Shock Tactics - Review @ BleedingCool

BleedingCool reviewed the turn-based strategy game Shock Tactics:

If ‘Starship Troopers’ Had A Purpose, ‘Shock Tactics’ Might Be It

Shock Tactics is a turn-based strategy game where you will command soldiers to achieve certain missions. You’re part of the Free Space Pioneers who explore new planets and help protect them. Essentially, you look for new alien tech while protecting colonization and mining facilities from alien threats, as well as rival troops from the Imperial Consortium. There’s a lot to be explored and protected and none of it comes easy. Some missions are simple like killing all the enemies and staying alive. Others not so much as they become time-sensitive and require quick and decisive action to make them happen.

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Overall, Shock Tactics is fairly well done and gives a nice variety of issues to overcome as an individual and a team. Aside from the problems I had above, there’s a lot to be discovered in the game as you wind your way to the eventual goal of having successful missions for the company and unraveling what the aliens are doing on this hostile world. As well as what the rival factions are trying to pull off. Highly recommend for people who enjoy these games, but I also acknowledge that it may not be everyone’s taste.

Score: 8/10

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More information.

45% positive review on Steam so far...

That's what I also saw, screeg. I really wanna give this game a try, a like. But Steam reviewers are giving it scores way lesser than gaming sites.
As of now , it is hard to me to have a solid opinion about this game.

I did buy the game at release and I like it a lot. I read the steam reviews after playing and I don't know but most bad reviews I find unfounded. Most bad reviews did not play the game a lot, most were under 3 hours(you don't see a lot in this time). One bad review mentioned no loot or upgrades. Yes the no loot is true, but you can upgrade your equipment later, but you don't get there in 3 hours. I read in the Forums a lot of complains from people who did not understand mechanics or UIelements. I realy don't understand the hate this game gets.
It is an indie game yes. The optimisation is poor, ui is clunky. The graphics are not great but highly functional. They cut some content they showed in the beta 2 years ago, the developers get a lot of hate because of this.
The strategic layer is a lot simpler than Xcom but I find the tactical layer far supperior. I like the mechanics a lot. You have three HP bars -> Life, Armor, Shields. Weapons are good against different HP bars(one weapon for example does 8 max dam vs Life, 16 max Damage against armor, 10 max dam against shields), so its important that you choose the right weapon vs the right enemy. Every weapon has a number of shots, each shot can hit and damage. You have ideal ranges for weapons. for example you hit better at long range with sniper rifles. An assault rifle can shoot over long distances but does not hit well then and so on. I am having a blast with this game. The tactical battles are truly challenging in a good way(I'm playing on the second highest difficulty) not an unfair way like in XCOM (pod activation). The missions are all handcrafted maps with handplaces enemies(they don't appear from nowere). You get a lot of missions with an tactical dilema. In one map I just played you have to save some guys in a base. There are two ways into the base, through an open field and a longer heavily obstructed way with lot of cover and some enemies you don't see at the start. You have to options, you rush through the open field to save the guys or you take the longer way. But the open field is surveyed by 2 snipers. (I finished this mission with one heavy going through the open to draw fire away from the guys you have to save, my other guys did go the long way)
Its a long time since I saw tactical dilemmas like this in a game. They were not in XCom 1 and 2.
AI is okay, and if you do mistakes it punishes you.

Your guys level up when they get xp. After building some training buildings you can train them to give them skills. On Level 3 you unlock your first skill slot and you can choose from a number of skills. You have more options than in xcom and you can tailor your guys a lot more to do specific tasks. In the higher levels where you can choose between different weapons, armor and skills, the game opens up quite a bit, so you really can customize your troops. At the beginning the game seems a bit boring, you only have one weapon type, one armortype and one standardskill you get for your class. And the enemy variety is low. This two open up later too but is not as good as xcom. As far as I played.

So yes I like this game a lot. Not perfect bot nowhere near as bad as some reviews make this game.

@Khayyin

Thanks! I was hoping some Watcher would put forth their impressions and illuminate things a little about this game.

Considering how the Steam review system works, products with less than 50 pc positive reviews are quite rare. Either this product is so bad that even the steam bias toward positive reviews does not save it or there is some other motivations to downgrade the product.

Khayyin said:

Most bad reviews did not play the game a lot, most were under 3 hours(you don't see a lot in this time).

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Irrelevant. Players who spent hours to end with a negative review either have too few hours to make an assessment or too many hours for their review to be credible (how they could play that many hours if the product was as bad as they reported)

One change I would like for steam review is min play time (unless the product is so poor such cannot be reached). Perhaps if there are reviews with > x hours then reviews with less than x hours should no longer count ?

you said:

One change I would like for steam review is min play time (unless the product is so poor such cannot be reached). Perhaps if there are reviews with > x hours then reviews with less than x hours should no longer count ?

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IMO that would not work. If you don't like the game would you play more than "x" hours? I don't think so. There are some games that I bought that are so boring that I can't even complete an hour of gameplay. It's like torture to play those games.

So there is this game that I played for 40min on gog. I'm telling you that those 40min were really boring. Would you disconsider my opinion and buy the game anyway?

ps. I don't like to waste money, so I really *try* to play those games.

One reason for lots of reviews with low playtime is the 2 hour gate for getting a refund. If I play a game for an hour and 45 minutes and so far it's garbage, I'm not playing another 9 hours just so my review will be more credible.