Fallen Haven (PC, 1997)
Graphics-6.5 Sound-7 Control-7 Challenge-6.5/8* Story-4
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-7/9* Fun-7/6* Originality-5
Overall Score-6.5
*Normal
+
Two races to play as (human or alien - pretty similar though, speed+range vs strength+armor however humans have stronger (and a bit more expensive) defensive turrets). The neutral human faction also has a different set of units
Difficulty options (easy-hard) and combat animation speed options
Besides energy and money management there's also research with some sliders that you can redistribute at will to focus on one or more things (energy efficiency, armor, action points, rate of fire/shot cost, rocketry for being more successful at using nukes, etc)
Nukes (used outside of combat)
Some provinces have an alternate objective (destroying a certain building or unit and/or rescuing some troops, not destroying non-turret buildings; same for both races)
Strategic map (similar to Dune 2 or DoW: Dark Crusade, can scan adjacent provinces (if you have a radar in yours) and view a zoomed out tactical map)
Can deploy anywhere that your dropship can fit on a battle map when attacking
Overwatch mechanic (X-COM, Final Liberation; however it reactive rather than pro-active here so you won't get the first shot when the enemies moves out of cover). Clicking the light or heavy overwatch icon also lets you move while saving enough action points for one overwatch move during the enemy's turn
Fairly satisfying and kind of cheesy sfx and death animations
Don't have to spend time clearing out guard towers if all enemy units are killed when attacking neutral areas (this does mean you can ignore even a pretty large amount of them and still win though). The enemy player will instead trigger a self-destruct timer making it so you have two more turns to destroy the turrets
In-game encyclopedia/bestiary (accessed from the main menu and not from in-game however)
Shuffle option for the OST and you can change tracks at will (C&C)
Get a full refund when recycling a building that's under construction
Get a money bonus for quickly ending the battle and/or using a small attack force in a neutral province
Hotkeys for various actions (heavy or light attack, next unit, put in drop ship, etc.). Can also hold ctrl to see an enemy's remaining HP
Provinces have different resource levels affecting the efficiency of corresponding buildings built there (these values are static)
+/-
New units are unlocked by conquering new provinces rather than through research
Basic SimCity/Warcraft-style base building in isometric view (buildings need to connect to roads, walls, power plants)
Some cheesy music
The SHOG hovering artillery and gunship designs are basically ripped from WH40K
Only two campaigns (one where you both start off with one province and one where the enemy has all neutral provinces conquered so it's quite a leap in difficulty)
Can't attack/drop further than one province away from yours - the computer can do it
Can't build dropships outside of your capital
No high ground or other terrain effects (no soft cover, no swamps or other terrain that is traversable but slows you down, etc)
No troop morale
No buff or debuff abilities
Can't attack more than one province in one turn
Missing is fairly common even at shorter ranges (at one point a unit missed three times in a row)
Can't expand past rivers
All units take the same amount of time to build
No stat gains for veteran units
None of the units can actually fly
Can't sacrifice more AP for more accuracy or damage (Jagged Alliance, Fallout)
No fog of war or unexplored terrain (black tiles) in the zoomed in/tactical view. Enemy provinces outside of your radar scanning range are shown as unknown
No nighttime combat nor any weather effects
Can only send 3 dropships (24 units) to attack while a defender can have 38+ units+turrets meaning they have the advantage unless you use multiple nukes
Human gunships are better than alien mega tanks (the aliens seem to have a bit of an advantage early-mid game instead)
-
Normal is much harder than Easy (enemy player has a big tech and resource advantage without conquering any provinces)
Some interface/control issues (can't alt+tab to desktop, zoomed out view on modern OS (GOG ver.), can't scroll diagonally with the keyboard, can't build more than one road tile at once and have to go into the build menu and re-select a building to build more of it after placing one, can't rotate the view and there's only one zoom level in isometric (province/combat) view, sometimes hard to tell what is attacking you because the camera centers on the attacker's target instead of between the two, some enemies blend into the background in the grey provinces (the map view helps though), no range grid letting you quickly see how far you can reach with the currently selected attack (does show a crosshair which disappears as you move the mouse out of range however), can't set waypoints for finished units - production buildings don't stand out enough and you can't quickly tell if there are finished units inside, can't deselect a unit by right clicking if hovering the mouse over a building, can't delete nor rename saves (doesn't show current date or number or provinces), can't see how much damage the enemy is doing to your unit during their turn, can't move a dropship around in the same territory outside of combat - have to send it elsewhere and then back, minor delay after each of your attacks during which control is lost, kinda inefficient build menus, can't cancel a move, no KB shortcuts for saving and loading)
Sometimes lacking enemy AI (can lure their artillery, not too sharp with how it places drop ships when attacking your provinces, can lure their artillery to hit their own units by running yours up next to them)
