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Arena Wars 2 (PC) artwork

Arena Wars 2 (PC) review


"The single player “campaign” is really boring, the basic gameplay concept is shallow, and with no multiplayer saving grace...nobody will want or should want to play this game."

Kept It Simple
Arena Wars II is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game that removes pretty much all the elements of an RTS except the unit building. You have the ability to choose from 6 different units to build with a set supply cap. During the game, you’ll earn experience which can lead to you upgrading unit types or your supply cap. The objective of the game is basically to capture the flag three times to win the game. Annnddddd...that’s pretty much it. It isn’t a complicated formula and ends up making for a pretty shallow game. They offer single and multiplayer across 10 maps. However, the single player “campaign” is just you skirmishing with the computer on the 10 maps with no storyline or real incentive to play.



Battle Bots
This game was undoubtedly made for multiplayer madness. Unfortunately, absolutely NOBODY plays this game (I, literally, sat in queue for over an hour trying to get matched with somebody...and ended up just quitting out of frustration). So, unless you have some mates to have some fun with you, you’ll just be stuck in the single player mode...and boy, oh boy, is that mode boring! First of all, the game has 5 different difficulties to select from...but you have to win your right to play against the harder ones...ON EACH MAP! Yes, even if you beat the hardest difficulty, “Insane,” on one map, you’ll have to start at “Novice” on another map if you haven’t already bested the computer there. WHY? Okay, Okay...this isn’t so bad as long as the AI is decent...but it isn’t decent...it is atrocious! The AI is not only stupid, but highly exploitable. It almost always sends its units in a single file line, will rarely attack you if you are attacking it outside of its designated attack objective, and doesn’t know how to destroy destroyable terrain. I never even had to break a sweat against the “Insane” AI. All of this really leads to an extremely boring single player mode.

It is sad, but another really glaring issue with this game is also its lack of support and compatibility with a lot of people’s computers. I could not get this game to work at first and took to the forums to try and find some help. Along the way I discovered that I was far from the first person with my problem...others, as far back as TWO years ago at the game’s release, have had my same problem. Unfortunately, the developers have stopped supporting the game and everybody is on their own to fend for themselves. The fact that such a large portion of people have issues running this game and nobody receives support is really just unfair in my mind.

Arena Wars 2 (PC) image


Arena Bore II
I bashed this game a lot because I really did not have a good experience with it. However, I will say that people who have had the pleasure of playing some multiplayer have really enjoyed it. It’s really plain to see that this game was solely made with multiplayer in mind and easy to understand why you wouldn’t like it if you haven’t played it. However, I feel that the majority of players won’t get to experience multiplayer with the lack of community coupled onto the fact that it just doesn’t work or is really hard to get to work on a noticeable portion of people’s computers. With that said, Arena Wars II is a 3/10. The single player “campaign” is really boring, the basic gameplay concept is shallow, and with no multiplayer saving grace...nobody will want or should want to play this game. I’d only recommend this to people who find it on sale AND have buddies that already have the game working and want to play with them. Otherwise, save yourself from this mundane monstrosity.



Never3ndr's avatar
Community review by Never3ndr (July 08, 2014)

Retro-Gaming Enthusiast!

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