A Familiar Setup With Minimal Payoff

Future War Tactics: SOF vs Alien Invasion - Turn-Based Strategy has maybe the longest title I have ever seen for a video game, so for the purposes of the review I will be shortening it to Future War Tactics. Title aside, the game itself is a turn-based strategy game in the same vein as Firaxis' XCOM series, but instead of being a futuristic science fiction-based game, Future War Tactics takes an approach closer to Stalker. Everything is grounded much more in modern weaponry, while enemies are unnatural and alien-like.

A Lackluster Story

While most people come to these types of games for the strategy and gameplay, there are also stories to these games. Future War Tactics boasts a short campaign spanning 13 missions. When you launch the game, you will be greeted with a short video detailing the background events leading to your first mission. This was where the red flags began to rise for me. Quadcom Interactive, the studio behind the game, is based in Moscow, Russia. Due to the language barrier, localization seems to have been done with artificial intelligence. As such, the dialogue and voice acting sound robotic and take me out of the experience. Outside of those factors, the story just does not do anything to stand out from other games.

While the approach to make it more grounded could bring an interesting angle, the majority of the time, story progression can be boiled down to "A mysterious enemy is attacking this area. See what you can find out." There was nothing that really interested me, despite wanting to see if there were new enemy types with cool designs. Couple that with pre-mission text that is multiple paragraphs long, and I wouldn't be surprised if you begin to skip them just to get to the gameplay.

Fine Systems, Uninspired Levels

The game at least has serviceable gameplay. If you have played any other turn-based tactics games, you will feel right at home. Just like Gears Tactics or XCOM, you manage characters that each have a set amount of ability points. Successful attacks are determined based on a percentage that accounts for cover, distance, and vulnerabilities, so make sure that you are in prime position to execute a devastating shot.

Future War Tactics comes with familiar abilities, like "overwatch," which sees your chosen character prepared to shoot anything in their vision that moves on the enemy during their turn, but it doesn't try to offer much more than that. Your characters can earn different weapons at the end of missions that will add some changes to how you play but won't completely change your approaches.

Additionally, there are perks for your characters to use. You have the option of assigning your characters one of four classes with no repeating allowed. These boil down to your scout class focused on stealth and reconnaissance, medic focused on healing and providing buffs, technician, which has the most gadgets, and grenadier for massive explosions. The skills do offer some variation, but when your drones or airstrikes are single use, you have to start asking if it is really worth it to bring them.

Overall the combat is serviceable and can have spurts of fun, but the levels themselves are very bland. Each map may have a different layout, but they all blur together into a brown sludge. At times it can be hard to determine where enemies are due to the camera being fixed with very little movement. There were countless times when I believed I was out of combat only for four more enemies to spawn on the other side of the map with no indication. The fixed camera angle also means that feedback feels lackluster with no special angles for headshots, critical hits, or utility usage.

Final Verdict

Future War Tactics: SOF vs Alien Invasion - Turn-Based Strategy never did enough to make me want to keep playing. With a lackluster story and combat that's missing an x-factor, the game feels like it is in alpha and needs a lot of fleshing out. Future War Tactics: SOF vs Alien Invasion - Turn-Based Strategy can be purchased on Steam for $9.99.

Disclosure: We received a free review copy of this product.