Massive Assault: Phantom Renaissance Review

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It is surprising to see Wargaming to be actual developers of this title. A company such massive being responsible for a game this tiny. It reminds me that huge companies often have a humble beginnings. First this and then that sorry looking F2P World of Tanks open beta. This game comes from a different era which even Wargaming itself would want to forget as they do not feature, support or advertise their own ‘beloved’ game. Probably for a good reason too.

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I tried demo of this game long time ago. I remember that I was impressed. I loved the idea of secret allies where you can have secret alliances which you could use to deceive your opponent. I did liked how smoothly game played. However, coming back now it seems that past me was just a stupid child. As all stupid children, I allowed my imagination to run wild with what these ‘secret allies’ were without being able to actually play them. Gameplay itself was only good, because there weren’t any alternatives. It is one of those games which people might remember fondly due to nostalgia and speak BS how good it is then in fact, it is just bad by today’s standards.

Massive Assault plays as a board game at its core. It seems simplistic and ill suited for PC format. There are countless design problems with this formula and it just feels simplistic for a PC game. I was felt wanting more from it, because even judging by board game standards, gameplay has its issues.

 

        Secret Allies

• It sounds like a cool idea. I was fascinated by the possibilities as a kid. You have a diplomacy system where neutral or enemies can be your actual allies and turn on you at an instant. That was what I was imagining them to be back then and why I came back to play this game again. In reality, you merely choose additional cities which are yours. These cities then will give you money which you burn for initial deployments. Often you cannot have them in your own island or nearby. Gameplay then devolves into building turrets to slow down and hopefully inflict minimal loses on an enemy and its overwhelming force which wants to capture your allies. It is inevitable and there is nothing you can do about it. It captures your allies and get resources and gameplay from that point devolves into two areas which had cleared each other through overwhelming numbers mobilizing everything into a big clash. There is no depth to your allies and they might as welll be removed from the game. It is a cool idea on paper which might work slightly better on a board game.
  
  Units Overflowing
• Gameplay is completely stagnant. You destroy the frontline and enemy just fills it up with cannon fodder again. It can last for entire game. It feels really cheap and makes gameplay very cheesy. You can capture enemy cities only if you rush them. Later on enemy AI will just replenish every tile which you clear with new units. Since your units cannot shoot and move, it is impossible to capture those tiles. Entire frontline will be full of stuck units and no matter if you destroy all of the enemies, AI will just repopulate the entire province to the brim with cheap cannon fodder. This results in a really bad gameplay where you cannot progress despite absolutely crushing your enemies.
  
  Death Timer
• Well, it is not a literal timer. It is finite amount of money which you can spend from each city. A fixed amount is generated each turn for a certain amount of turns. This puts a hard cap of how much you can produce and capturing cities kinda pointless. It is pointless, because you will never be able to muster enough of a force to capture it before its resources runs out and then it is kinda pointless to control it anyways. Gameplay devolves around the most efficient combination of units. Usually it is artillery which dominates the battlefield, but planes and walkers are also good while you deploy bikes or tanks at the front to soak up damage. There is no depth to the gameplay neither from economical nor military perspective. Its entire economic system feels so simplistic that it could outright be used for board game, except that you end up controlling so many units that you clog the entire map. Then you just proceed to sacrifice everything in a meatgrinder.

There is nothing good in this game. Campaign is silly. World domination modes are tiresome. Skirmish maps are simplistic. If you want a good story, it is not here. If you want good gameplay, it is not here. If you want a challenge, it is not here. There is nothing of interest in this game. On top of it, it has several issues.

 

        Cheating AI

• Enemy AI not only gets a lot more resources on normal difficulty levels, but they are not playing by the same rules as you do. Enemy can deploy their troops globally whille you cannot. You can only deploy your troops at the city where they are purchased and surrounding tiles. Enemy can deploy them at any ally at will. Enemy can deploy units from captured city while you can only gain bounty from capturing the city. Enemy AI cheats so much hard that it is impossible to play against it without constantly rolfstomping it. Forget any tactics or experimentation. This game is solely about cheesing or losing.
  
  In need of Remaster
• Game suffers from same issues as many old games. It hardly runs if runs at all. Many things are broken or not there in a first place. It is missing sound effects. Game crashes from time to time. It is not a good experience to play it.

Is Massive Assault: Phantom Renaissance. Every aspect of this game is painfully mediocre no matter how you would look at it. Does the game run well? No. Does it run badly? No. It is somewhere in between. Is gameplay fun? No. Is it painful? No. This can be applied to every aspect of the game. It is pointless, unexciting game with no redeeming qualities for a player to go and check it out. I played this game for you that you could save your money and more importantly – time.

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