The enemy AI tends to use a scorched earth strategy when attacking your provinces (pointless for it since you take over buildings not destroyed+slows the game down)
Kinda bland aesthetics (bland Windows 95/98-style main menu and the menus in general look kinda bland, lack of lighting effects, boring hue shifts)
Units are a bit too samey in terms of abilities and function (besides artillery (volley shot and splash damage, basic soldiers also have volley shots as a weak attack) and hover vehicles they just have a heavy and light attack with the former being shorter range, no medics or repair units, no stealth units, can't send a scouting unit to see exactly what defenses a neutral or enemy province holds (radar does let you view a province's map when sending nukes but not zoom into tactical view until when the nuke drops and you watch the result+you don't get to scroll around at this point), no trap laying units and you can't build and place traps at your provinces)
Some trial & error (not being able to tell where the enemy player will attack so you can prepare defenses where relevant instead of spreading them out or only defending the most important provinces, have to destroy your drop ship if there's no room to land, can only build ten resource producing buildings of each kind per province, your turrets take one additional turn to convert after taking a province so if the enemy attacks right afterwards they'll be under construction, units auto-repair after battle while dropships don't, can't move through building rubble even with a hover unit)
Can't repair units during battle
Basically no story progression during the campaign itself and the story itself is kinda lame
Can't clear or manipulate obstacles (trees, mountains, rivers) from your provinces
No diplomacy with the neutral provinces
No landing animation for dropships
No multiplayer
The game makes no distinction between being in or outside of combat when it comes to picking the OST tracks
Rebuilding after a nuke can get tedious as the game doesn't tell you which buildings and units were destroyed, only the total numbers
Pretty lame ending and no staff roll
Rocketry takes too long to research early on (on Normal? actually building the silo is pretty cheap and fast)
Notes:
-Need to have higher rocketry than the enemy to have a good chance at stopping their nukes or your own hitting their target - if even it's a 50% chance,
Bugs:
-Combat animations can suddenly become rather slow (eagle nest map - or is the tanks causing some slowdown?). Can circumvent this by increasing the shot animation speed to fastest though
-Can temporarily freeze if you click the mouse several times during an enemy turn
-Minor graphical glitches
-At one point the map view for selecting where to nuke would be skipped over because I was clicking before it showed up
-The "units inside buildings" display on the strategic map sometimes won't update
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-7/9* Fun-7/6* Originality-5
Overall Score-6.5
*Normal
+
Two races to play as (human or alien - pretty similar though, speed+range vs strength+armor however humans have stronger (and a bit more expensive) defensive turrets). The neutral human faction also has a different set of units
Difficulty options (easy-hard) and combat animation speed options
Besides energy and money management there's also research with some sliders that you can redistribute at will to focus on one or more things (energy efficiency, armor, action points, rate of fire/shot cost, rocketry for being more successful at using nukes, etc)
Nukes (used outside of combat)
Some provinces have an alternate objective (destroying a certain building or unit and/or rescuing some troops, not destroying non-turret buildings; same for both races)
Strategic map (similar to Dune 2 or DoW: Dark Crusade, can scan adjacent provinces (if you have a radar in yours) and view a zoomed out tactical map)
Can deploy anywhere that your dropship can fit on a battle map when attacking
Overwatch mechanic (X-COM, Final Liberation; however it reactive rather than pro-active here so you won't get the first shot when the enemies moves out of cover). Clicking the light or heavy overwatch icon also lets you move while saving enough action points for one overwatch move during the enemy's turn
Fairly satisfying and kind of cheesy sfx and death animations
Don't have to spend time clearing out guard towers if all enemy units are killed when attacking neutral areas (this does mean you can ignore even a pretty large amount of them and still win though). The enemy player will instead trigger a self-destruct timer making it so you have two more turns to destroy the turrets
In-game encyclopedia/bestiary (accessed from the main menu and not from in-game however)
Shuffle option for the OST and you can change tracks at will (C&C)
Get a full refund when recycling a building that's under construction
Get a money bonus for quickly ending the battle and/or using a small attack force in a neutral province
Hotkeys for various actions (heavy or light attack, next unit, put in drop ship, etc.). Can also hold ctrl to see an enemy's remaining HP
Provinces have different resource levels affecting the efficiency of corresponding buildings built there (these values are static)
+/-
New units are unlocked by conquering new provinces rather than through research
Basic SimCity/Warcraft-style base building in isometric view (buildings need to connect to roads, walls, power plants)
Some cheesy music
The SHOG hovering artillery and gunship designs are basically ripped from WH40K
Only two campaigns (one where you both start off with one province and one where the enemy has all neutral provinces conquered so it's quite a leap in difficulty)
