Small Bites: 2 minutes with Breach & Clear on iPhone and iPad
Your first video look
Say 'hello' to Breach & Clear, an interesting new turn-based tactics game for iPhone and iPad from Gun Media, Saturday Morning RPG creator Mighty Rabbit, and the bloke who done did PR for Call of Duty.
It's all about busting down doors, killing terrorists, and having a great big bushy beard (a standard requirement for those in the US armed forces, if recent video games are any indication).
The idea is to carefully clear out some office complex in Afghanistan or a training camp in Turkey.
You start by assigning some of of your four soldiers to different entry points. Then, you tell each operative where to go, managing his path, his speed, and even the direction in which he should be facing, every step of the way.
Then, you hit the big yellow 'breach' button, and watch your plan play out.
Hopefully, if you told your men to watch all the corners, avoid blind spots, and set up flanking manoeuvres, you'll murder all the terrorists without getting shot yourself.
Then, you'll take a few more turns until one side is dead and the other side is not dead. You should be on that last one, preferably.
The missions are always engrossing. And like in Frozen Synapse (Breach & Clear is very reminiscent of Mode 7's economical, micro-managey tactics epic), it's awesome to see your elite band of badass dudes wipe out the competition in seconds here.
Oh, and it's crushing to seem them shot to bits in the same time frame.
Back at base, you can upgrade your soldiers; kit them out with new gear and guns; customise those weapons; and buy toys like grenades, UAVs, and defibrillators.
Hopefully, you can afford all that with the money earned from missions. You can fork out for IAPs if you're short on funds, mind.
Breach & Clear is a lot of fun. Its creators have done a good job of giving you a tactical experience but in really short, sharp bursts that are perfect for mobile play.
It's definitely one to check out, though it's a fiddly little game on iPhone. So, play it on iPad... if you've got one.
Breach & Clear will go live on iOS at midnight tonight. It will storm onto Android later this summer.
