Developer: Deqaf Studio
Publisher: Deqaf Studio, Maple Whispering Limited
Platform: Switch, PC, Mac
Tested on: Switch
Make War – Review
Everybody on the planet has probably considered what they would do should they ever get their hands on a time machine. With the entire past and future at your disposal, the havoc you can wreak would be immeasurable, but in Make War, this power is wielded solely by aliens. Aliens who like to meddle in human battlefields and get their hands dirty, that is. It’s time to change the course of mankind’s greatest wars by adding laser guns and portals to the mix.
Story
While there is a vague story to this game, it hardly has the spotlight. Some dialogue ties together the levels (in broken English due to bad translation work), but the gameplay remains the main focal point. What we do know is that an unnamed species of aliens got their hands on superior technology allowing them to travel through time to various points in human history. Being incredibly bored already, the aliens decide to use this power to warp into a bunch of different important battles across human history and add their own units to the mix, ending up with hilarious and chaotic results. Deeper motivations are not present, but who needs that when there is bloody mayhem to be had instead?
Graphics
The art style of Make War is pretty fun, with retro pixel graphics that, with their voxel style, remind us of classics like Minecraft. There is enough variation between the many time periods and places you visit to keep things interesting, and the different troops also have distinct styles that make them easy to recognize. Your personal arsenal of soldiers and weapons is color-coded for your convenience as well, making it a bit easier to navigate the toolbar, especially in later levels.
Sound
Make War has a decent soundtrack that generally fits the rest of the game. Cool Rock music backs up every bloody battle you engage in and the sound-effects of people being diced and minced on all sides is an ever-present factor. Because you’re playing as an alien race, you also get a lot of Sci-Fi sounds that can be quite comical when combined with Vikings or medieval warriors.
Gameplay
Make War is a strategic simulation game that allows you to travel to different points of human history and take part in some of the most decisive battles raged, in unconnected time periods, from the distant past to the cyberpunk future. As an advanced alien race you descend on Earth, with each level being a particular battle. It is up to you to put your own alien troops and technology on the battlefield and see how that plays out, having the ability to restart at any moment. Every level has a bunch of different goals to strive for, ranging from very easy to harder ones, where unlocking each one will grant you more units and technology to play around with. Everything from mines to turrets is at your fingertips.
You won’t achieve victory by just placing your assets willy nilly however. Being almost more like a strategic puzzle game than anything else, Make War challenges you by not being as easy as it looks at first glance. It’s better to focus on the smaller goals first – things like killing a certain amount of humans – and slowly build your way up to the bigger ones by unlocking more things. Placing units on the battlefield is easy, just select them and drop them wherever you want them. There is also a shortcut to deleting everything you placed in one go. Once you’re ready, you can simply press the play button and see the mayhem unfold, with the option to stop and start over whenever you want, saving you some time in case it’s clear your current layout won’t work.
In essence, the unique premise and fun gameplay would make this game ideal, even for beginners, but it has to be pointed out the Switch version runs into some problems. As a port, the controls have not been optimized at all and tend to be too fidgety. Using the joystick to select units is nearly impossible and placing them exactly where you want them to go can take decades. For a game that is all about strategy, this is a bit of a letdown. Moving the camera around is also a lot harder than it has any right to be.
Conclusion
Make War is a bit too rough around the edges to hold up solidly. Bad translation errors lead to incomprehensible dialogues and controls that will drive you up the wall keep this game from reaching its full potential, though what lies beneath is still enjoyable in itself and the concept is something we haven’t seen before. This one will probably do better on PC.
Make War - Review,
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