Review: RAD Soldiers

System

Review: RAD Soldiers

These warriors are totes tubular, brah, but are they mad awesome to the max?

Read the full story here

MazerRackham

My expectations for this game were pretty low and it met them. This review hits it right on the nose - it's just a boring game.

TheDukester

Just like the rumor mill had it, then: all visuals, no gameplay. And a grind-fest to boot? El Paso, baby.

bigtmac68

I have to say I disagree a little bit.

Although in the early stages with not many options for troops and weapons it is pretty doll once you get to a reasonable amount of options the depth of strategies pretty solid

I've had very very strong multiplayer games going with several opponents where it was all tactics and strategy that made the difference

Between the large variety of maps each With multiple optimum attack paths. The combinations of four troop classes and three size classes within each troop class plus all the different weapons options including Merle, as well as concealment and AOE, weapons there's a lot to be had here if you delve yourself into it.

I'm playing this as much as I played hero Academy or outwitters But honestly I'm enjoying rad soldiers more than either.

It's no Battle of the Bulge, but it is a hell of a lot of fun!

WarHORSE

I don't normally post but felt strongly enough to chime in and back up bigtmac68, I too am really enjoying rad soldiers over outwitters and hero academy (which I played a lot).

Multiplayer for me is really where it comes into it's own, the diversity of the classes are quite big and there's massive tactics to when you use their special abilities that can help turn the tide of a tough match. I'm still discovering new tactics from the different players I'm matched against, my current favourite is getting in close with a cloaked melee agent or two.
I like how the squad points system balances the power of units you can bring into the game, which does stop those that pay having an advantage, but then you can still buy everything you need with coins.

On the summary points of Sean's review just wanted to counter with:
"No line of sight" - this exists in terms of cover impeding weapons fire depending on the type. As for units disappearing behind full cover, yep you are right that doesn't happen but wouldn't work for the reasons of the next point...

"No Fog of war" - you can't reliably have this in a multiplayer match as it would mean the other player could just cheat by moving his units to their AP extents, discover my units, undo their actions and then move again with new positional knowledge. So at this point I've lost any advantage to having the position of my units unknown, what I do like however is how this same mechanic is replicated (and works) with the agent cloak ability.

The one thing I do really miss right now is any kind of win loss ratio to be able to know how well I'm doing in multiplayer, but in the same way hero academy improved on subsequent updates, I think rad soldiers will be the same!

Owen

I think those are two very interesting defenses of the game. I admit, I handed the review off to Sean because I felt like I couldn't be impartial after having played the beta so much over the summer - but I almost entirely agreed with his points. I should give the game another go.

graveldust

Another long time lurker first time poster. Been thoroughly enjoying this game over the holidays so thought I chip in with a defense like the chaps above me.

Cost
Can't see too much of an issue with this. As mentioned, you get given 3 soldiers at the start and if you work through the challenges and play multiple games, you will soon have enough in game currency for another. Really that's all you need.

Personally I dropped 3 english pounds (standard IOS game price?) on the game, which got me all the soldiers and weapons I wanted. You'll only get fleeced if you want matching ninja outfits for your soldiers, which has no effect on the gameplay whatsoever.

Gameplay
The more I play this against good people, the more interesting situations I get into, where the isolate and kill tactic mentioned by the reviewer just wont cut it.

A recent example being use of mobile cover robots. I initially dismissed this abilitiy entirely, until people began using it offensively and sending it amongst my troops. This means that my line of sight/movement is blocked and I have to waste a turn taking it out, or use half my action points moving to a new spot. Judicious use of this has annoyingly turned the tide against me in a tight match a couple of times now.

This combined with choice of formation (close enough to heal? far enough to avoid airstrikes hitting multiple targets?), placement of fixed gun turrets, explosives, cloaked soldiers, timing of airstrike/heal abilites etc. means there is room for some depth against a good player.

Not to mention that more and more people now seem to be setting up a strong defensive position and looking to win by holding the rocket area for 5 turns rather than kill everyone.

devensega

I went back to this after playing on a friends pad and dismissing it. Having spent more time with it I'm fairly sure the reviewer nailed it, at least for the first few hours of the game. Tactical choices are limited and the cover mechanic seems poorly done.

The game is starting to open up now but I dont know how many seasoned TBS players will get through the limitations at the start of the game. This game will live or die on its multiplayer, and like freemium titles before it too many games are never finished or left hanging for days. I will try playing against friends on here (devensega on RAD soldiers too) to see if I can actually finish an MP game to proper evaluate it.

Some things I would like to see are more soldiers but less hit points per soldier to open up some tactical play. With the current number of soldiers on a map there is little point to flanking and when you do (invisible sniper is good for this) the effect is not decisive or deadly enough. Also, I miss a proper overwatch, soldiers with unused points only use them to return fire. It would be nice to use it to ambush as in other TBS games, or would this break the mechanic? I don't know.

There is a good game here, it may be I am not playing it properly and have some learning to do.

Glidias

If they took out the Undo system,, they could add in features like over-watch, opportunity fire and fog of war (and hopefully the fog-of-war shader could work well on mobile, though). However, these features might detract from it's (apparent?) philosophy of having a much more forgiving, predictable, controllable turn-based game. From a programmer's perspective, coding RAD sodliers is MUCH easier than coding X-Com:Enemy unknown. After all, I do like how they mark squares with crosshairs to indicate the best spots for shooting. It's not meant to be compared to the X-Com series (where the unknown and luck factor comes into play), even though I did wish they could have another game like X-Com:Enemy unknown on mobile with asynchronous multiplayer would be far more exciting. In RAD sodliers, I also liked how they have to take center objective to prevent camping. I do admit RAD Soldier is rather predictable, but the depth of the game does increase a bit once you've got more men/stuff. Maybe in the future RAD Sodliers could have another version with more "surprise/unknown/luck" factor like in the X-Com series.

Glidias

I think cover issues are okay in this game and handled pretty well. After all, the run out of cover to shoot mechanic is alright since the game isn't realistic (but cartoony TF2-style) to begin with. Part of the strategy is to make sure running out to shoot uses some energy, so you need enough energy to run back to cover as well. Of course, with the undo system, you don't need to do the arithmetic beforehand, which makes it easier for the player to find the "best possible" turn. The ability to shoot immediately from half or lower cover is an advantage compared to full-cover which would require more energy, and all that could be meant to keep things balanced. Albeit, the overall effect of cover doesn't totally affect much beyond the difference in the amount of damage sustained (which could be tweaked if required), it's approach does make things controllable/predictable on the player side.