Remember those tiny enemies I told you all about? You know, the little dudes who zerg rush your troops and gang rape your tanks? Well, they are so small, you can't command your units to target them. Ok, maybe it's possible, but I sure haven't been able to do it. So, the best strategy I've come up with to deal with these little guys is to put a massive buffer of infantry in front of my tanks, tell all of my units to hold position, and watch as they get blown away before they can even get close to the tanks I have. Keep this in mind while I describe the second mission.
In the second mission, you're given the task of defending a set of Russian villages from the Martian onslaught. (why dictator Stalin would care about such small villages in the back country of Soviet Russia is beyond me). Also, on a random note, Stalin sends you on this mission with lots of hugs and kisses. No joke, at the bottom of the briefing, right before his name is signed, it's got like 6 XOs. So, the mission starts with you in a small village, and you have to immediately position your units for the coming onslaught. After being rushed, you're told that you have to liberate a village that's directly horizontal to you. All in all, the mission is proceeding according to plan and has also introduced me (or reintroduced me) to the other large species of alien, which look like some sort of giant, bipedal, blue Elephants. While the Toy Story alien dudes seem to be anti-tank weapons, these guys are anti personnel, shooting fire from...well somewhere on their body...
Anyway, I had defended the two villages and everything seemed to be going according to plan. I'm then told that I have to liberate two villages at the lower part of the map. This is where I ran into problems. You see, between your force and those villages, are numerous large martins, supported by hundreds of the little small martins. The first time, I tried to rush one of the villages directly with my massive force...it didn't end well...After that, I decided to try and slowly creep down the middle, taking a little bit of land at a time, and letting those small annoying martians get owned before I dealt with the larger guys. This worked once as I was able to liberate one of the villages, however I was so low on money I couldn't replenish my force to take the other village which seems to be harder to get into then Fort Knox. This isn't because the opponent is some super strategist either, no it's because I can't target the individual small martian guys since they are too small and move too fast.
I finally decided to try taking the other village with a direct assault and that almost succeeded, however, when I tried to reposition my units so I could sweep across the bottom of the map, my Tanks began to randomly explode for no reason. I really don't know what happened. It didn't look like I had moved them onto a patch that damages them over time nor was their anyone attacking me at that time. The only thing I can think of is that I was close to the edge of the map, and this is there sick, twisted way of keeping you inside the map: by destroying any unit that even tries to leave. While that might be semi-accurate, it's a horrible game mechanic since it makes operating around the edge of the map impossible.
But small units and randomly exploding tanks weren't the only game play issues I noticed in this mission. Since you're entire economy is reliant on killing enemy units, a mission like this, where you have to defend an area and then wipe out everything on the map, is next to impossible since you are guaranteed to be out of money when you need it the most. So, you then have to try and make some sort of risky move to get more, however that always goes wrong and you end up failing.
Needless to say, I stopped after my tanks randomly blew up. Not even hugs and kisses from Stalin could convince me to continue playing after that. I may play more tonight and try and actually beat this thing, I may wait until tomorrow. Part 3 will be posted whenever I play the game again.
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