Combat Mission: Touch (iOS) Review

I feel like I make comparisons to classic strategy games a lot. Lately in reviews, conversation and plain old open ended rants, dearly missed titles like Age of Empires and Command and Conquer keep inserting themselves. Why? Because the gaming landscape doesn’t often see releases that stand up to that legacy! Don’t get me wrong, I’m a run and gunner FPS player every day of the week. There’s nothing better than popping in Reach or the latest CoD and just unloading on unsuspecting players. But I remember the time I spent in front of a computer, building up armies and fortified villages, plotting my imminent takeover of the continent. This upcoming generation of gamers doesn’t have an appreciation for those times and Combat Mission: Touch does nothing to change that.

Combat Mission Soldiers

Combat Mission Soldiers

Sometimes I worry that as a console gamer first and foremost I set the bar too high for my iOS reviews; then I remember there are other fantastic titles that meet my requirements and the guilt vanishes.

“Available exclusively for the iPad 2, The New iPad, iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4th Generation – the only mobile devices that are powerful enough to fully immerse you in the dramatic battles of World War II,” said the description of the game in the App Store. “Dramatic” and anything to do with immersion are not the descriptors I would use when speaking about this title. Brought to you by Battlefront.com, the game aims to be a turn based strategy game reenacting battles during and after Normandy. Needless to say, if our troops had been this stupid we might not have won the war, if there would have been a war at all.

Combat Mission Orders

Combat Mission Orders

Each game involves picking a battle from a set list. There is no story or campaign to complete other than that which happened in the individual battle you choose. After an extended loading time, players are presented with a battlefield. They then place their units, which is where the fun begins. Even after studying the tutorial closely, manipulating one’s view of the field is akin to adjusting the temperature knob in the shower: One slight adjustment and YOU’RE BURNING! Once you’ve given up on having a view, it’s time to actually put your troops into position where you’d like them to be at the start of battle. Fingers thicker than the eraser end of a pencil will struggle here; don’t even bother with your thumbs.

Combat Mission Overview

Combat Mission Overview

If you manage to get your troops placed and can still semi-see what is going on, you just won the game. Okay, that was a lie; the game actually just started. Now it’s time to give orders to your men. It was intended that the flesh of the game would be in commanding your troops like the esteemed General you are and capturing victory. A warning: Even if you can get your little guys close, getting a line of sight even in an empty field if a struggle and your enemies overpower you multiple times over meaning you are mowed down rather quickly.

After you give your orders it’s time to wait for them to be processed. Be prepared to wait 2+ minutes with no music; the only sound you’ll hear in the game is stock gunfire.

Combat Mission: Touch gets an E for effort. Few developers have the balls to attempt something like this for a platform like iOS and for a good reason: It just doesn’t transfer well.

Overall Ratings – Combat Mission: Touch (iOS)

Gameplay:

3/10

Graphics:

6/10

Sound:

4/10

Addictiveness:

2/10

Controls:

4/10

OVERALL SCORE:

38%

 

 

Miranda L Visser

Miranda L Visser

Gaming since she dug a SNES out of a dumpster down the street from her home as a child, Miranda L Visser contributes to Gaming Illustrated while working on her Masters of Arts in Literacy Studies in Stavanger, Norway, after graduating from WKU with a B.A. in Journalism in Spring 2012.
Miranda L Visser

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