Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Möbius Front '83 - alternate history tactics by Zachtronics

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
http://www.zachtronics.com/mobius-front/




https://af.gog.com/game/mobius_front_83?as=1649904300

ss_cce52182efac8e2b298ea18596a561cedc9ca4ae.1920x1080.jpg


ss_a14961e8715a55587e8ce416574a894a483d90af.1920x1080.jpg


The year is 1983 and the United States of America must defend itself from an enemy it could have never imagined— an America from an alternate universe that will stop at nothing to seize control of the country’s heartland!

In Möbius Front ‘83 you will fight tactical, turn-based battles with the cutting-edge military hardware of the early 1980s. Use every tool available -- powerful tanks, fast-moving attack helicopters, long-ranged artillery, tenacious infantry, and more -- to control the complex and rapidly-changing battlefield of the era.

Who are the “Americans” attacking America, and why? Find out in the game’s extensive single-player campaign and its fully voiced cutscenes. When you’re ready for some R&R, play a new kind of solitaire, solve Zachtronics-style puzzles, and even read the U.S. military manuals that inspired the game.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

gerey

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Feb 2, 2007
Messages
3,472
The art style looks like shit. Advanced Wars had the cartoony vibe too, but everything looked just right, if not completely proportional. The tanks here look squished.

Might be because vehicles in Advanced Wars are their own thing, while the tank here is obviously an M1.
 

Beowulf

Arcane
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
1,963
Zachtornics making a game with pew-pew puzzles? That might be interesting
 

tripedal

Savant
Joined
Feb 22, 2015
Messages
401
Location
Ultima Thule
Does the "Möbius" imply that we'll somehow be playing both sides? There's no way a Zachtronics game is just a plain tactics thing.
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,662
"Everything we have we took from someone else."

copies Advance Wars

The plot twist is that you're the weird black force to the other guys.
 

Beowulf

Arcane
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
1,963
Steam reviews are rather lukewarm so far, and seeing that they mostly come from Zachtronics fans it doesn't bode well.
The devs are reworking the first chapter, so they acknowledge that there are issues with the game at least.
Goes to the "try when on sale" bin for now, I guess.
 
Joined
Jan 9, 2011
Messages
2,727
Codex 2012 Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I played it for 1.5h, didn't like it. It's not a "Zachtronics" game in the way it feels. The fact that I don't really like wargames probably didn't help. Refunded.
 
Joined
Jul 8, 2006
Messages
2,930
have no played it yet, but I could guess that I would have issues with the idea that both sides look like they may be made up of the exact same type of units being that they seem to be mirror images of each other-even if they do vary the unit make up of each side during engagements like it appears they might. Feels like it might become too bland. However, like I said I have not played it, but that is an initial concern of mine.
 

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,945
I think making the game a puzzle would have been a better choice. Zachtonics usual puzzle approach isn't binary but giving you options in order to maximize your efficiency.And that would fit great with modern American doctrine.
Having to utilize combined arms effectively in order to get good scores could work.

This way,ugh.They don't really have the popularity of advance wars,customization of daisenryaku or easiness of indie advance clones.They literally have nothing going for them,such a shame.
Another fuckup they made is the year. Airlandbattle doctrine was a huge shift from the usual style of fighting and it is not pronounced here whateover.
 

pakoito

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
3,086
It's the second time they try to make some Strategy game and end up with a lukewarm response.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
They have become too identified with autism and now they cannot make "normal" games any longer.
 

Citizen

Guest
IDK why are they even trying to branch out into other genres. They are already the undisputed industry leader of the OCD-inducing autism simulators, should just stick to what they do best
 

jebsmoker

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 17, 2019
Messages
2,578
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In I helped put crap in Monomyth
this game has nice detail and a good cutesy aesthetic going for it, but i can't honestly recommend it. i refunded it. it wasn't the panzer general alike i thought it was.

in terms of inspiration, it takes notes from both panzer general and advanced wars, but i don't think it gets what made both of those games tick. the gameplay design doesn't feel nearly as tight
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.pcgamer.com/mobius-front-83-review/

MÖBIUS FRONT '83 REVIEW
Möbius Front '83 makes hardcore wargames easy, but not exciting.

Developer Zachtronics is known for its intricate puzzle games, but in Möbius Front '83 it's served up something very different: a modernised take on the niche genre of hardcore hex-based wargames. Even more intriguingly, Möbius Front pits the United States against its most dastardly enemy yet: the United States. No, this isn’t a fifth column uprising but a sci-fi tale of the US being invaded by an alternate reality version of itself.

