This is pretty much your basic strategy game, you build, you destroy, you dominate.

There’s a nice, extensive campaign you can do, run a game against a computer or hop online to test your skills out against other players.

Resources aren’t like what you’re used to really, there aren’t trees you’ll be hacking up or mine deposits you’ll have little men slave over, and instead you’re presented with a hexagonal grid-based field which seems to be towering hundreds of feet above the clouds.

The controls are pretty simple, left analog controls the camera, and right analog or D-Pad will navigate your menu. Right trigger ends your turn and the left trigger changes the camera from either the default angle view or an overhead view which I find to be annoying and useless.

Each unit’s appearance will differ depending on which faction you use, even the tiles you take over will look different.  There are a total of four factions, Freeman, Empire, Cartel & Pirates.

At the beginning of each turn you’ll receive credits usually from your own Harvesters, and supporting funds. Supporting funds will increase as more lands disappear. You’ll use these credits to build Harvesters, Walkers, Carriers, Armories, and Cannons.

I’ll explain what each one of those do.

Your basic attacking troops are known as walkers, they vary in appearance depending on which faction you’re playing. Moving only three tiles within your controlled territory, you’ll be using these guys to further your control and to take over enemy tiles. You can move as many as sixteen Walkers onto one tile. If the enemy has four or five walkers and you want to take it over you’ll need that many plus some extra for reinforcements. Basically for every walker you have, it will destroy one of theirs—of course yours will be destroyed in the process. It just cancels itself out but leaving you the victor if you succeed with the correct amount.  Also, taking over an enemy tile gives you control of whatever emplacement they may have there, be it Harvesters, Armories or Cannons. It’s always fun to self destruct the Harvester for massive damage to the surrounding tiles.

Harvesters are your main source of income. They do exactly as they’re named; they harvest the resources which appear to be coins that you in turn use to buy things like more Harvesters! But with each turn the Harvester bleeds from the ground, the tile will crack and eventually diminish taking whatever is on it down plummeting. So, be wary of this. There’s a height meter you want to pay attention to, it’s basically a circle with up to six smaller circles around it. Once you move the cursor over a tile it will project a basic height meter, in other words tell you how many turns you can harvest before the tile is destroyed. To get the most out of each tile, you’ll naturally want to build your Harvester on a higher rated land.

Armories produce Walkers and Carriers. They can produce about eight walkers per turn and can’t be used until your next turn naturally. Carriers are used to transport Walkers from one tile to another further away; this is best for when you want to invade the enemy’s territories quickly or when the map is broken up. They can only be used once so plan carefully. Blitzkrieg!

Cannons are useful when you want to hack away at the enemies tiles, causing more destruction each turn as their Harvester does the same. You have to buy artillery rounds and they can’t be fired until your next turn, each cannon holds up to 9 rounds.

The music doesn’t constantly loop; you’ll have a few moments of silence before a nice little tune kicks in. Sort of sounds like some 1940s lounge music playing on a record. I feel like I’m sitting in a bar full of cigar smoke drinking some whiskey whilst a whore dances slowly to the tune on stage because her husband died in the war and she needs to make money and lost all self respect. Then I buy her a drink and she confines in me and I get her back to my place and—woah way off topic. Sorry.

The graphics have a nice comic, cartoon feel to everything and the units look gorgeous, I just wish there were more of a variety to them. That’s where this lost a point. I understand it’s just a small arcade game but I feel it would’ve been a better game strategy wise if they’ve given more than just five units to mess around with.

There’s a day/night system which is pretty freakin’ awesome, you’ll hear wild life and see birds flying over the map. They’ve done a wonderful job adding a sense of a world and depth into this game. I almost feel bad depleting the map of its land just for the sake of building up my own army but that’s the whole point of the game, resources are running dry and it’s a fight for survival. Seems sort of redundant, why can’t they just make peace and live together?! GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!

The game is now available on both the Playstation Network and XBOXLive Arcade.

4/5 Carry on.