Gender Wars (MS-DOS)

That's a weird title. Is this going to be some kind of arena combat game?

It seems like it really is men vs women in combat. I'll go with the guys.

I hate menu screens like this, where I have to hover the mouse over everything on screen in turn to see what it does. Would it have ruined the immersion to label things?

Nice. One of the benefits of playing games on a PC from 16 years in the future is that I can throw all the settings to max.

Or, y'know, play something better. But I've got this loaded now so I might as well see how it's like. Curse my curiosity.

Possibly one of the most interesting screenshots you will ever see.

After some random clicking I figure out that those blue buttons increase the number next to the name. What that does, I have no idea. I switch a couple of people to '1' (whoa, that guy's called Leo Death.) and move on.

Another cryptic Star Trek rip off computer screen. Right, apparently I have a squad, and this screen assigns troops to it. Helpfully they've hidden the 'switch to equipment screen' button at the top in plain sight so it looks like the title.

Who do you THINK is going to lead the squad? You're not even going to give me a menu or a clue are you? Fine, I can figure this out. You're not going to stop me getting to gameplay that easily.

Okay, I can work this out rationally. I know I have a full squad, and I can't find any buttons to assign a leader on the squad screen. So logically the problem must be somewhere else...

AHA! Assigning numbers to squad members on the training screen means they can't go into the field, so that's why I have no squad leader in my squad. I win this round, Gender Wars.

We're getting ovum storage tubes? Holy fuck 'kill 50% of civilian staff' is a goal? This isn't gender wars, this is gendercide.

You know, I don't think these people have really thought through all the downsides to slaughtering the entire opposite sex.

I wonder how long this war has been going on anyway? Were any of these soldiers actually born naturally?

Okay team, let's move! Oh wait, this is just a cutscene.

Oh wow, this plays just like Syndicate. I move my squad leader around with one mouse button, and spray gunfire with the other. I don't know what I was expecting the game to be like, but it wasn't this.

These lifts are annoyingly slow and can apparently only fit one person. But at least my guys are smart enough to use them by themselves to follow me, which is cool.

I'm inside! Again! First time I walked through the door the enemy gunfire pushed me back to the screen outside before I could react.

It's always nice to be able to tear through the level with gun fire. Walls and furniture alike fall before my machine gun.

It looks like I'm taking these two women down alone though, seeing as the rest of my team have buggered off somewhere. I think I must have accidentally put them in a separate squad, and they ran off to shoot someone..

I had to take these guys down solo too, because that lift can only carry one at a time. Oh crap, is that a civilian? Man, fuck this, I'm getting my team together and getting back on mission.

They really love using the lifts to split up your team in this, it's annoying.


LATER.

Well, I lost two men, but I finally found what I came here for. Screw the secondary objectives, I'm just getting the hell out of here.

Wait, isn't this the same place I was in a few minutes ago? Whatever, forget it, let's just go.

Actually I'll just quickly take out some of these first and then go.


LATER.

They're really trying to make me feel like an asshole aren't they?

I started a new game to see how things were on the other side. Amazingly team female has an even less intuitive menu screen.

Aha, I knew it. If the Fallout games have taught me anything, it's that the only things absolutely guaranteed to survive the apocalypse are vending machines.

I got to admit, this game does get some things right, but I am just not enjoying it. It may be a lot like Syndicate or Cannon Fodder, but I remember them being a lot more fun to play.


Next game.