Genre Examination: Real-Time Strategy

In the first genre examination post, I discussed one of my favorite genres, turn-based small squad tactics games. In that post, I lamented how it is such a niche genre with only a handful of truly worthwhile (recent) entries. In this post, I will take a brief look at the more well-known cousin of TBSST, real-time strategy. Some well-known RTS franchises include Starcraft, Command & Conquer and Age of Empires.

Well memed, my friend. Picture taken from
<https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/8e/66/fb/8e66fbae5223ea2c26c7939cd7056048.jpg>

This post is quite different from the previous ones in this blog in that the prior posts have all dealt with games and genres that I particularly like, whereas I have never been particularly fond of RTS games. In fact, the only RTS game that I have really gotten into was Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, and that was primarily because I loved the world of Warcraft (pun intended). I have also played a fair amount of Total War: Shogun 2 and a bit of Starcraft: Broodwar, but other than that, my experience with the genre has been quite limited. So, while I am by no means an expert on the subject of RTS, I think it is still interesting to look at how the genre has evolved over the years, and arguably somewhat faded into obscurity nowadays.

I was a scummy Night-Elf player. It is known that the Demon Hunter is the hero of choice for maximum edgelord potential.
Picture taken from
<http://krakou57.free.fr/War3/Models/Units/NightElf/HeroDemonHunter/HeroDemonHunter.jpg>

Historically, RTS has been one of the cornerstone genres for video games, with plenty of successful franchises. More recently, however, the genre has been in a somewhat of a slump, with few truly noteworthy titles being released in the last few years (the most notable arguably being Starcraft 2). Overall, it seems like the AAA game industry has largely moved away from the RTS genre, although fortunately series like Total War still remain fairly popular (even if Total War is not a pure RTS game). Generally, however, people looking to get their RTS fix should probably look towards the indie side of the game industry.

The Total War series offers battles of epic proportions. Picture is from Total War: Shogun 2.

The Early Days

It is interesting to consider why RTS turned from one of the most popular genres into its current, almost niche state. I assume that one of the main reasons RTS originally established itself as a prominent genre was due to simple technical limitations of the 80s and early 90s: the hardware available could not yet handle 3D graphics, which naturally severely limited the types of games that could be made. Consequently, side scrolling 2D action platformers were probably the "standard" game type during those times. Other prominent genres included (J)RPGs, point-and-click adventure games and, of course, RTS games. A clear benefit of RTS games is that they work well with simple top-down 2D presentation, thus making them relatively easy on the CPU. An additional benefit of the genre is that with proper UI design, they can be played largely with a mouse, simplifying the control scheme (although using keyboard shortcuts is obviously much preferred).

An orc base in Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Picture taken from <http://us.blizzard.com/static/_images/games/legacy/wc4.jpg>

As the processing power available on PCs and consoles increased, we saw the advent of 3D gaming, which, I would argue, is the single most groundbreaking development in the history of video games. 3D graphics enabled developers to device completely new types of games, as can be witnessed today. While the switch from 2D to 3D revolutionized the industry, it should be noted that RTS games were left fundamentally unchanged; sure, they look nicer with 3D models and environments, but the core gameplay has remained largely intact (although there have been some developments, which are discussed a bit later). Although I think it was necessary to touch upon the technical aspects that played an important part in the history of RTS as a genre, that is not what I want to focus on here. Instead, I want to try and look at what kind of an experience the genre offers, and what makes it distinct from other genres.

What Makes Them Tick?

I suppose I'll start the analysis of RTS games from the letter S, for strategy. As the name of the genre implies, RTS games are ultimately about collecting resources, building armies and beating your enemies' armies in a strategic manner. That is to say, players should have some type of a strategy that they want to execute going into the game, but they should also be capable of adapting to what their opponents are doing.

This is at the core of an RTS experience. Picture taken from
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Waterloo_Campaign_map-alt3.svg>

Due to the strategical nature of the genre, there tends to be a deep pool of knowledge required to play and enjoy RTS games. One needs to understand the different types of units, buildings, build orders, tech trees, unit compositions, general strategies and also be able to react to what the enemy is doing. The vast amount of initial familiarization required makes RTS one of the most difficult genres to get into for novices. If you compare RTS to FPS, for instance, the difference is like night and day: in FPS games, a new player does not really need to understand a whole lot to be able to enjoy the game on at least some level - you have a gun, you point the gun at stuff and shoot. That's it. RTS games, on the other hand, only really become enjoyable once a certain skill and knowledge threshold has been reached, and the player can start to focus on what to do as opposed to how to do it. Of course the upside of all the complexity is that there is a great deal of depth in RTS games, but uncovering that requires one to stick through the often awkward learning phase.

