By: Vincent Haoson, OnRPG Mobile Expert
There have been a lot of games lately that are have taken elements of other games and made it their own. And Facebook, now becoming not only a social hub but a casual gaming as well is home to a lot of rehashed games. However, that doesn’t mean that these games are overall bad. It’s just that there are some that are downright terrible and shouldn’t have been made at all.
War of Mercenaries, while it does copy a lot of elements to an FB game (the one that I know at least) doesn’t fall into the crappy game category. Read on to find out why.
Gameplay
The best way to describe WoM is that it combines the elements of base building and unit build-up similar to another FB game of the same genre, Backyard Monsters. Basically, you build up your base by gathering resources such as Lumber, Stone, Might and Iron through resource generating buildings or raids. Alongside your base construction is the inclusion of defence structures since NPCs and players have the capacity to raid your base as well.
As for the game’s overarching goal, it basically has none. There is no over-arching story or goal in what you do except to decimate, raid and win. Sounds easy enough right?
Building your Base
As I mentioned earlier, WoM is a game that requires you to build structures to improve your base resource/mercenary output. The difference of WoM among other games (or it’s similarities to other similar games, depending on your perspective) is that you have a large area to work with. Resource structures don’t require you to build them near a mine or something similar. All you need to do is build an iron smelter and drop it anywhere then boom! You get Iron resources in a snap!
With the freedom of structure placement comes the limitation of creating a limited number of structures at play. Limitation also covers defence structures so you are not allowed to spam walls and turrets making the game more challenging.
Raiding
So let’s move up to the second thing you’d be doing most of the time in WoM, Raiding. In WoM you have two options whenever you “visit” an enemy camp. You either attack it or scout it out. I have to admit, scouting does not have any big benefits (that I’ve seen at least) but that’s not what I’m going to focus on since this part of the review covers the attacking part of the game.
Attacking/Raiding is your resource earning alternative in WoM and is a great tool in showing players how terrible their base planning is. If there ever was a game version of trolling a base, this would be it. Raiding not only destroys the attacked enemy base, you also earn resources whenever your units attack a building/structure.
There is a hitch however when you are attacking a base. Every unit you commit in attacking would mean fewer mercenaries you have back in your base. That’s right- your attackers have a one way ticket when you raid.
Having this kind of game system in place adds some weight to decision making rather than just attacking mindlessly like in some other titles. While you can basically put your units almost anywhere on the map, you have to deal with the amount of units you put into the attack. Putting in too much would mean you have to pay more for reserves, attacking with too little makes your attack pointless and would end as abruptly as it started.
Raiding in WoM isn’t something new since Backyard Monsters also has this in place. Yet it is nice to see at least that the same system is used on a different theme. But that’s the only plus I’m going to give the game.
Other Features
Aside from raiding and scouting, War of Mercenaries also has a quest and chat system in place to make things more interesting. The quest system follows the to-do list goal-setting where you need to accomplish tasks that either let you experience in-game systems/elements and or push you to bring more players by “inviting” your friends to play the game.
On the other hand, there’s nothing to write home about when it comes to the game’s chat system; it’s a straight up chat system where you can talk to people, though it does lack a way for you to determine where your chatmates are, but it’s something one wouldn’t normally bother with.
Speaking of nothing to write home about, the game’s micro-transaction system follows the typical micro transactions other FB games have. Most of the micro transactions are relegated to development boosts. It is to be noted however, that as of this post, the game still doesn’t have any “luxury items” present so the game isn’t as complete as one would expect for the mean time.
Conclusion
War of Mercenaries is a game that borrows a lot of elements from other FB games of the same genre. It seems that as a way to compensate the game’s lack of originality, WoM takes the mercenary theme and makes the gameplay into its own.
WoM was able to make an enjoyable fast-paced game that makes for a nice work day conversion without becoming too much of a time sink. So you can sneak in a few WoM game time during breaks but it doesn’t grab your attention so much that you’d still notice that time actually passed.
The game is a good boredom killer so I highly suggest War of Mercenaries for those who can only clock in about 10-15 minutes of game time. However, WoM lacks something substantial to keep you gaming. And that right there can be a deal breaker for the more hardcore MMO audience.
