Sure, it's not the flashiest game in the world, but the budget-priced Laser Squad Nemesis delivers anyway.
Laser Squad Nemesis revolves around a simultaneous turn system, akin to the recent Combat Mission series. You can give orders to your troops, but each order takes an estimated amount of time. Each turn consists of 10 seconds of simultaneous action by both sides of the match. Following the processing of the turn, the player(s) can view the results and then issue orders for the next turn. When the orders are finished, they are processed by Codo's software.
LSN's order system is very robust, yet also very easy to learn for even the new strategy player. The order method is divided into actions(such as targeting or healing), rules of engagement, and movement. Using these functions, you can make a unit move to a certain location, shoot an enemy or piece of terrain, and/or aim at a specific area to increase firing frequency. For all of these orders, units will follow the rules of engagement and movement that you set. For example, you can have a unit move to a location and lay down covering fire on a window, but also have the unit pull back if it sees any enemies on its approach. This impressive system allows for deep tactical planning and anticipation that makes for a very satisfying strategy gaming experience.
The game is played by four different races. The Marines and Machina are ranged combat powerhouses that focus on squad tactics and unit preservation to achieve victory. The Spawn, on the other hand, are your stereotypical insectoid alien race that relies on sheer numbers and the Queen unit, which can devour the bodies of fallen enemies and lay eggs that hatch into new combat units. The Greys provide an even more radical gameplay change with their fragile yet extremely potent and damaging array of "Roswell" aliens. The races provide varied gameplay experiences and yet manage to be very balanced. There are very few noticable advantages or disadvantages to any one side. On the downside, each race only gets six different units to play with.
The $20 package comes with 20 challenging, complex single-player scenarios as well as a hotseat gameplay mode for offline play. This is probably more than worth the purchase price alone, considering the depth of gameplay to be had in Laser Squad Nemesis. But the game also ships with 3 months of free play on Codo's online service. You can manage several games by e-mail, and each ranked win or loss will factor into your ranking score (starting at a base 1000). You'll need to pay $4 a month after the three month subscription runs out, but by this point, you will have either had so much fun with your first three months that $4 seems like pocket change to you, or have had enough by the time your subscription runs out. Overall, the game holds its own very well for its budget price.
The game's presentation does not hold up so well. The graphics are unimpressive, but at the same time serviceable and certainly not ugly. Mission briefings for the single-player game are brief and uninformative, but the missions themselves unfold nicely. There is very little sound in the game overall except for some cheaply done battle effects and a beeping interface; no voicework or cutscene dialogue is included. This really shouldn't matter too much to the hard-core strategy fan. but be warned that if you like a little flash with your strategy game, you won't find it here.
Nevertheless, Laser Squad Nemesis is a very worthy game for anyone with even a passing enjoyment of tactical strategy. The game is great fun online as well as in single-player, and the sub-$20 price tag is very attractive to say the least. It's not the most graphically stunning game of the year, but who needs it to be? LSN will be a strategy gamer's addiction for far longer than its budget price suggests.