It's dangerous to go alone! Take this. Picture taken from <http://pichost.me/1303432/>

Moving on to the letters R and T, although I generally like strategy games, I am not particularly fond of real-time strategy. This is because in RTS games, the pace of the game is generally high throughout the game, and there is very little chance to pause and really ponder through your options. Furthermore, a basic tenant of the genre is that multitasking is absolutely essential, and players typically have to juggle their attention between micromanaging their army, base building, strategizing and keeping an eye on what their enemy is doing. I find the constant time pressure to be rather stressful, especially when initially learning the game. Naturally, the upside of the time pressure is that even if there is a lull in the fighting, there is still always lots of things to do and decisions to make, and the games typically do not last very long.

This is pretty much how playing RTS games feels like. Picture taken from <http://mercercognitivepsychology.pbworks.com/f/1385057522/Multitasking.jpg>

When the above considerations are taken into account, RTS games demand quite a lot from their players: one has to both understand all the different components that there are in the game (such as units and buildings) and be able to keep up with the often frantic pace of the matches. They are certainly not pick-up-and-play types of games, but rather games that reward dedication and skill. This makes them good competitive titles, but not necessarily very appealing for the more casual players.

A casual after a ladder game of [enter your favorite RTS title here]. Picture taken from
<https://media3.giphy.com/media/HJTBvT7cTQqFq/200_s.gif>

Developments in the Genre

Now that I have briefly discussed what I think the key aspects of RTS as a genre are, I will move on to point out a few ways in which the genre has evolved over the years. The first trend that has emerged is the emphasis of  micromanagement over macromanagement (micro refers primarily to controlling your units in battle, whereas macro refers to higher-level strategical decisions, base building and economy management), such as with the newer Dawn of War games. In fact, it has become quite common for newer RTS games to abandon the base building aspects altogether and limit resource gathering to capturing control points on maps, as opposed to the traditional system of mining minerals with dedicated workers. In a sense, it could be argued that the genre has shifted its focus more towards action rather than strategy, with commanding your troops in battle becoming the primary (or even sole) focus of the games.

The second trend concerns how the units are handled. Whereas traditionally, one would produce and control single units individually, it has nowadays become more prevalent to replace single units with small squads of a particular unit type. For example in Company of Heroes, there are basic rifle squads and mortar teams that have multiple men, but which function as a single unit. I think this has been a great change, because it reduces some of the tedious micromanagement of controlling every single unit independently, plus it also makes more sense from a real-life military perspective.

A rifle squad in Company of Heroes. Picture taken from
<http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/186195-company-of-heroes-windows-screenshot-a-squad-of-riflemen-on.jpg>

The third trend is featuring an experience system and customization options for units, thus providing an incentive to keep you troops alive. The basic gist is that as the units get more battle experience, they also grow stronger and often also learn new abilities. Sometimes there are also particularly powerful hero units that can have a major influence on how the battles play out. This is quite different from the more old-school approach of having all units be equal, which reduced particularly the lower-tier units into simple cannon fodder.

The Impact of The RTS Genre

Although RTS as a genre has seen a clear decline in popularity throughout the years, it has, nonetheless, had a major impact on the game industry as a whole. Perhaps most notably, RTS has been responsible in spawning whole new game genres. The new genres may have been born as custom maps for Warcraft III or Starcraft, but eventually outgrew those platforms and established themselves as independent genres. One example is the Tower Defence genre, which is still mildly popular, particularly in the more casual games, such as Plants versus Zombies and Orcs Must Die.

