Surprising amount of depth for a game based on the Terminator franchise. Mechanically, it's somewhere between Men of War, Company of Heroes, Wargame, Jagged Alliance 2, Ground Control, World In Conflict and Act of War. Probably closest towards Men of War in terms of scale.

All your units have ammo for their weapons, with vehicles having directional armour and components, as well as fuel, spare parts for field repairs, and an ammo pool for infantry to rearm from. Infantry squads also have ammo, and can equip a variety of support weapons. All of which persists between missions, from the very beginning; Ammo, fuel and spare parts are replenished from a limited supply; you need to actually acquire special weapons to save them.

Infantry casualties must be replaced between missions from the civilians you rescue during them or from disbanding other squads - with additional squads and new vehicles being awarded for completing side objectives or just found in the missions. Vehicles must be crewed by troops trained to do so - who you can freely dismount at-will if you need to crew another vehicle or avoid making one a target; many can carry passengers with a specific number of seats rather than squad slots. In the same way, buildings are garrisonable and have decent destruction. Projectiles are physical and must actually connect with their target to do damage. Armoured vehicles are very resistant, if not impervious to small arms.

The game certainly has its flaws; it's a little unpolished on the interface/controls/responsivity side of things. There are balance and pacing issues, with the 3rd mission being a huge difficulty spike - and pulling your attention six different ways at once. Make sure to get that Bradley going the second you have control over it, and, and start pulling your squads back to the central bunker and other defensive positions within the base before the game prompts you to; use engineers to set up mines in every choke-point behind the initial frontline. Get your armour crews to the southeast corner as soon as you can afford to give up the repair bay/supply depot area. In general, the more squads you manage to pull out, the better off you'll be for the rest of the campaign.

Most weapons are purely lethal to infantry, and it's hard to go through any given mission without losing a few from each squad. Vehicles can die just as quickly, and armour facing doesn't seem to account for much on the scale of things. The maps consist mostly of a lot of open ground which even the machines' most basic armoured vehicle will dominate - you're pretty much forced to crawl anywhere there's an enemy presence, to get in range before engaging and to do so safely. Unless your name's Sun Tzu I'd recommend against playing on the hardest difficulty.

Most special weapons types can only be used by specific squad types, when the majority of them are something that - while they might not be proficient with, they could probably figure out and put to use if it came down to it.

There's only 2 infantry formations - tactical blob, and line - and wider-spaced variants of each. There's been a few situations where a staggered column or wedge wouldn't have gone amiss - but more than anything else, I wish it had a more CoH or MoW-style cover system, where troops conform to the terrain features at least as much as their formations.

Skirmish mode is very undercooked with only 4(?) maps, with a couple having versions for both modes. The domination mode ends the instant one team or the other controls all the points, which are themselves captured just as quickly with a unit standing on it.

What I like most is that past the first 3 missions, you get a lot of choices to make - speaking to characters to get quests within the mission, and multiple ways to complete the main objectives - with side objectives being meaningful and consequential.

Voice acting ranges from decent to hammy, but never offensively so. Unit barks are good and convincing, as well as informative - and you can even overhear conversations between troops like in CoH. The game has a decent notification system for when a squad runs out of a given ammo type, takes a casualty or is wiped; ditto with vehicles being immobilised or having their weapon knocked out.

If you like the Terminator franchise or just the idea of real-time-tactics with a metagame against a robotic enemy, it's a pretty easy recommend.

Surprising amount of depth for a game based on the Terminator franchise. Mechanically, it's somewhere between Men of War, Company of Heroes, Wargame, Jagged Alliance 2, Ground Control, World In Conflict and Act of War. Probably closest towards Men of War in terms of scale. All your units have ammo for their weapons, with vehicles having directional armour and components, as well as fuel, spare parts for field repairs, and an ammo pool for infantry to rearm from. Infantry squads also have ammo, and can equip a variety of support weapons. All of which persists between missions, from the very beginning; Ammo, fuel and spare parts are replenished from a limited supply; you need to actually acquire special weapons to save them. Infantry casualties must be replaced between missions from the civilians you rescue during them or from disbanding other squads - with additional squads and new vehicles being awarded for completing side objectives or just found in the missions. Vehicles must be crewed by troops trained to do so - who you can freely dismount at-will if you need to crew another vehicle or avoid making one a target; many can carry passengers with a specific number of seats rather than squad slots. In the same way, buildings are garrisonable and have decent destruction. Projectiles are physical and must actually connect with their target to do damage. Armoured vehicles are very resistant, if not impervious to small arms. The game certainly has its flaws; it's a little unpolished on the interface/controls/responsivity side of things. There are balance and pacing issues, with the 3rd mission being a huge difficulty spike - and pulling your attention six different ways at once. Make sure to get that Bradley going the second you have control over it, and, and start pulling your squads back to the central bunker and other defensive positions within the base before the game prompts you to; use engineers to set up mines in every choke-point behind the initial frontline. Get your armour crews to the southeast corner as soon as you can afford to give up the repair bay/supply depot area. In general, the more squads you manage to pull out, the better off you'll be for the rest of the campaign. Most weapons are purely lethal to infantry, and it's hard to go through any given mission without losing a few from each squad. Vehicles can die just as quickly, and armour facing doesn't seem to account for much on the scale of things. The maps consist mostly of a lot of open ground which even the machines' most basic armoured vehicle will dominate - you're pretty much forced to crawl anywhere there's an enemy presence, to get in range before engaging and to do so safely. Unless your name's Sun Tzu I'd recommend against playing on the hardest difficulty. Most special weapons types can only be used by specific squad types, when the majority of them are something that - while they might not be proficient with, they could probably figure out and put to use if it came down to it. There's only 2 infantry formations - tactical blob, and line - and wider-spaced variants of each. There's been a few situations where a staggered column or wedge wouldn't have gone amiss - but more than anything else, I wish it had a more CoH or MoW-style cover system, where troops conform to the terrain features at least as much as their formations. Skirmish mode is very undercooked with only 4(?) maps, with a couple having versions for both modes. The domination mode ends the instant one team or the other controls all the points, which are themselves captured just as quickly with a unit standing on it. What I like most is that past the first 3 missions, you get a lot of choices to make - speaking to characters to get quests within the mission, and multiple ways to complete the main objectives - with side objectives being meaningful and consequential. Voice acting ranges from decent to hammy, but never offensively so. Unit barks are good and convincing, as well as informative - and you can even overhear conversations between troops like in CoH. The game has a decent notification system for when a squad runs out of a given ammo type, takes a casualty or is wiped; ditto with vehicles being immobilised or having their weapon knocked out. If you like the Terminator franchise or just the idea of real-time-tactics with a metagame against a robotic enemy, it's a pretty easy recommend.