often I have a few matches going on at one time another feature I like you don’t have to wait for your opponent to finish planning his move you can go and play other matches or even take a break, the game will notify you by email when your opponent has finished planning his move meaning in reality you don’t need a good connection speed to play.

I will not mention graphics as a major part in any games I review for a few reasons firstly graphics do not make a good game. I think this is proven by the fact one of my all-time favourite games is x-com by today standards it graphically looks like a wrinkled prune but game play wise it cannot be beaten. Secondly There is no way to compare graphics fairly. As such i will just mention if the graphic work with the game. Mode 7 have clearly put a lot of thought in to how Frozen Synapse looks the blue maps and colour coded units fit in perfectly how the game works.

Too small

Too in your face.

As for Mode 7, the developers, themselves I like them. I had an issue with my pre-order of the game they cleared it up very quickly, a lot faster than issues I have had with other games (Assassins Creed 2). Also when on the IRC channel I was able to actually have a talk to the developers and get a response and feedback about both suggestions and issues I had with the game. AS an indie developer I would say they’re hearts are in the right place and they want to make the community happy as well as make money.

For these Reason I recommend that you buy Frozen Synapse now, just do it you know you want to. If you buy before the official release not only do you get beta access and a steam key you also get one for a friend.  There are a few options to choose from when you do go to buy I have no idea why 2 of them are priced the same when clearly you get more in one than the other.

I wish to thank  Hdfisise for helping to improve my review.