Personally, I never understood the attraction. Picture taken from
<http://www.loopinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/tower_defense.jpg>

By far the most notable genre to have spawned from RTS is, of course, MOBA, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. I suppose it should be noted that the name of the genre is still a matter of some debate, and there are a variety of alphabet soup acronyms more or less commonly used, such as ARTS (Action Real-Time Strategy). In any case, MOBAs truly have taken the (competitive) gaming world by storm, quickly becoming the hottest genre together with Modern Military Shooters and "wacky" simulator parody games, such as Goat Simulator and I am Bread. I may later write some of my thoughts on why exactly MOBAs have become so immensely popular, despite the fact that the genre suffers from some pretty serious problems. To name a couple, MOBAs are infamous for having a very steep learning curve in terms of all the knowledge a new player has to acquire before being able to really enjoy the game (much more so than RTS games). What is more, MOBAs tend to have a poor gameplay ratio of "intense action going on, butter clench my buttcheeks real tight" and "just farming on my lane, I sure hope something exciting happens soon". Those issues, however, are a subject for another time.

Review: Sleeping Dogs

As promised, this post will be about a sleeper hit (get it?) from 2012, Sleeping Dogs. Contrary to the texts I've written previously, this time around, I'll go ahead and try my hand at writing a straightforward review.

The Premise

Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure game (a "GTA clone", in other words) set in the context of a Hong Kong martial arts film with a dash of Assassin’s Creed added in for flavor. Still, stating that Sleeping Dogs is merely a GTA clone is doing it a disservice, since it is a thoroughly enjoyable and, in some regards, even an original take on the genre.

Hong Kong has left-hand traffic, which takes some getting used to

The game places the player in the shoes of Wei Shen, an undercover cop infiltrating the world of Triads. As Wei Shen, the player will go through a fairly run-of-the-mill undercover cop story, whose main driving theme is Wei Shen’s struggle to figure out where his loyalties lie – with the police or with his newfound brothers-in-crime. The gameplay revolves around roaming the streets of various districts of Hong Kong either on foot or on wheels (or boats), conducting missions for the police and the Triads and getting into cool kung fu fueled fistfights. In addition, as one would expect from an open-world game, there is a plethora of side activities to get distracted by. Some of these include singing karaoke, betting on cock fights (har har), fighting in martial arts arenas, pimping out Wei in your choice of clothing and hunting for the numerous hidden collectibles that are scattered around the city.

There are plenty of chase sequences where you get to utilize Wei's
freerunning skills, borrowed from the Assassin's Creed games

There are some gadget-based minigames where you have to open locks or hack security systems, for example.

The Good

To start off with the positives, the two most notable strengths of Sleeping Dogs are its original and cool setting in Hong Kong and its brilliant hand-to-hand combat system. First, Hong Kong, as portrayed in the game, looks really good. Everything you see is vibrant and colorful, and there are plenty of different types of locales to explore. Hong Kong is also a very fresh setting, which makes it much more interesting to explore than, say, a fictional city in the US. The setting is also brilliantly used in the game’s audio department, which is another of the game's strengths. The characters switch fluidly between English and Cantonese in their dialogue, and the game’s radio stations play a curious mix of Western and Eastern music.

Lights, so many lights everywhere!

Secondly, there is the hand-to-hand combat system, which was marketed as one of the game’s main selling points. It is basically the combat system from Batman: Arkham Asylum, but expanded to also include some light grappling elements. There are three different types of enemies in the game: regular thugs, brawlers and wrestlers. The brawlers block strikes but are susceptible to grappling moves, and vice versa with the wrestlers. The different enemy types, as well as armed enemies, bring some welcome variety into the combat. The real highlight of the combat is, however, the glorious environmental takedowns.

A big part of the combat is fishing for counterattacks and following
them up with a flurry of strikes, à la Assassin's Creed

The environmental takedowns are performed by grapping an enemy and dragging him to a pre-determined background object, such as a telephone booth or an electric eel tank, and then pressing a button to execute an instant kill move with occasionally a rather visceral death animation. I found that there is enough variety in the environmental takedowns to keep them satisfying throughout the game. Overall, the combat system is reasonably simple, but has enough depth in it to make melee combat fun and satisfying throughout the length of the story.

Tyrannosaurus Rekt

In addition to the above mentioned setting and combat, I would count the story of Sleeping Dogs as a positive as well. The story is essentially about Wei's conflicting loyalties between being a cop and the his relationship with his Tried buddies; nothing groundbreaking, in other words. Still, I found that the story works quite well in the context of the game. It was simple and straightforward enough to not overpower and distract from the freeform nature of the game, and yet compelling enough to provide the player with a constant drive to progress in the game to see what happens next.

