Retaliation: Enemy Mine Lite

Strategy games are not for everyone, mainly because they require patience and a bit of concentration. Their visual quality is lower as well most of the time, which might not sit well with younger gamers. However, the thrill of an epic battle can make you forget about everything else, even if all you see on the screen are but crude representations of tanks and soldiers.

Retaliation: Enemy Mine is a turn-based strategy game in which you have to combine a variety of unit types in order to overpower your enemies and claim their headquarters. Many other factors influence the efficiency of your troops, such as the terrain you are fighting on, or even luck. However, your tactics are still the main ingredient, so you need to pay attention to how you coordinate the troops.

Every battle takes place on a rather small map comprised of multiple hexagons. Each tile is usually a different type of terrain, and it affects the efficiency of your units. Hence, you might suffer penalties for attacking from a swamp with your tanks, but it also possible to obtain bonuses if you get the right kind of combination. Flank attacks are powerful as well, but they are much harder to achieve.

In order to obtain resources for reinforcements, you need to occupy tiles on the map and hold them with your troops. There is a maximum number of locations you can hold at a time and still be granted resources, but it takes a while to get there. You also have the possibility to join units and use the augmented numbers to assault fortified enemy positions.

Unfortunately, you might also stumble into a few problems with the game, mainly because it is still in early access at the moment. As an example, the camera moves extremely slowly and the controls for it are counterintuitive, in the sense that you move the map and not the actual camera when you try to scroll somewhere. Hence, the keys are actually reversed, which is obviously annoying.

At the moment, Retaliation: Enemy Mine has a few flaws that can ruin the overall experience, but things might change in the future. The matches can get quite exciting, especially if you play with other humans and not the AI.