Story
Soldiers of Anarchy (SOA) is yet another game based in a post apocalyptic world, akin to the world created by movies like Mad Max. Yet another game where you have to lead a group of survivors into the new world to face the many dangers that now exist.
Your people were soldiers who escaped a global disaster 10 years ago by hiding in a military bunker. Unlike most other games of this type the world was not destroyed by nuclear war, but rather a global epidemic that spread throughout the population. Being stuck in a bunker for 10 years has clearly peed off its inhabitants, who now want to leave their virtual prison and venture into the new world.
Humanity is a mess (like it isn’t already), with gangs now ruling the desolate landscape. It doesn’t take long for you to get on to the scent of trying to figure out exactly how this global tragedy occurred years ago and who’s responsible.
The game style of SOA is something of a mixture. While it plays like an RTS, it also has a fair bit of Role Playing and some aspects seen in turn based strategies. It’s a blend of turn based games like Jagged Alliance 2 and Fallout 2 with RTS games like Commandos. It is a game where you are given multiple characters in real time, with a variety of weapon choice, to complete a set of missions.
“The amazing… the incredible… materialising out of thin air story!!”
While the story certainly is simple to understand in itself, sometimes events within the game just appear to happen with little or no explanation why. For instance these Undead Knights appear about halfway through the game, yet your soldiers don’t even say anything like “Woah, what’s that?” Then in the very next mission briefing they talk about them like they are just normal everyday foes, “On your next mission be careful, there’s lots of Undead Knights around”. I’m sorry, even the most disciplined soldier would be a little taken back with seeing these things for the first time and ask what they were. How would you know how to kill them if you just met one?
Special mines called Crawler mines are another thing that just appears out of thin air, one minute you haven’t a clue what they are, the next minute talking about them like you’ve dealt with them all your life!
Other plots throughout the story also just seem to appear out of nowhere. Instead of taking the time to get from one idea in a story to another gradually, like in other titles, for the most part SOA just jumps from one conclusion to the next. Some dialog in the story even seems to be missing in places, as one minute your discussing something like you’ve never heard of it, then the next bit of dialog is like you’ve become an expert in that field for all your life (like the Crawler Mine example mentioned above). A bit of added dialog to lead up to new ideas, rather than your troops suddenly becoming the tome of all knowledge in 5 minutes flat would have gone a long way here on the RPG side of the game.
This lack of dialog also applies to the mission briefings. Although being incredibly long winded they certainly don’t adequately prepare you for what lies ahead. Seeing as you have to choose carefully what you trade in the game (and certain weapons cost a lot) it doesn’t really help when you don’t know what equipment to bring along. Is it worth spending all your trade supping up your brand new tank with all the latest ammo and gear if the next mission has no enemy armour for you to face? or is the landscape covered in anti-tank mines? Is it worth taking a small squad to infiltrate, or is there big resistance and going in guns blazing the better option? Only rarely does it give you sufficient information on what you should be trading, stocking up on, and equipping.
Beautiful Soldiers
The graphics of SOA are reasonable by today’s harsh and demanding standards. Although close-up the individual soldier visuals don’t look very pleasant, at a typical and playable distance the overall graphics are certainly nice enough.
SOA does a good job at creating a believable landscape and setting considering the storyline. Intermixed between the huge expanses of desolate landscape include destroyed and abandoned towns, ruins, and junk. Combined with some fairly decent weather effects, like gloomy rain and snow, SOA certainly gives you that feeling that you are pretty much all alone in this ruined world.
However, the game wouldn’t be exciting if you were in fact alone. Gangs exist in the new world, some boasting some pretty impressive old world weaponry ranging from old rusted trucks, all the way to M1A1 Abram’s tanks. Some forces latter on even have airborne weaponry like heavy duty artillery cannons and helicopters! Using this weaponry you really can cause some fun damage. Nearly all buildings and objects are destroyable and bigger weapons even create craters on the 3D landscape.
The Vehicles are where SOA’s graphics and game play both shine through best. On the visuals front the vehicles certainly look very detailed and believable. Their movement animations are also equally meticulous in detail. Features include gun turrets that swivel and raise, vehicles that can go into reverse and conduct three point turns, beam headlights, tire marks, as well as breaking lights for Hum-Vee’s!