Working your way up in the food chain

The Bad

Although the game is fun, it also has some kinks that would've required further development time to iron out. As it is, the core gameplay is fine, but some of the side activities are clearly undercooked. A prime example of this is the dating mini game, where Wei Shen has the opportunity to take a number of women out on dates. In reality, these dates do not amount to very much (although I do rank them above GTA IV’s infamous "let's go bowling!" in their fun factor), but hey – at least they got Emma Stone to voice one of the dateable women! Surely that counts for something, right?

Meet Emma St- I mean Amanda Cartwright

Another example of a gameplay element that could have used further consideration is the security camera hacking side missions. The idea is that you go to a location, beat up a bunch of thugs, hack a security camera and go back to your apartment to identify a drug dealer. While this is fun the first few times, the problem is that this routine is heavily overused, and thus becomes a tedious chore later on. Fortunately, many of the other types of gadget mini games, such as opening locked boxes, are used more sparingly, and thus remain fun.

You'll be doing this...

...and this a lot, if you're a completionist

Moving away from the gameplay and into the story aspects, I think that Wei Shen’s moral dilemmas about operating on both sides of the law is a subject that could have been addressed more. He is shown having nightmares about the things he experiences during the story, which quite effectively builds tension for the eventual resolution. Unfortunately, this tension never really pays of, which is definitely a missed opportunity. Additionally, the police side of the story is overall weaker than the more personal struggles Wei faces in the Triad circles. The story also seems to thematically clash with the gameplay in the sense that the gameplay is rather arcadey and fast paced, but the story is entirely serious and even turns quite dark towards the end.

Finally, there are some weird visual issues with the game that are perhaps worth mentioning. First, the entire game has about three different character models for non-plot related characters, which means that you will see identical characters ALL THE TIME when roaming around in the city. Secondly, while the game looks rather beautiful overall, it also has some jarringly horrible textures to be found in some places, such as store windows and the various food stands that are scattered across the city.

Delicious veggies...

Finally, the game also features firearms, although they come into play more towards the end game (which I think is a good choice). Unfortunately, the gunplay is nowhere near as fun or satisfying as the hand-to-hand combat. Rather, when the guns enter into the picture, the game turns into a very rudimentary cover-based shooter, which I found to be more limiting than it is empowering. When guns entered the picture, I went from fluidly taking on a dozen guys at once and hitting counterattacks left, right and center to hiding behind chest-high walls and playing whack-a-mole with the enemies heads. the focus of the combat system is clearly in the hand-to-hand combat, and that's without a question where the game excels in. Hell, the guns even look odd, like they're plastic toys rather than actual firearms.

I'd rather give them a good ol' knuckle sandwitch

The Verdict

So, in conclusion, the two main strengths of Sleeping Dogs are its fantastic Honk Kong setting and the fluid and fun hand-to-hand combat. Furthermore, although the story is hardly original, I would still count it as a strong suit for the game. The main weaknesses of the game are found in the underdeveloped side activities and the poor gunplay. Overall, I think Sleeping Dogs is a worthy entry into the genre and definitely worth picking up on a sale, if not at full price.

An Update: Still Alive

Contrary to what the post history of the last couple of months suggests, this blog is not dead yet; it's simply been... hibernating. I've been very busy with school work, as well as other stuff, which has left me with little free time. I've chosen not to use that time to write here, since it tends to take up a surprising amount of time. The good news is that my schedule has finally freed up a lot, and as such, I'm planning on reviving this blog.

The subject of my next post will be Sleeping Dogs; a thoroughly enjoyable, if undercooked open world action game from 2012. I expect the post to be published later this week.

I also have some other plans for topics to discuss in the near future. I've recently been playing quite a bit of Killing Floor and Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, so I'll probably dedicate posts to them as well at some point.

A Look at Door Kickers

The last couple of weeks have been pretty brutal in terms of workload for me, and I've had to postpone writing this piece for longer than I would have liked. As you can see, however, it is finally published. This blog entry is a little bit different from the previous ones in the sense that this time I will write about a game that I only very recently got into playing, whereas the previous posts have been about games I have spent a lot of time playing already in the past. In this post, I want to write about a very unique game: Killhouse Games' Door Kickers. Before moving on to discuss what the game is all about, however, I want to acknowledge and give my sincerest thanks to the folks over at Killhouse Games for being so generous as to donate the game for me to write about it. So, again, thanks to Dan Dimitrescu and co. over at Killhouse Games!

