Bos Wars Review

Bos Wars Review

Review by Mick

The fate of the world is in your hands as you battle for control. Bos Wars places you in charge of building your base, gathering resources and obliterating the enemy. This futuristic real time strategy (RTS) game has plenty of troops and maps to keep you busy for hours. With multiplayer, campaign and custom maps, you won't soon run out of things to do.

Standard RTS Features

Bos Wars is played like most RTS games. You can play single maps against the computer, Campaign missions that follow a storyline, play online or LAN against friends. In the quick play single maps you get to choose all the options. You can choose the difficulty, how much resources you start with, and even the map. The campaign missions start with a tutorial that gets you familiarized with the various controls and how to gather resources. All the basics are covered in the tutorial. The missions in the campaign mode vary from trying to sneak across the map to the standard, build a base and eliminate the competition.

Building Options Abound

There are tons of options for building in Bos Wars. Buildings come in three categories: basic, unit and defensive. Basic buildings include power plants and vaults. Power plants are used for harvesting energy, while vaults are used for storing resources and training engineers who do the building and gathering. Unit buildings are used to construct the various types of war and transport units you will need. Buildings like the training camp and aircraft factory allow you to produce fighting units.

Resource Production

All the construction requires two resources, magma and energy. These two resources can each be harvested in two ways. Manual harvesting is done by engineers (magma is harvested from rocks while energy is harvested from trees). The other option is to build buildings that generate resources. Power plants generate energy, and magma can be harvested from hot spots by placing a magma pump on top. A display at the top of the screen will tell you how fast you are generating resources and also how fast you are using resources.

Another bonus this game offers is a map editor. You have the ability to create your own maps and set up whatever scenarios you want.

Mediocre Graphics

The graphics aren't the best in this game but don't detract from it either. The graphics and art are very similar to the “Command and Conquer: Red Alert” and other such early RTS games. Each unit is clearly distinguishable from another by color and shape. The sound effects work well with the game and add to the battle. The tanks and guns all sound appropriate and make it seem like there is really a battle going on.

A Couple Drawbacks

There are only a few drawbacks to this game. First, there is only one faction to play. You can change the color you are, but other than that everything remains the same. All teams will be building the same units. The next thing is the campaign missions, they can be excruciatingly hard. The first mission has you try to sneak across the map that is littered with gun turrets. Since you have no way to detect them, the only way to find them is when you come across them. Most of the time that is instant death.

Conclusion - A Great Free RTS

With plenty of units and base defense to build, you can play however you want. The campaign is very challenging, but will give you something to shoot for. Creating your own maps will allow you to be as creative with games as you want. A tutorial at the beginning will teach anyone who wants to play. All this combined makes a great game that you will get hours of enjoyment out of. With this being a free download this is more than worth the download.