Breach 2

Science Fiction has not really had its fair share of role playing/strategy games. Basically up until now there has been Breach and Laser Squad. This is a shame since it is a field of great scope for imagination. The deficieny has been slightly redressed now with the long awaited update from Omnitrend, Breach 2. The game is set, as were Breach and the Universe series, in the world of a post-Earth Empire, with rival factions of liberated colonists in constant battles for supremacy.

The central philosophy of combat in this system revolves around a squad leader. If the squad leader is killed during a mission then, even if all objectives have been achieve, the mission has failed. Therefore the natural reaction is to protect the leader, surrounding that unit with a mobile armour of more expendable marines. In order for squad leaders to improve in all abilities and become a general super-hero, they have to practise. That means getting wet during a water landing, getting exhausted on a cross-country assault and getting shot at just about everywhere. Depending on the amount done during a successful mission the leader may improve on some abilities, and when all talents are showing an improvement there could be a promotion in it.

If you are after realism perhaps you should be looking at Dragon Force, but if a startlingly playable and in some places very taxing strategy game is what you are after then this is the one.