The Bigger Context of Door Kickers

In my previous post, I wrote about turn-based small squad tactics games and how they are a very underrepresented genre. I first got introduced to the genre with Silent Storm years and years ago. Since then, I've tried out many of the entries in the genre, and quite liked them for the most part. Still, there was always something missing from the genre up until Door Kickers came along. That something is focusing on SWAT-themed urban combat. Now, granted, urban combat has previously been featured in small-squad tactics games to some extent, but it has never really been the primary focus in them. Furthermore, the modern day SWAT theme has, to my knowledge, never been done before in the genre (and I've looked). What I basically want to say here is that Door Kickers scratches an itch that I have had for years.

A breaching charge goes boom.

What Is Door Kickers All About?

Door Kickers is a top-down tactical game about managing a small SWAT squad in an urban setting with the aim of taking out bad guys that have holed up in the premises. On a more practical level, Door Kickers is a game about planning your approach from the initial spawn points, peeking under doors with a snake camera, planning your entry into rooms, kicking down doors, throwing flashbangs, and shooting bad guys. And honestly, that's pretty much it. The game has a very clearly defined formula that it utilizes, and it doesn't really try to break the formula in any way. I think the very tight focus of the game is both its greatest strength and its biggest weakness. The upside is that Door Kickers does what it sets out to do very well - it's a lot of fun to carefully clear buildings in tight coordination, room by room. The downside is that there really is nothing more to Door Kickers than clearing rooms - it's a one-trick pony. People who look for a varied gameplay experience (akin to sandbox games, for example) will not find it here. Instead, what you will find is a very tightly crafted light SWAT "simulator" that only does one thing, but it does it well.

Well, this is a dilemma - how to save the hostage in the middle?

How is Door Kickers Different?

In addition to the unique theme, the gameplay in Door Kickers differentiates itself from most other tactical small squad management games in three ways. First, Door Kickers is not turn-based, but rather it is played in real-time with the option of freely pausing the game at any time. A similar system has previously often been used in the context of Western (old school) RPGs, like Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic, for example. Secondly, since there are no turns, there is also no need for an action point system, which has been a staple in most turn-based tactics games, like XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Silent Storm. Thirdly, Door Kickers also doesn't utilize squares or hexagons for movement like XCOM: EU does, but rather the movement is completely free, similarly to Silent Storm or Frozen Synapse.

It's important to avoid blocking other units' line of fire, as indicated by the red line.

The Core Gameplay

As I already mentioned above, Door Kickers is a game centered around a tight core concept of clearing buildings of bad guys, and the core gameplay remains largely the same throughout the game. You start each mission in a deployment screen, where you can select which units you want to use on that particular mission, customize their gear, and select where you want the units to spawn. Once you are happy with your set-up for the mission, you move on to the actual action/combat phase.

The deployment screen. This map only has one possible spawn point, most have at least two.

The unit loadout screen in the deployment phase. Here you equip the team with gear suited for each mission.

In the main combat phase, you control your units simply by drawing lines of where you want them to move. You can control the direction that each unit looks by drawing a line with the right mouse button. Finally, you perform actions, including reloading, throwing a grenade, and switching to a pistol, by right clicking to open an action menu and selecting the desired action. Furthermore, closed doors provide you with a few additional actions, such as simply kicking it open, using a snake cam to look under the door into the room, placing a breaching charge on the door to blow it up, or picking the lock for a more covert entry.

Attempting to go in all sneaky beaky like by picking the lock.

Finally, you can assign actions with "go codes", which means that they are performed when you give the assigned go code ("Alpha, go", etc.). The go codes allow you to easily synchronize multiple actions with one another. A common example of utilizing the go codes is having one unit throw a flashbang into a room and waiting for it to go off before giving the go code to another unit that is waiting to enter the room. Basically, by synchronizing throwing the flashbang and breaching the room you are able to go in instantly after the flash goes off.

Executing the good old two-man bang and clear maneuver on the left.

