

The end result is that Squad Leader is really a chore to play. And finally, the very outdated square movement grid is often very limiting, particularly in the way that it restricts vehicles. The game lacks basic features like dynamic path indication you have to actually click on your destination to learn what path your units will take to get there. The unit animations are jerky and awkward. The color scheme is too homogenous, and it leads to difficulty locating units, difficulty deciding if movement paths are blocked or not, and difficulty evaluating lines of sight. In fact, they are more than ugly: They're intrusive and detrimental to gameplay. Battles are fought over a variety of terrain that ranges from beaches to dense forest, but the bland 2D graphics lack any sort of visual impact. It's very similar to the system found in the X-COM and Jagged Alliance games. Soldiers can walk, kneel, crawl, throw grenades, and perform all the actions you expect of them by spending action points. Unlike in the Jagged Alliance series, none of the game personalities ever becomes memorable. Squad Leader makes an attempt to give these men distinct personalities, but without any unique voice-overs, they end up simply being an amalgamation of attributes with an uninteresting portrait.
#Squad leader game plus#
For each mission, you select a squad - actually, only five soldiers plus several leaders - from a pool of available troops that include specialized units, like medics. Squad Leader lets you lead American, German, or British soldiers through a variety of missions that comprise a campaign, or through individual scenarios. At the same time, Squad Leader is also much too cumbersome and outdated to appeal to those who like the concept of tactical-level World War II combat games.

The result won't appeal to fans of the board game. Unfortunately, its developer, Random Games, apparently just took its nearly 3-year-old game Soldiers at War, made some minor adjustments to it, and slapped a new name on the box. It's a turn-based World War II combat game with a variety of missions and a cast of characters you're supposed to grow fond of. The computer game has none of the detail or complexity of its namesake, although the basic idea behind the computer version of Squad Leader is a sound one. The original Squad Leader is a wargame in which the basic unit represented is a squad of 12 men however, in MicroProse's Squad Leader, each unit represents one soldier. Although the box reads "Avalon Hill's Squad Leader," MicroProse's new tactical-level World War II computer game has nothing in common with the famous tabletop wargame except the title.
