I took a chance and picked this one up, I haven't played it much as Fable 2 and Resistance 2 take most of my game time right now but early impressions are good. It's an odd mix of turn based and real time strategy and a bit of FPS. You start with an overhead view map which gives you a rough idea of the battlefield, and you have a certain ammount of command points you can use to give orders to your troops. Once you "activate" a troop it switches to a 3rd person look and you move in real time, so you have to think somewhat quick as any enemies that have you in their firing arc will be taking shots at you. Once you've moved where you want and decide to shoot it freezes time so you can aim without getting riddled. After your shooting phase you can move more if you want/have move left or end that "turn". With the command points it seems at minimum you have enough to move all your troops once per phase, you can however use all the action points on one character if you want (although their move bar lowers with multiple use as they get tired).
It didn't take me too long to get used to it, and while it's not ultra hard, if you don't stick to cover and play smart you'll be restarting alot.
I like the option to keep using one unit, it adds alot of strategy to the typical turn based style. One early mission you have to guard a gate while waiting for tank backup, once I had my troops in good cover I skipped their active turns and just let them reactive shoot the enemeies as they moved into their sight ranges. By doing htis I kept them in cover and well protected and when the tank showed up I had so many command points bulit up (they carry over from phase to phase) I just used the tank and mauled everyone in one phase
If you like turn based strats I'd definately reccomend this one at least as a rental, personally I think the format gives turn based a bit more life which is a good thing.
Tim~