After you've given your units instructions on what you want them to do, you unpause the game by pressing Spacebar and watch your (carefully laid out) plans play out. Then you pause again, plan your next moves, unpause, etc.

Mission Types

There are quite a few different mission types in Door Kickers. They include, for example:

• Terrorist hunt is the simplest mission type that tasks the player with eliminating all hostiles on the map.
• Bomb disposal is exactly what it sounds like - there is a ticking bomb somewhere on the map, and you have to reach and defuse it before the timer runs out.
• Hostage rescue is a scenario where the bad guys have taken a number of hostages that need to be saved. The task is made more difficult by the fact that the hostages have a nasty tendency to get caught in the cross fire, and a hostage dying immediately fails the mission.
• Stop an execution is a spin on the hostage rescue. Here the bad guys have taken a number of hostages and will execute one of them after a timer ticks down. Obviously, the job of the player is to reach the scene in time and prevent the execution.
• Drug bust missions are ones where you have to raid a drug lab, kill hostile enemies, arrest non-hostile enemies and secure the evidence that lies around. The extra challenge in these missions comes from the fact that the bad guys will start destroying the said evidence as soon as they first discover the player. This means that these missions emphasize maintaining the element of surprise for as long as possible, by going in all sneaky beaky like. Then, once you inevitably get spotted, all caution gets thrown into the wind and it's a mad dash to try and secure all the evidence lying around before it gets destroyed.
• Escort missions task the player with finding a VIP somewhere on the map, reaching him or her and escorting the VIP to a safe zone.

Gotta haul ass to stop the execution!

Classes

Door Kickers features five classes, each with their own specialization and use:

• Pointman: The most mobile class that is limited to only carrying a pistol. The Pointman's job is to be the first guy in through a door. The class excels at close to mid range fights and tight quarters.
• Assault: The backbone of most teams. These are versatile units that wield rifles or submachineguns and pack a lot of fire power on medium to long distances. Most of the time, my teams consist of a couple of Pointmen and Assault units.
• Shield: These are units that come equipped with a ballistic shield and a pistol. They move very slowly but can provide some cover for other teammates. Personally, I've not found much use for these guys. They seem to die too fast to be useful as meat shields, they lack any serious firepower, and move at a painfully slow pace. Maybe upgrading their shields from the initial starting equipment to something better would help them to actually do their job (to draw fire and survive), but then again, why not just bring in more firepower instead to avoid being shot at in the first place?
• Breacher: These units pack a shotgun, which makes them king in very close quarters. They can also breach locked doors, foregoing the need for carrying around a hammer on another teammate. They suffer horribly in fights that take place outside of very close quarters, which severely limits their utility. In the right circumstances, however, they are devastating.
• Stealth: The stealth units are by far the most interesting of the five classes. Unlocking may drastically change your playstyle, from always going in hard and fast to very carefully navigating through the levels and coordinating intricate synchronized stealth takedowns. They are also crucial in mission types that emphasize covert action - i.e. drug busts. I am still learning to use these units to their full potential, but they do quite often find themselves into my teams in addition to a Pointman and Assaults.

Extra Bells and Whistles

There are some elements that have been introduced into the game to spice up the overall gameplay experience. First, there are some light squad advancement elements, like Doctrine Points that improve the units' abilities in handling different types of weapons (a simple perk system, in other words), earning experience and ranks for individual units, and earning stars that are used as the in-game currency to unlock new weapons and equipment.

The star system is something that seems to have raised some controversy among the game's fan base: there have been complaints that it is an unnecessary content gating tool, considering that Door Kickers is currently a pay-to-play PC release. I somewhat agree; I think that the star system is uncomfortably close to ones commonly found in "free-to-play" mobile games, and I'm not really sure what it accomplishes here. Now, Door Kickers is also being developed for mobile devices, so maybe that aspect of mobile game development has simply leaked over to the PC version as well. The good thing is that success and failure is determined by the amount of planning instead of the gear and weapons one has in his or her disposal. Still, I can definitely see why completionists would be annoyed by having to grind start to unlock all weapons, and I think the system is overall somewhat questionable, at least on the PC.

