![]() That’s two buttons for calling, and one analog stick for selecting doesn’t get much more streamlined than that. You will either call all of your available army, or you can select them by class. Too often in these games you’ll find yourself using the gamepad in the way a mouse would, dragging a cursor to select who you want. It takes the formula you’re familiar with and creates a control scheme that’s simple yet effective. So is it possible for a team that’s never developed for the console space to do it? Quite honestly, Tooth and Tail is the game to break down the RTS barrier. The genre has made many attempts to break into the console space with little success, despite the hype and gimmicks involved (Tom Clancy’s Endwar, I’m looking at you). If you were given the choice of playing Command & Conquer on a PC or a PlayStation, the obvious answer is PC. If you were given the choice of I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: some genres are made specifically for a particular platform. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: some genres are made specifically for a particular platform. In all, a great experience that I will surely continue to cherish for the foreseeable future. Units can blend in with the background and become lost in a sense, or otherwise fail to pop and ping like the rest of the game's elements. The most negative feature of the game is that sometimes, its pixelated graphics, most often in splitscreen, sometimes appear muddied or at least not sharp enough. The world is alive and the war is visceral, and you never feel too far removed from the struggles of its meekest participants (poor piggies). Dialogue is eerie but interesting, unsettling but well-written. The core factions are each tropes in themselves, but the story around them is engaging and recall Animal Farm, Redwall and a derivation of the future "corporation as government as tyrant" so often found in dystopian fiction. A variety of other hybrids means that, unlike Tom Clancy's Endwar, this doesn't feel like a big game of Rock, Paper, Scissors, but instead like a game of chess playing out, with versatility and robust strategy that mean even the smallest of revolver-toting squirrels could make the difference in the face of overwhelming odds. Some units are anti-air, some are strictly melee, some are designed for destroying structures and some are meant to heal. One of my favorite quirky ways to play is by bringing barbed wire to the fight (in multiplayer games you can choose 6 units to bring to compose your armies, of varying strenghts & costs). Classes are so fun, interesting, and with dozens and dozens of combinations to really customize a play style. It's a give and take that requires patience, but once learned reveals a very deep gaming experience. After stepping away and coming back, it will often take several sweeping failures against an AI opponent set to Medium to get rolling again. A misplaced turret or building an expensive unit barracks you can't build fast enough see crippling returns with such immediacy, it punishes you into getting better each time. Mistakes in T&T cost so much more than, say, in Age of Empires. Like never before in an RTS, I learned to manage my resources to the utmost. ![]() ![]() You must remain constantly focused on the goal, on staying lean, agile, and putting no resource to waste. Tooth & Tail necessitates playing in scales of seconds or half-minutes. You cannot build up massive armies and keep them out of harm's way, hoping to eventually build enough strength to overwhelm the enemy. You can not prioritize economic gain and hoarding resources. In Tooth & Tail, you cannot approach games as even 30-minute grind fests. You feel disoriented initially, blinded by the blistering pace of the AI until you realize something profound- the AI is not too fast or beefed up, YOU are playing too slowly. ![]() The third campaign level took me three times to beat. Having progressed through roughly a quarter of the campaign, but having spent several hours in multiplayer (splitscreen and online), I finally Having progressed through roughly a quarter of the campaign, but having spent several hours in multiplayer (splitscreen and online), I finally feel qualified enough to say this game is absolutely fantastic. ![]()
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