Storm Frontline Nation Gameplay
The game should be similar to Risk with a lot of extra variables such as diplomacy and spying. However, instead of global warfare, the developer opted to stick just to Europe, Northern Africa, and include the United States in the game as well.
Of all these countries, you can play the campaign as a select few and each country has a different campaign. Of course, I had to start with my home team, so the United States was my first choice. I selected my starting country and got to watch a loading screen for 3 minutes.
Allow me to repeat that in case the reader missed it. I waited on the loading screen for 3 FULL MINUTES! You may think, “3 minutes is not that long”. But I don’t have some computer that I found in a Cracker Jack box. I take pride in my i7 build that has been able to run circles around most games and can handle video editing and light rendering in a fraction of the time that it takes most people’s computers. So after starting the game, and making a sandwich while I waited, I was finally ready to play.
Choosing the US was a huge mistake. Because the United States has no land in Europe, you start out with minimal locations and a few naval vessels. So I did what any red blooded, John Wayne loving American would do. I invaded to get more land. Invading a landmass takes you to a small scale grid map where you can place units and have to search for the hidden enemy units to destroy them. My first attempt to conquer a land ended in an abysmal defeat. The turn based gameplay left me moving to a sector, not finding anyone, and just sitting there like rock waiting for my next turn. But apparently the computer AI knows exactly where you are at. Their forces immediately surrounded me and destroyed my units in a matter of seconds. Future attempts at this task would prove to be more successful as I got more familiar with the AI’s tactics.
Realizing that perhaps this game starts the United States with a disadvantage, I closed that campaign and restarted as a country with a large landmass in Europe…..France. And then got to watch the loading screen again. Oh JOY!!!
Having opted for a larger country in Europe I was excited to see if gameplay was any different. So when the map finally loaded I was shocked to realize that I could not control any of my forces. I sat there puzzled, until I realized that the game started the level in Germany and the forces I was seeing were Russia’s. (For those of you who do not know, Russia and France have similar flags. Same pattern, same colors, but France’s stripes are vertical while Russia’s are horizontal)
So zooming out and refocusing on France’s geographic location, I was shocked to find out that I did not have control of all of France. Apparently, the developer thinks that France decided to give over half of its landmass to random countries in Europe.
Putting all this aside, I made my move for the round. Then I was shocked (sarcasm) to realize that I had to wait for every other country to take their turns and make their moves. And that is pretty much the entirety of the gameplay of this game.
