age of wonders planetfall gameplay videos

You control an army of up to six units and move them around their own tile-based map through full cover and half cover, expending action points and improving percentage-chance-to-hits - hence, Civ crossed with XCOM. When you engage in combat, meanwhile, it's down to the turn-based-tactics level. You manage unstacked cities on a hexagonal-tiled world map, acquiring resources, advancing through tech trees, moving armies and conquering your way to more territory as you go - all very Civilization (in fact all very Civilization 5, much like 2014's Age of Wonders 3 was too). The premise of Age of Wonders: Planetfall is that it's a mix of two brilliant but also seriously complex genres. In fact it seems confused about what, exactly, it needs to explain at all. There's a lovely retro-strategy vibe to AoW: Planetfall's mini map, bottom right.Ī lot of that feeling is made worse than it really ought to be, too, because Age of Wonders: Planetfall simply does not explain itself well. It's depth that inspires a sense of dread and regret, maybe some resignation, and a sigh: there is an awful lot here, I will spend a very long time working my way through it, and there's a fair chance none of it will be as good as it could have been were it left to stand alone. Keep digging at Age of Wonders: Planetfall and you will find some impressive depth, for sure, from tech trees to unit modifications to character customisation - only it's depth, unfortunately, in the sense that a twelve-page restaurant menu has depth. Availability: Out now on PS4, Xbox One and PC.That there'd be some B-movie, Starship Troopers gold lying in wait, reserved only for those patient and diligent enough to keep digging. By any conventional wisdom you'd think, if you scratch away long enough, that the schlock on top would give way to some buried treasure.

Civilization by way of XCOM, in the ideal setting. It screams 'hidden gem', on the face of it: a generous glob of SyFy channel space-cheese, spread over a rich and hearty mix of genres. I promise you I have tried very hard to find something deeper, beneath the surface of Age of Wonders: Planetfall, that shows its true brilliance. Competent strategy pastes flat-footed, surface-level sci-fi over a genre that lives and dies by its nuance.

Age of wonders planetfall gameplay videos