Offensive (MS-DOS)

I'm guessing it's got something to do with war.

Ah, Romans. Definitely a war game. Wait, a knight? The US civil war, D-Day landings? What?

 Seems like we're sticking with World War II for now. Fair enough.

White on light grey, not the best way of presenting text.

It's either night time, or the colours are going weird. Not the best graphics, but they seem functional.

The enemy patrol the town to the west, oblivious to my presence. Sadly I haven't got a clue what MDA stands for. They're marching around so at least I know the game isn't turn based.

Ah, I just select the units and give them orders like 'move' and 'attack'. It seems simple enough. I just wish it was easier to select the units to start with. The selection box is isometric so I have start way over in a diagonal corner to drag over the whole group.

I move my team into position for a surprise attack on the lone patrol near the café. Or at least I try to. They really don't like to be given a precise place to stand.

Suddenly, I pounce! My men stumble around each other, trying to find a good path to the enemy, while gunfire and grenades go off around them.

The enemy is defeated, but some of my team have been wounded. It's hard to tell who though, because whenever I select them this box appears and I can't see who I have selected.

I may not know what MDA means, but I'm pretty sure red is bad, and I want to be able to see what units have red boxes so I can order them to collect those health boxes on the top right.

I move down to sweep through the rest of the town. Fortunately the enemy seemed completely unaware that I just had a huge firefight down the road, and I was able to catch them off guard.

And then they threw grenades at me and blew up half my men.

It's fine though. We've got explosives of our own, and I've very nearly finished sweeping this level. I think that's about it for this town.

Oh crap, this level is HUGE! How the hell am I going to take all that with the men I have left?

Maybe I can run them over with this car? Yeah, okay that's a terrible idea, they'd probably blow me up before I got close. But... now I can't figure out how to get my soldiers back out. Now I have even less men on the field!

And they have a bridgeful of ambush laying in wait.

Plus all these guys up at the edge of the map. Wait a minute, these are MY colours. I've got reinforcements!

... and they've got an armoured car. Well, I've got no ideas.

JUST GET IN THERE AND SHOOT THE BASTARDS! SHOOT EVERYONE NOT WEARING A RED HAT.

Well. That went better than expected.

My half dead troops crawl into the second town to clear out the last of the enemy forces. I brought the car too, because I didn't want it to feel left out.

Another massacre. But we cleared out the last of the enemy so that should still count as a win, surely?

Oh crap, there's an enemy pillbox I missed on the way here. If I can't take that out it's all over.

But it's okay, I got more dudes!

RUN IN THERE AND SHOOT THE BASTARDS!

And, level complete!

Level two seems very similar, except yellow instead of purple. I'll think I'll quit while I'm ahead.

This really isn't the best war game in the world, but it's seems relatively accessible. It's nice to be able to instantly command troops without deciphering a screenful of cryptic icons for once at least. I didn't feel like I had much control over what was going on once the bullets started flying but maybe that's how it's supposed to work, I dunno.


Next game.