Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Oct 14, 2017

  This is a game that deals with the art of balancing. Balancing the budget, the need to compete in space, the need for armed forces, the need for better weapons and so on. Each year you can place three "pips" in various fields (or all in one), and there quite a few places to put those "pips". Do you boost national economy, increase spy gain, increase diplomat gain, increase research in one of three military field, boost funding in one of the two space race fields or increase troop gain? Go too agressive in one field and you are bound to fall behind in others. As said, a balancing art. I can not put the finger on one specific thing that makes me like the game, instead it is the mix of it all, to me it feels like I am constantly putting out real/imagined/potential fires all over the world, while trying to get the upper hand of my opponent. PRO: -several ways to win -each faction has 4 leaders, each of those 4 leaders have 1 fixed stat and 1 customizable -fun and interesting -alot of historical information (lots of info about the space race project and about various weapon platforms) -flipping nations by civil war or diplomacy -quite decent AI (atleast seems so to me) CONS: -manual. I needed a game to figure out some of the stuff, and asked a few questions on the discussion board before I could really enjoy the game properly. This has been agreed upon by the devs who said an improved manual is something they will do in a patch. -not everything is intuitive, so as mentioned, I needed a game where I simply pressed the various buttons to see what happend. Instead of a thumb up/down, how do you rate it? I would say this is around 82% for me, but please note that I am a history geek, so this might influence my rating somewhat.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 4, 2018

  Winning does not seem to be a possibility. I could've sworn I made a review for this already but it seems I haven't. Tried the first one - was disappointed. Tried the second - was still disappointed. There is no fun in this game and the only way to prevent the AI from, within 10 minutes having couped your nation, is to do the most borning asinine micro-managment. All the developers seem to do as well in response to any issue is 'oh, next game definitely'. No offense to them, but...this is the second game and it still has all the same issues. Its already too late to sway me because short of getting this for free I won't be giving it a second shot, but there are still many people that are yearning for a cold war game. You don't have political sim to help, you don't have detailed economic simulation, all you have is the base line - so you have to try extra hard to make sure that what you have actually works. There isn't much in my opinion that lifts it up as something unique otherwise.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 12, 2017

  This game's concept is very unique. You first start off by choosing to either play as the USSR or USA. From that point on, the game focuses on historical elements of the Cold War by making the player micro-manage between other nations and expanding influence of the USA's or USSR's ideologies. The game is definitely for those who enjoy micro-management similar to the TBS genre (i.e. civilization). The only criticism I can give so far is the lack of in-game tutorials. Other than that the game will give as many hours as you're willing to put in to it. Lastly, mad props to whoever did the music for this game. It's very engaging and catchy.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 14, 2019

  I wanted to like this game, as the concept was interesting, and while some cold war board games had been good, no good ones for the PC had been developed. Sadly there still aren't any. After playing several play-throughs with different styles, I found that no strategy worked for achieving victory even on the easy level, which is the only level you can play to start. Seemingly no matter which style I tried, the AI not only countered it, but was proceeding on his own play quite well. Despite having the same amount of political points each year, the same number of initial units, and equal influence, it seemed the AI economy was stronger, it could match point for point in army, army tech, space race and spies. Whichever one I didn't focus on, he went ahead, and you literally can not focus on all of them. Even if I got lucky, and global event went my way, it seemed this was only a temporary reprieve on an endless crush toward defeat. The final humiliation I suffered was a successful invasion of my home country, the "hard" game level goal, by the AI. Apparently I am so bad at the game that the AI can complete a hard game against me, while I can't win against him on easy. I would recommend that the ability to start the game in turn-based mode be an option, since anyone who is good at the game can turn it to auto-run if they wish. I also recommend some level below easy, which gives players some advantage, so that new players can get a win under their belt. Feel free to reset the naming of these levels so that the current easy level is medium, medium is hard, and hard is ultimate or something. Nothing will lose players faster than a game they can't beat set to the lowest level.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 30, 2017

  Shoddy graphics, talks about real time or strategy but thats literally only if you want the clock to run down in real time or you want to keep hitting 'next turn'. You have to hold down the right mouse button and drag yourself over to where ever on the map you want to see. I could see this being maybe a couple of bucks but 15$?! Don't waste your money. GO buy literally any Paradox title or even Supreme Ruler cold war. The Game isn't intuitive or fun to play at all.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 8, 2017

  I felt like I was smashing keys and smashing the left click every second. Still needs work! If you want a good hand work out and maybe carpal tunnell this game is for you!
• gamedeal user

  Jan 19, 2018

  It could be the next Twilight Struggle if it was good. It isn't. Don't get it. It's fatally flawed and not worth it.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 30, 2019

  Horrible game, I wish I could refund. the game is completely based on random events and player doesn't have any control. I wouldn't call this game a strategy game because there is nothing strategic about random events changing a winning game play upside down to a losing one. Don't waste your money on this game even if it's on sale.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 5, 2017

  Arms Race - The Cold War Era is pretty promising with the way game mechanics work and the AI is good. The recommended strategy in the guide section doesn't work reliably for me and I ended up using a different strategy. The AI is also pretty good at adapting to what you are doing. The limited 3 budget changes ends up meaning every decision has long term implications. Most games turn out slightly differently due to the AI choosing different tactics and the randomness of global crisis events. The game isn't as full fleshed as say Hearts of Iron but I feel like the mechanics are well thought out and the AI provides a challenge even on easy. It does a good job of abtracting the cold war and reducing decisions to the macro level ('meaningful decisions') compared to HoI3/4 which features considerable micromanagement. I personally prefer macro level games (less micromanagement) but it's not everyone's cup of tea. If you prefer to play M&T in EU4 vs base EU4 or if you prefer to play Darkest Hour/HoI2 vs HoI4 then this is the game for you. In terms of improvements I think some additional work on fleshing out global crisis (ex instead of random have triggers) as well as UI work would be helpful. There's quite a bit of promise with what exists in the game. Make sure to read the manual and watch the online tutorials since there isn't an in game tutorial or tooltips. The UI Does take a while to get used to. Also I HIGHLY RECOMMEND playing in TURN BASED OR on SLOW so you have plenty of time to consider strategic decisions without needing to 'button mash' as mentioned in some other reviews. One warning is to not expect replayability on the level of Paradox Games since this is made by a small indie. I would say expect ~10-15 hours out of the game if you want to try all the possibilities. I wish the development team the best of luck as the Hearts of Iron series has gone in the direction of too much micromanagement and I would like to see a competitor that is more in the vein of Ho2. _____ Other: Consider an auto-send option for diplomats ;)
• gamedeal user

  Feb 7, 2018

  This game is actually really fun and has a lot of potential. All around it is a positive experience, but there is one massive massive flaw. No matter how you play the game, the events trigger randomly which will decide the outcome of the game. You can be on top all game, then one decade just get a little unlucky and lose completely out of your control. A little randomness is ok, but I prefer game-altering RNG out of my grand strategy.