Y
Yours
Guest
The somewhat BAD, somewhat SAD, and sometimes RAD Soldiers
Piston Sledge.
What a name. An amalgam of celebrated American composer Walter Piston and Louisiana love expert Percy Sledge, my main man in Warchest’s tactical squadder has been in the fight since day one. Granted, Sledge and friends have been on ice for the better part of four years, but the call of duty in You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. is never collect. I decided it was time to return and give Piston & Friends a reunion tour.
Oh, how things have changed and stayed the same.
Given how You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. is the mobile gaming arm of esteemed developerYou do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now., I had high hopes for the asynchronously-enabled turn-based strategy when it rolled out in 2012. Hot on the heels of personal favourite/critical also-ran FPS You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now., I wanted to see something equally dynamic. A TBS that encouraged scaling and mantling and sliding. A TBS that felt as bouncy as it looked. Much like Brink, RAD Soldiers failed to capitalise on its looks via a dumpy core of staid missions. Don’t get me wrong, though. I played the game to death.
For a good while, my mornings were exclusively dealing with fresh payloads of accrued turn notifications. RAD Soldiers received a habitual, incorrigible seeing-to. Success was always a balanced affair. I languished in my comprehensive victories as much as stewed in my losses, where defeat was staved by differing time zones. Gaia could only keep failure obfuscated until the rolling thunder of a European breakfast met my GMT+9 afternoons.
RAD Soldier was an uncomplicated offering then, enjoyable beneath its yoke of F2P obligations. It remains so now, although they’ve added in a compliment of card packs for fresh units and equipment. Progression remains as stodgy and beholden to the conventions of the business model as ever, with the option to fork out a princely sum of forty-something dollars for everything. Granted, coming in at just under a cool fifty is comparatively cheap compared to your Jurassic World park builders and the cynical hilarity of Theme Park, but the problem is simply one of variety. I have a penchant for hanging around wind turbines. But are rockets a different story?
RAD Soldiers is all about hanging around rockets. Used as the tactical point of convergence, the clash-magnet, RAD Soldiers’ one game mode is a messy king of the hill. Roll up, roll in, lock it down. This somehow sustained my thirst for asynchronous multiplayer for the better part of a year, and going back to it now, I can’t for the life of me understand why or how. The maps are furnished appropriately, and I’d even go so far as to say RAD Soldiers’ aesthetic is one of my absolute favourites in the iOS sphere, but it all boils down to a very limited tactical selection. It’s telling in mentioning Brink, a game where one criticism spoke of ‘many guns, none of note’ or something to that effect. RAD Soldiers remains the epitome of that sentiment. A smorgasbord composed entirely of supermarket cheddar. Unfair? It’s a game crying out for Stilton. A bit of tactical bite. Fresh modes and maps. The asynchronous multiplayer can sustain limited interest, but barely the imagination.
If the world were of sanity and good fortune, Warchest would seek counsel and see to mechanically rejuvenating an decent intellectual property. I’d recommend more map variety, with greater range in elevation. I’d suggest deeper squad development, taking notes fromYou do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.. New modes, even if borrowed or reclaimed from elsewhere. Capture the flag, pure team deathmatch, ****** missions, something,anything. Sure, you’ve an obligation to multiplayer balance, but make that optional. Take a leaf from Hearthstone and offer pre-determined or curated rosters for non-player deck matches. Get a little bit excited. Go beyond the simple MOBA-style ‘try this character’ rotation for spice.
I saw all this because, after dredging through the majority of asychronous F2P games available, RAD Soldiers still feels like untapped potential. Maybe after six years in the wilderness, I’m completely off-base and they’re doing smashingly. Maybe many people are breaking out their wallets for the five-buck/nine-card booster bundle. Maybe the buck-forty-nine/two-weapon booster is a killer deal. Maybe I’m looking for a meta-game that simply is more trouble than its worth.
Sorry, Sledge. You’re behind enemy lines and I don’t think I care to spring for an evac this time.
pockettactics.com
Piston Sledge.