Can't attack/drop further than one province away from yours - the computer can do it
Can't build dropships outside of your capital
No high ground or other terrain effects (no soft cover, no swamps or other terrain that is traversable but slows you down, etc)
No troop morale
No buff or debuff abilities
Can't attack more than one province in one turn
Missing is fairly common even at shorter ranges (at one point a unit missed three times in a row)
Can't expand past rivers
All units take the same amount of time to build
No stat gains for veteran units
None of the units can actually fly
Can't sacrifice more AP for more accuracy or damage (Jagged Alliance, Fallout)
No fog of war or unexplored terrain (black tiles) in the zoomed in/tactical view. Enemy provinces outside of your radar scanning range are shown as unknown
No nighttime combat nor any weather effects
Can only send 3 dropships (24 units) to attack while a defender can have 38+ units+turrets meaning they have the advantage unless you use multiple nukes
Human gunships are better than alien mega tanks (the aliens seem to have a bit of an advantage early-mid game instead)
-
Normal is much harder than Easy (enemy player has a big tech and resource advantage without conquering any provinces)
Some interface/control issues (can't alt+tab to desktop, zoomed out view on modern OS (GOG ver.), can't scroll diagonally with the keyboard, can't build more than one road tile at once and have to go into the build menu and re-select a building to build more of it after placing one, can't rotate the view and there's only one zoom level in isometric (province/combat) view, sometimes hard to tell what is attacking you because the camera centers on the attacker's target instead of between the two, some enemies blend into the background in the grey provinces (the map view helps though), no range grid letting you quickly see how far you can reach with the currently selected attack (does show a crosshair which disappears as you move the mouse out of range however), can't set waypoints for finished units - production buildings don't stand out enough and you can't quickly tell if there are finished units inside, can't deselect a unit by right clicking if hovering the mouse over a building, can't delete nor rename saves (doesn't show current date or number or provinces), can't see how much damage the enemy is doing to your unit during their turn, can't move a dropship around in the same territory outside of combat - have to send it elsewhere and then back, minor delay after each of your attacks during which control is lost, kinda inefficient build menus, can't cancel a move, no KB shortcuts for saving and loading)
Sometimes lacking enemy AI (can lure their artillery, not too sharp with how it places drop ships when attacking your provinces, can lure their artillery to hit their own units by running yours up next to them)
The enemy AI tends to use a scorched earth strategy when attacking your provinces (pointless for it since you take over buildings not destroyed+slows the game down)
Kinda bland aesthetics (bland Windows 95/98-style main menu and the menus in general look kinda bland, lack of lighting effects, boring hue shifts)
Units are a bit too samey in terms of abilities and function (besides artillery (volley shot and splash damage, basic soldiers also have volley shots as a weak attack) and hover vehicles they just have a heavy and light attack with the former being shorter range, no medics or repair units, no stealth units, can't send a scouting unit to see exactly what defenses a neutral or enemy province holds (radar does let you view a province's map when sending nukes but not zoom into tactical view until when the nuke drops and you watch the result+you don't get to scroll around at this point), no trap laying units and you can't build and place traps at your provinces)
Some trial & error (not being able to tell where the enemy player will attack so you can prepare defenses where relevant instead of spreading them out or only defending the most important provinces, have to destroy your drop ship if there's no room to land, can only build ten resource producing buildings of each kind per province, your turrets take one additional turn to convert after taking a province so if the enemy attacks right afterwards they'll be under construction, units auto-repair after battle while dropships don't, can't move through building rubble even with a hover unit)
Can't repair units during battle
Basically no story progression during the campaign itself and the story itself is kinda lame
Can't clear or manipulate obstacles (trees, mountains, rivers) from your provinces
No diplomacy with the neutral provinces
No landing animation for dropships
No multiplayer
The game makes no distinction between being in or outside of combat when it comes to picking the OST tracks
Rebuilding after a nuke can get tedious as the game doesn't tell you which buildings and units were destroyed, only the total numbers
Pretty lame ending and no staff roll
Rocketry takes too long to research early on (on Normal? actually building the silo is pretty cheap and fast)
Notes:
-Need to have higher rocketry than the enemy to have a good chance at stopping their nukes or your own hitting their target - if even it's a 50% chance,
Bugs:
-Combat animations can suddenly become rather slow (eagle nest map - or is the tanks causing some slowdown?). Can circumvent this by increasing the shot animation speed to fastest though
-Can temporarily freeze if you click the mouse several times during an enemy turn
-Minor graphical glitches
-At one point the map view for selecting where to nuke would be skipped over because I was clicking before it showed up
-The "units inside buildings" display on the strategic map sometimes won't update