Flag N Frag

Flag N Frag is one of the most unusual things I’ve played in a long time. It’s hectic, tough to master, and fun. It’s a four player showdown that uses both turn-based strategy and arcade style gameplay to deliver one fast-paced experience.

A thought I had after the first few minutes with Flag N Frag is that this could very well be a revised concept of a board game for PCs. You have the turn-based strategy part of the gameplay where you and your opponents scatter to conquer/lock as many flags as possible using your pawns.

Each turn you get movement points and if you’re lucky, when moving a character, you can get random bonuses. It’s like rolling the dice and getting a big number that grants extra movement. Or something like that, either way, it feels like you’re playing a strategy board game.

The fun part starts when you engage in combat with an adversary. A fight is carried out in an air hockey type manner in which you have to break your opponent’s goal before you can score. It gets fast and crazy very fast; it’s not for the faint of reflexes.

Flag N Frag fuses TBS and arcade, a combination you don’t see very often. For this reason, some parts of the gameplay will confuse the heck out of you if you don’t go through the readme file that comes with the demo.

The game itself is easy to play but there are a few rules that are not explained in a tutorial or something similar, so a short read is mandatory it you want to enjoy the game at its full potential. After going through the material, you’ll have the complete picture on what Flag N Frag is all about and how fun it actually gets.

I can't imagine playing Flag N Frag and keeping calm. It’s wacky, fast, a bit complicated and the battles can get brutal if both opponents are skilled players. Also, there are cheats that the game recommends you use.