Meridian: Squad 22 is very pretty. Think of your favourite 90βs RTS game. Add pretty graphics. That is Meridian: Squad 22.
Ok, this is maybe minimalizing the scale of this game down properly. Being built by one person, this is a wonderful revitalisation of the old school RTS style. Although at this point most of you will be playing Total War: Warhammer, if you have a few minutes this might be worth checking out for you.
Meridian: Squad 22 follows on from Meridian: New World which may not fill people with hope as the game was considered a rather mediocre experience. You play as the titular Squad 22, tasked with finding missing colonists on Meridian. The game story is aiming to be 10 hours long and story has always been difficult to work into the RTS experience however there is some good promise from the missions Iβve played so far. As well as the campaign experience the game offers a planetary conquest mode, although the bulk focus of this game seems to be on the story.
At the moment, the game seems lacking. The 4 story missions I played through are fairly diverse, progressing the story sensibly and well. Along with this you get some nifty little tech trees for combat, economy and defence. This also unlocks new units, abilities and upgrades which gives you plenty of upgradability and tactical choice considered pretty much standard in the RTS genre. There also appears to be squad missions to extend the campaign experience with these optional side missions. Currently these are not available so I cannot comment.
If youβre looking for an experience to try with your friends I have some bad news for you. Due to its creation by a single person there is no multiplayer available. This is going to put a lot of people off quickly, as half the fun Iβve had with RTS games is multiplayer.
If this has not put you off I have good news: It is damn pretty. Itβs nice to have an RTS with some bright colourful environments and planets rather than the drab wastelands everyone seems to choose to fight over. Even zooming the camera in close, which usually shows flaws in other games, the game keeps together much better than other games of recent times.
There are some faults in this iteration however. Minions tend to stick a bit, and controlling them is rather difficult anyway as quick keys sometimes do not work and the most important keys seems to be missing, such as queuing moves. The cinematics have a painful amount of lag too, which is somewhat unforgivable in modern games. Then there are just some personal complaints, mostly the building screen being way too small for me.
Overall this is a nice breath of fresh air for the RTS genre, although the lack of multiplayer is somewhat killer. I kind of like this game, which is a big thing as I am far from an old school RTS fan. But there are still a few niggle which stops me giving this game a raving review. Being pretty can only redeem this so much but this game is respectable 6 and I recommend this to any old school RTS fan out there.
You must be logged in to post a comment.