The perk tree. Picture taken from
<http://www.macgamestore.com/images_screenshots/door-kickers-23858.jpg>

Secondly, there is a campaign mode, although its development is still underway. As it is currently, the campaign mode is basically a collection of regular missions that share a common theme, like drug busts. Some of the campaign missions are bigger in scale than the regular single missions - they not only have larger maps, but often also increase the maximum number of units deployed to eight from the regular four. This increased size helps to distinguish the campaign missions from the regular single missions. Unfortunately, I found that managing eight units at a time was starting to become unwieldy and overly time consuming. I think that sticking to four, or perhaps six, units would be ideal. Another component that is found in the campaign mode, but not in the single missions, is that the deaths of your troopers are permanent. Furthermore, injuries sustained during a campaign will persist onto the next mission, but will heal eventually. Contrary to what one might expect, there is no actual story to be found in the campaign mode as of now, although I imagine some narrative will be added at some point.

There are, as of now, five campaigns.

Some Criticism

Here, I have collected some issues with the game that I would like too see addressed. The first one is admittedly nitpicky, but the other three are more serious issues. First, it's inconvenient that you can't see which doors are locked in the deployment phase, because that knowledge can affect your loadout choices. For example, if there are no locked doors, there is no point in bringing a lockpick machine, and you would be better off bringing stinger grenades instead. As it currently is, you have to go to the battle phase, hover your mouse over each door individually, and then restart the mission and make adjustments to your loadout. Secondly, the story mode is, as of now, incomplete. Third, the star unlock system seems like a free-to-play feature for the mobile versions. Frankly, it feels quite out-of-place in the PC version. Finally, managing eight units in certain missions is cumbersome.

Conclusion

As I stated earlier, Door Kickers is a tightly focused game that sets out to do one thing, and one thing only. Fortunately, it does that one thing well. Door Kickers is not a very intricate game in terms of how you interact with it - there is, after all, only a small number of possible actions you can perform in the game. Rather, the intricacy, and what makes the game interesting, comes from the map design. What Door Kickers is, in my opinion, ultimately all about, is using a small number of possible actions in changing situations to come up with a way to meet the requirement that have been set out for you to achieve. That was basically a very convoluted way of saying that the point of the game is to solve the challenges presented to you by the different maps in the game. In fact, Door Kickers is actually much more of an abstract puzzle game than it is an action game, or even a squad management game. Door Kickers also scores your performance in each mission with a three star scale, which brings in an element of trying to find an optimal strategy for each mission; a type of a score attack approach, if you will.

Refining your strategies for each individual map is a real challenge for completionists.

Giving Door Kickers a "final verdict" is actually quite simple - I believe the game divides people into three types: 
1) People who like games such as XCOM: EU or Silent Storm will, most likely, also enjoy Door Kickers. Compared to those two, Door Kickers provides a rather similar, but more tightly focused, accessible, and bite-sized experience (meaning that a single mission won't last for an hour). On the other hand, I doubt Door Kickers has a similar level of lasting appeal due to its more limited scope. 
2) There are surely people who are intrigued by the thought of managing a SWAT team, and get all excited by planning a perfectly synchronized two-point entry into a room with carefully planned flashbangs and angle checks. These people have already bought the game. As a sidenote for this group, go check out a TV series called Flashpoint. It's about a Canadian SWAT-like unit, and it's awesome. 
3) For the people who don't belong into either of the above mentioned categories, i.e. ones who are not interested in small-squad management games or SWAT businesss, there is nothing for them here. They should probably spend their time and money on something else instead.

And that pretty much wraps up this post. Strangely enough, although this post turned out to be rather massive, I feel like I barely even scratched the surface of Door Kickers. Further discussion has to be continued later in another post, however. Until then, keep kicking down doors.

Genre Examination: Turn-based Small Squad Tactics Games

This time, I want to briefly write about one of my favorite genres: turn-based small squad tactics (TBSST). As the name suggests, these types of games focus on strategically and/or tactically managing a small-ish squad of troops in battle, utilizing a turn-based battle system. Certainly the most well-known modern example of such a game is the excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Some other notable examples include the older XCOM games, the Jagged Allience series, Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, Silent Storm, and Frozen Synapse (although that one has a simultaneous turn system, which makes it somewhat different from the other titles). Unfortunately, the list of examples is quite short; for whatever reason, this seems to be a rather niche genre. It is such a niche genre, in fact, that it doesn't really even have a well-established name!