At least, that’s the elevator pitch. Unfortunately, Möbius Front takes its sweet time to engage with this novel premise, with hours passing before it even acknowledges that this alternate universe exists. The first thing you’ll notice is that the opening chapter is achingly slow, doling out miserly scraps of story in the form of an interrogation of an alt-USA prisoner, alongside fun banter between low level grunts with delightful names like Private Nathan Trucks and Sergeant Benjamin Dancer. Things get more interesting in subsequent chapters as more overt sci-fi elements are introduced, but that whole first chapter is several hours long, and I can imagine a lot of players are going to drop out before things get truly interesting.

Other between-mission activities involve cribbage solitaire with plane spotter cards, reading old Cold War-era military manuals (that are real pdfs you read outside the game) and a puzzle game based around signalling that’s a little closer to Zachtronics’ usual fare. None are especially deep distractions, and I only really dipped a toe into each one before pushing forward, hoping to progress the story.

It's all just a light sprinkling of salt, then, over the meat of the tactical combat. Think of Möbius Front as an attempt to make a modernised, more mainstream version of niche hex-based wargames like Panzer Corps. So there’s no base building here, with units instead selected from a pool and deployed in waves of reinforcements. One mission might start you out with a small troop of infantry, who have to hold out long enough for a tank column to relieve them. Another might give you a big force up front, but no backup. It adds some much needed variety to battles, especially as the maps they take place on are near identical forests—at least until things get weirder in the later chapters. You might be fighting off enemies from a mirror universe, but you're not fielding identical units. Your options are different, so the alt-USA will get to play with attack helicopters for several missions before you, for instance.

Let’s talk about those units. Fans of WW2 wargames might expect their tanks to be mobile fortresses, but Möbius Front is set in the '80s, a period when the proliferation of anti-tank weaponry made armour far more vulnerable. Even the basic squad has a rocket launcher capable of taking out most vehicles in a single lucky shot, and you’ll soon learn just how quickly your tanks can go down when ambushed by some troops hiding out in the woods. By introducing a symmetrical conflict that the real '80s never had, Möbius Front gently guides players down this realisation, and towards the power of cheap anti-tank weapons like the fearsome long range TOW Jeep or Dragon anti-tank guided missile. Eventually attack helicopters arrive on the scene and quickly establish themselves as the kings of the battlefield: fast, long ranged and capable of attacking tanks and infantry with equal ease, but vulnerable to dedicated anti-air units. Despite its streamlined approach, Möbius Front does a great job depicting the transition from WW2-style mass warfare to a more modern kind of war.

Tanks still have a use, not because of their toughness but because of their mobility. They can both shoot and move, which gives them a huge advantage. Units that can’t do this, which is most of them, risk accidentally revealing an enemy that shoots them to pieces before they get their own turn. In contrast, infantry are slow moving, short ranged and surprisingly durable, especially when they hide in a forest, meaning that only adjacent units can attack them. Some of my greatest victories came from high risk helicopter insertions, dropping an infantry squad off in hostile territory, forcing the enemy to take several turns clearing them out while a tank column desperately dashed forward to relieve them. Most missions involve capturing control points or destroying a specific objective, simply destroying the enemy force is never required, so mobility really is key.

What’s impressive is just how approachable all this is—everything I’ve described here is incredibly easy to grasp. There’s no complicated action points system, every unit can either shoot or move, and the most complicated thing is remembering the handful of vehicles that can do both. Almost everything you need to know is spelled out when you click on a unit, including which weapons need a turn to set up (usually powerful long range anti-tank weapons) and which vehicles can transport infantry squads (most of them, but your tank won’t be able to shoot while soldiers ride on top of it).

Zachtronics has managed to eliminate most of the potential lows, but Möbius Front also lacks many highs. There’s plenty of challenge, but no moments where you get to feel like you've outwitted a cunning enemy or made a desperate comeback. Most battles play out more or less as you’d expect. I can’t think of a single anecdote where a heroic unit won me the day, or a lucky shot that turned things around—the bread and butter of strategy games. The emphasis on grinding out wins, coupled with the generic and disposable nature of the units, makes missions feel interchangeable. Along with the sluggish pace, this makes for a game that can please, but never truly excites, eventually dampening the urge to plough through.

THE VERDICT
74

MOBIUS FRONT '83
Möbius Front '83 makes a difficult genre easy to understand, but it lacks thrills.
 

Ezeekiel

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 19, 2016
Messages
1,783
If they wanted a game about war or fighting they should have made one in their usual style... Have the player program combat subroutines for various drone types (androids, fighters, tanks, ships... space ships, whatever)

But maybe not as a boring drone jockey, instead make the player not-skynet, or the thinking machines in a dune-like universe come back to fuck humanity up or whatever.
The pseudo-programming or similar things they usually do in their other games would be a necessary part... It's zachtronics after all.
Graphical representation of the end result would definitely be good and probably get them more sales and attention vs their older, more dry offerings.


Considering what they usually do well, it's baffling to me that they try to make some normie advance wars/battle isle -like. Without something especially zachtronics-esque about it, what the hell is the point? Where's their usual creativity?
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom