Great Big War Game

CNET Editors' review

by: Jaymar Cabebe on July 20, 2012

Rubicon has done it again with Great Big War Game, the sequel to the wildly successful Great Little War Game. In this newest installment of the turn-based strategy game, you are again the bird's-eye-view commander of a comical, yet brutal military.

If you aren't familiar with this particular style of game play, you get one turn to move your units and wage attacks before passing off to your opponent to do the same. The strategy comes in as you attempt to attack your enemy, while still maintaining a safe enough distance to avoid being attacked yourself. As you might imagine, this can be very difficult and requires a lot of strategic planning.

In GBWG, there are four different gaming modes: Campaign, Pass & Play (two players on same device), Skirmish (one-off missions), and the newly added Online Play (versus other players remotely). Campaign is the best place to start, as it gives you a quick primer on the different units and functions. Here you'll get a taste of everything from snipers to engineers to artillery units, as well as a variety of air and sea units. And of course, throughout the battle, you must protect your barracks, oil rigs, and other military buildings from your enemy.

Fans of the first installment will probably notice a few nice additions to Great Big War Game. There are new units, including a technician, who goes into the field to build fixed defense units, and a "tank killer." Also, the prices of some of the original units have changed, resulting in a much better flow of purchases. For instance, Snipers are cheaper, which means you can buy them more often (thank goodness), while Engineers are a bit more expensive to reflect their true value.

But the biggest difference you'll notice is the "fog of war" covering all of the area beyond your own base. In GBGW, you need to purchase scouts (or other soldiers) to do recon and give you a better view of your enemy's territory. This adds yet another problem to deal with in this already-challenging strategy game. Also in this sequel is a Blood and Gore mode, which, as you can imagine, makes things a bit more interesting.

While GBWG is certainly fun and addictive, I think it could still stand to add a few features. It would be nice to be able to select and move, even order, multiple units at once. Also, the ability to upgrade units would be another nice element to add to the game.

Overall, I think Great Big War Game is a significant improvement upon its predecessor. The gameplay is just as addictive as before, but now there are more units to play with, greater challenges to deal with, and a new variety of missions and maps to complete.