Recent reviews by Bertie

I was going to give this a positive review as the gameplay is enjoyable, however having completed the game (around 15 hours on hard mode) I'm annoyed by some decisions they've made.

Firstly once the game is done you can't just go back and play what you want. If you try to continue your campaign you're just told that it's completed, and your only option is to load into one of the previous days. Quite why they can't allow us to replay jobs is beyond me, and going back to a previous day removes any vehicles or facilities you hadn't purchased yet.

Secondly I'm annoyed about the DLC situation. Now I'm fully aware that we live in a day one DLC type world, but what they've done is ridiculous. In one of the screens there's boxes for extra orders, which you can't actually unlock. All my facilities are at max level so I'm guessing that it's just lazy programming and they couldn't even be bothered trying to hide the fact that they're essentially selling us half a game and expecting us to pay for the rest later.

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3680826858

Although the leg physics can be a bit weird, in general it's a nice imitation of actual climbing. You actually have to think about where you're putting your hands and feet and can't just keep clicking and clicking in the hope that you'll go up.

I'll give this a positive as it's good, but it does feel like a wasted opportunity.

- Despite being set on islands there's minimal action involving water. The last mission has a lot of water surrounding it, but the vast majority of it can be walked on.
- The paratrooper units add nothing to the game. They're no different to any other enemy types in the way they behave, the just show up a couple of points during the mission. In the first level they can be ignored completely by just driving through them!
- There are two missions where you have to meet a female contact, however they didn't add another character to the game. Natasha was added in Commandos: Beyond the Call of Duty after you find her mid mission, so I'm not sure why they didn't take this opportunity to do something like that.

It's the same game as it was 20 years ago, but improved. They haven't done loads to it, but for me I'd say the additional zoom available, unit pathing and smoother feel is well worth it. I played a mission earlier and the sight of 8 squads of Space Marines and 9 Dreadnoughts was awesome - the battle felt it was on a scale I wasn't able to appreciate in the past because I couldn't see as much of it and the units used to get stuck on each other.

I'll start by saying I've got over 600 hours (across Steam and Itch) in ROI and was really looking forward to this game, but it's just a letdown.

- For me the key part of this game is about the production and optimising production lines, but in some cases this just isn't possible.

Carbon Steel for example needs 4 tons of iron and 2 tons of coal to produce 4 units of carbon steel. Nice round numbers, sounds good. However in the first level you can't mine coal initially so have to order it in. For some bizarre reason there's seemingly random numbers thrown in for the deliveries which you can't do anything about. The only one available to me (in order to have enough coal) is 71 tons every 11 days - why did someone think that throwing 2 prime numbers into the mix was a good idea? It's not the only example either. I've had 57 tons in 9 days or 47 tons in 8 days. It just makes no sense as you end up either with too little or too much of a resource without being able to do anything about it.

Same with selling items. 29 pallets of glass in 6 days? Why! How about I give you 30 and you accidently drop one, to save me having to hold onto a single unit of glass every 6 days which I can't do anything about?!

- The sheer amount of nonsense when it comes to staff if mind boggling. You can have 6 different VPs and a manager per complex. Each of these VPs then has 2 of 12 traits which affects your company or complex depending on the role that they're in. Plus each of them has an opinion and influence points which also have their own set of modifiers. There's just so much going on with them that it's more akin to Crusader Kings or a similar.

- Ironically the bonuses that the employees can give you don't really matter, as there are so many events popping up all the time which can completely nullify any advantage that your employees are giving you and completely wreck your production chains. I'm on the first campaign level and fairly early on, however I've so far had two events within quick succession that stop my coal delivery from coming through. That completely stops me making any money, plus I have to pay fines to the companies who want the carbon steel that I'm mean to be selling them. I can't do anything about that like getting a delivery from somewhere else, as I have to create a new contract then wait 10 days for the first delivery.

The whole thing just feels so imprecise. It's like they decided to come up with a load of features and just throw them all in, without any particular thought as to how the mechanisms would work with each other and impact the gameplay experience as a whole. If you're a fan of numbers and accuracy I'd stay away, as you'll just end up fighting against the game. I don't know if they were trying to expand on the original and just took it too far, but for me it's just not fun to play.

Fun game. Don't expect Factorio levels of automation - as advertised it's more of a puzzle game than anything else (focusing on using the least machines, conveyors and space), but it's ideal for those people like me who want to make something that works but are slightly intimidated by the sheer scale of the likes of Factorio. I'd probably compare it more to the likes of Opus Magnum.

As a non-MP player it's always nice to have some more single player content. Played a few campaign missions and enjoying it so far, however I do find the heroes a bit lacking. Aside from the one who heals troops I haven't really found them that much of a game changer. The active abilities they have don't seem to make much difference unless they're in the right place at the right time, which somehow I never manage and then you still have to wait for the cooldown before you can use them again. Feels like a bit of a gimmicky addon without adding much value to the gameplay.

Very good Commandos / Desperados / Shadow Tactics style game. If you liked any of those or similar then I highly recommend it - there's a demo too if you're not sure

Fantastic demo - has a great Commandos / Desperados / Shadow Tactics feel to it. Insta buy on release!

It's been 24 years and whenever I see this game mentioned anywhere I still get the urge to go and play it again. Just an absolute classic!