Well, what a surprise. Future Tactics: The Uprising is a budget game, but it’s also original and shows creativity on the part of the developer. There seems to be an unwritten rule that budget titles must be sub-standard, but this one dares to be different and the resulting game is so refreshing in a market usually inhabited by drones of second-rate titles. You see, Future Tactics isn’t bad, nor is it excellent, but it’s different and proud to be it.

Essentially, Future Tactics is a turn based strategy game where characters fight it out on a battlefield, a bit like Worms. Players take control of a group of fighters in a world where the Creatures have taken over and wiped out most of humanity. It’s your job to guide Low and his family through 19 missions in the game’s Story Mode, where they must survive the alien onslaught. It’s not the most original of starts, but what follows sets the game apart from the competition.

The battle system is the heart of the game. Here, each side takes it in turns to select their troops, move them around, shoot and so on. You can run around and fire in any order, so long as you don’t go over the limit that your character has. There’s no strict ‘movement points’ system; simply an illuminated line around the points where you’re allowed to travel. At the end of each turn, you have the option to heal, rest or shield yourself from enemy fire.

Firing itself comes in two forms; direct and indirect. With a line-of-sight weapon such as a pistol, you’re sent into first person viewpoint, looking through a target. The reticle moves around on its own and you must use the cursor keys to correct the aim. The challenge begins here, since the aim continuously moves around in an unruly fashion, making getting an aim a feat of luck and skill. Once you’ve selected the rough area you want to shoot in, a line passes across the screen and the nearer it is to the centre when you press shoot, the more accurate your weapon is. A second line then appears and this fully calibrates the shot. Indirect fire is governed by a map view in which you again have to time a press of the fire button for both range and direction. It sounds complicated, but makes aiming far more interesting than most lock-on mechanics that you see in other games.

Interestingly, all of the terrain is destructible, with chunks of the landscape disappearing and objects flying through the air after every shot. This brings a subtle tactical element into play, as you can slow down enemies with a well placed crater or bring down a catapult by destroying the cliff beneath it. The physics that underlie the system are solid and consistent, but continuous battering of the terrain can make it impossible for you to get to your objectives.

The enemy A.I. isn’t quite as it could be, but it incorporates a line-of-sight communication system which makes character positioning important. If one opponent can see you, he tells any of his teammates that he can see, indicated by waves of blue light passing around the battlefield. This means that if you can split them up, you can disorientate your enemies, which can prove vital when you’re outnumbered and outgunned.

Future Tactics‘ most distinguishing feature is its visuals. Sharp, distinct and flowing with colour, they give the game a unique look which works well when you see it in motion. The levels are varied and well designed to suit the game mechanic, with plenty of hills, rivers and rocks to climb about on. The cutscenes use the main graphics engine, telling the story before each mission well. The camera is well placed, zooming in whenever you fire to capture the battles in a cinematic fashion. On the audio front, the music is catchy and the voice acting is good, but it is repeated too often for my liking. The game’s presentation is far better than many budget games, that’s for sure, but it’s really the lifespan that lets it down.

With only 19 mission totaling about 10 - 20 hours of gameplay, the Story Mode won’t last long. There is a Battle Mode where you can play against a friend or the computer, but online multiplayer is sadly lacking. This is where Future Tactics would have been superb, with its turn based gameplay and simple graphics ideally suited to lag-free Internet play.

However quirky and cute Future Tactics may be, it’s really its lack of ambition that lets it down. It does things differently and contains some nice touches like fast forwarding cutscenes videoplayer-style, but the game’s scope isn’t enough to warrant a purchase, even at this reduced price. It would have been nice to see the battles tied into some larger campaign, like the boardgame Risk. The Total War series does this perfectly, tying intense tactical battles to an overall strategic viewpoint, which increases the playability and lifespan immensely. The game isn’t bad by any means, but it seems that while it makes advances in some areas, it slips up equally in others.