What a name. An amalgam of celebrated American composer Walter Piston and Louisiana love expert Percy Sledge, my main man in Warchest’s tactical squadder has been in the fight since day one. Granted, Sledge and friends have been on ice for the better part of four years, but the call of duty in You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. is never collect. I decided it was time to return and give Piston & Friends a reunion tour.
Oh, how things have changed and stayed the same.
Given how You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now. is the mobile gaming arm of esteemed developerYou do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now., I had high hopes for the asynchronously-enabled turn-based strategy when it rolled out in 2012. Hot on the heels of personal favourite/critical also-ran FPS You do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now., I wanted to see something equally dynamic. A TBS that encouraged scaling and mantling and sliding. A TBS that felt as bouncy as it looked. Much like Brink, RAD Soldiers failed to capitalise on its looks via a dumpy core of staid missions. Don’t get me wrong, though. I played the game to death.
For a good while, my mornings were exclusively dealing with fresh payloads of accrued turn notifications. RAD Soldiers received a habitual, incorrigible seeing-to. Success was always a balanced affair. I languished in my comprehensive victories as much as stewed in my losses, where defeat was staved by differing time zones. Gaia could only keep failure obfuscated until the rolling thunder of a European breakfast met my GMT+9 afternoons.
RAD Soldier was an uncomplicated offering then, enjoyable beneath its yoke of F2P obligations. It remains so now, although they’ve added in a compliment of card packs for fresh units and equipment. Progression remains as stodgy and beholden to the conventions of the business model as ever, with the option to fork out a princely sum of forty-something dollars for everything. Granted, coming in at just under a cool fifty is comparatively cheap compared to your Jurassic World park builders and the cynical hilarity of Theme Park, but the problem is simply one of variety. I have a penchant for hanging around wind turbines. But are rockets a different story?
RAD Soldiers is all about hanging around rockets. Used as the tactical point of convergence, the clash-magnet, RAD Soldiers’ one game mode is a messy king of the hill. Roll up, roll in, lock it down. This somehow sustained my thirst for asynchronous multiplayer for the better part of a year, and going back to it now, I can’t for the life of me understand why or how. The maps are furnished appropriately, and I’d even go so far as to say RAD Soldiers’ aesthetic is one of my absolute favourites in the iOS sphere, but it all boils down to a very limited tactical selection. It’s telling in mentioning Brink, a game where one criticism spoke of ‘many guns, none of note’ or something to that effect. RAD Soldiers remains the epitome of that sentiment. A smorgasbord composed entirely of supermarket cheddar. Unfair? It’s a game crying out for Stilton. A bit of tactical bite. Fresh modes and maps. The asynchronous multiplayer can sustain limited interest, but barely the imagination.
If the world were of sanity and good fortune, Warchest would seek counsel and see to mechanically rejuvenating an decent intellectual property. I’d recommend more map variety, with greater range in elevation. I’d suggest deeper squad development, taking notes fromYou do not have permission to view the full content of this post. Log in or register now.. New modes, even if borrowed or reclaimed from elsewhere. Capture the flag, pure team deathmatch, ****** missions, something,anything. Sure, you’ve an obligation to multiplayer balance, but make that optional. Take a leaf from Hearthstone and offer pre-determined or curated rosters for non-player deck matches. Get a little bit excited. Go beyond the simple MOBA-style ‘try this character’ rotation for spice.
I saw all this because, after dredging through the majority of asychronous F2P games available, RAD Soldiers still feels like untapped potential. Maybe after six years in the wilderness, I’m completely off-base and they’re doing smashingly. Maybe many people are breaking out their wallets for the five-buck/nine-card booster bundle. Maybe the buck-forty-nine/two-weapon booster is a killer deal. Maybe I’m looking for a meta-game that simply is more trouble than its worth.
Sorry, Sledge. You’re behind enemy lines and I don’t think I care to spring for an evac this time.
pockettactics.com