14 DAY TRIAL // 
Artillery fire goes first, taking out two grenadiers that the AI previously used to decimate my grunts, then the flame tanks clear a patch and finally my sniper takes out a lost opponent before my entire army moves forward a little, getting closer to the enemy base that it needs to take out.
Great Big War Game is not a title focused on narrative and the structure of the game does not require too much explanation about the armies or why they are fighting.
The short cutscenes between the missions do try to deliver some tidbits of info and some clever and fun lines, but most of the time they can be safely skipped by the player.
The writing is not solid enough and the limited resources that went into their creation would have been better spent on gameplay.
Great Big War Game is a turn-based strategy title viewed from a top-down perspective which uses familiar military themes and asks gamers to carefully mix-and-match units in order to achieve objectives for 50 full single-player missions.
Gamers have access to a number of units, each with a clear role on the battlefield, and need to move them around the level carefully, taking into account enemy capabilities and their objectives, in order to minimize losses and reach their goals.
Each unit can move, shoot and then move again, which means that it is important to try and evaluate the range of enemy defensive fire coverage and make sure that a limited number of units are exposed to potential attack when the enemy’s turn arrives.
Each unit, unless killed outright, also reacts when it is attacked, but with diminished force, which means that first strikes are required to take out the most powerful enemy units.
The fact that soon after the campaign starts land, air and naval assets are offered means that gamers have plenty of tools to use to take out enemy hardware and reach their objectives.
But the nature of the levels and maps also means that, in many ways, Great Big War Game is more about puzzle solving than about strategic use of units.
There are moments when the title really wants gamers to do one thing and failure to notice the exact tool for the job can make the mission harder to finish than it should be.
“Initially, Great Big War Game is very enjoyable from a gameplay point of view and there’s a lot of pleasure to be derived from the moment when an enemy defensive formation finally breaks under carefully applied pressure.”
But as the campaign progresses, the maps become a little similar, and once all units are in, the game has no new ideas to introduce in order to impress the player.
For fans of puzzle and strategy mixes, Great Big War Game can offer lots of hours of fun, but they need to be sure that they love the concept that Advance Wars from Nintendo pioneered.
The title also offers online and pass and play modes.
Great Big War Game is one of the titles that subscribes to the idea that gameplay is more important than looks, but the quality of its graphics is low enough that in the long term even those who appreciate the core mechanics might abandon it.
Basically, the game looks like a mobile title that had very limited resources to work with, with units that are sometimes hard to distinguish from one another, a small variety when it comes to terrain, and between-missions animated sequences that are best skipped.
The game uses a top-down view, which is a good idea when it comes to the tactics because it allows players to plan in advance and then carefully execute moves to take out enemies and win battles.
But this also means that it’s hard to create an interesting world and that players sometimes have to squint to see the small symbols which show which unit is ready to be activated.
The graphics situation makes sense when one finds out that Great Big War Game started life on mobiles, but moving it to the PC was a great occasion to implement some upgrades, which the development team has missed.
The sound design is decent but cannot improve the presentation problems.
The Good
- Core strategy mechanics
- Gradual evolution of units
The Bad
- Almost no story
- Limited graphics
Conclusion
But these positive strategic surprises do not entirely make up for the poor writing of the game or for the bad graphics of the experience, which will constantly conspire to diminish the enjoyment extracted from the title.
Great Big War Game could have been a much better turn-based strategy experience with a little more investment, but as it stands, only core Advance Wars fans who have run out of other things to play should get it.