Frozen synapse has a very simplistic and distinctive look, but underneath the surface, there lies a deep layer of tactics.
Picture taken from <http://www.frozensynapse.com/>

What Are Typical Features of the Genre?

So, for the uninitiated, what are TBSST like? Often times, they share certain gameplay features, which include:

General

• There are typically two distinct modes of play: a strategic/world map mode, where you manage your units, select which missions to take, purchase new equipment, etc., and the battle mode, where you control a handful of units from a isometric point-of-view.
• The battles are fought on pre-determined maps/locations.
• The player faces unfair odds in terms of the number of enemies he or she has to fight - this forces careful planning to succeed.
• The game works with odds of success. For example, you may have a 57% chance of hitting a shot - do you take the risky shot, or look for a safer play to make?

Units

• Units specialize in different combat roles (machine gunners, snipers, close-quarters combat specialists, medics, etc.).
• An important aspect of your overall game plan involves customizing your units (their gear, stats, and possible special abilities).
• The death of your units is often permanent.
• Your units often improve with experience, which rewards keeping them alive.

The excitement of XCOM:EU's combat is complemented by base management.

A Genre for Armchair... Sergeants?

TBSST is an intriguing genre; to me, it feels like a halfway point between real-time strategy (Starcraft)  and larger scale strategy games, such as 4X (Civilization) and grand strategy (Europa Universalis). That is, TBSST focuses on a small number of units - a smaller number, in fact, than most RTS games - as opposed to the larger scale strategy games that are not interested in single units, or even single armies, but look at the bigger picture of politics, economy and geography. This puts the player close to the combat, where the excitement is. On the other hand, the game still plays in turn-based fashion, making the gameplay slower and generally more ponderous than RTS games (which tend to be very frantic), but not nearly to the extent of grand strategy games' spreadsheet-like gameplay.

The combat in XCOM:EU revolves largely around the use of cover and flanking your enemy.

The way I look at TBSST is that if RTS games are mostly action games with layers of strategy and tactics on top of them, and hard-core strategy games are for self-proclaimed armchair generals who are interested in high-level empire management, then I guess TBSST is for the armchair sergeants who want something in between. Basically, a game that is primarily concerned with low-level strategy and tactics, but also one that never gets too far away from the action. Add in a healthy serving of role-playing elements, such as improving your squad, and you've got a recipe for success.

Silent Storm is definitely a one of the better entries in the genre.
Picture taken from <http://www.giantbomb.com/s2-silent-storm/3030-10967/images/>

Tactical Squad-Based First-Person Shooters

Before wrapping this post up, I want to go on a little bit of a tangent here, and also write about first-person shooters that incorporate strong elements of squad tactics into their gameplay. Now, TBSST is a niche genre, but this goes way beyond even that. In fact, as far as I know, there have only ever been a handful of titles that really belong into this category. The best examples are the old Rainbow Six games, up to and including Raven Shield, and SWAT 4. Unfortunately, although this has never been a popular genre, nowadays it seems to be essentially dead. The only relatively recent game that could fall into this genre is Takedown: Red Sabre. Too bad that according to every account I've read, the game is an absolute disaster. So, hear I am, hoping for some (most likely indie) developer to breathe some life into the the tactical shooter genre. Unfortunately, I have a feeling I might have to wait for a while before any worthy candidates arise...

The butt-clenching moment before breaching a door in SWAT 4.
Picture taken from <http://www.kaskus.co.id/thread/52a747a4f9ca170e2d8b4696/swat-4/1>

In Closing

I honestly don't know why TBSST is such an underrepresented genre; to me, it seems like a nice mix of brainy tactics and up close and personal action. I guess maybe that type of gameplay just doesn't appeal very much to modern gamers, who look out for, shall we say, well-established action franchises and cinematic experiences that can be easily and quickly consumed. Strangely enough, the few recent entries I have seen in the TBSST genre have been mobile games, out of all things.

Still, I remain hopeful that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel, shining from the direction of indie developers. For example, a Kickstarter backed Door Kickers was released a little while ago in Steam, and although I haven't tried it, it seems like a promising title. It's basically a game about playing as a SWAT squad, breaching buildings and clearing them of threats, in the spirit of the legendary planning phase of the old Rainbow Six games. If I happen to buy the game and get around to playing it, I may write a post about it at some point later.