Free RTS browser title LittleWarGame a big value

I can still recall my younger days playing Real-Time Strategy games Command and Conquer and Warcraft 2, or getting into my dad’s turn-based games like Panzer General, Colonization and Civilization. And despite not owning a gaming PC, I’m still a big fan of the genre with titles like Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War and Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 – Yuri’s Revenge still installed on my laptop. A few friends and I still, to this day, play Halo Wars on Xbox 360 and never have any trouble finding opponents despite having been released in 2009.

And while I sit and hope that developers will port PC RTS titles to the PS4 (I’m not holding my breath though), I can at least play LittleWarGame online and remember the good old days. LittleWarGame is a free-to-play, browser-based RTS title – meaning there’s nothing to download and nothing to buy, just go to www.littlewargame.com and start playing.

I’ve played a handful of matches on LWG so far and its overall quality really impressed me. Being that it’s only a free-to-play browser game, its level of depth in terms of creatable units and structures is fairly shallow but this is made up for by the numerous levels offered and the ability to play against computer controlled players or other human players. Perhaps most interesting aspect of LWG is that it comes with a map editor to create your own landscapes – though there are plenty of premade maps to choose from as well.

LWG reminds me a lot of Blizzard RTS titles like Warcraft and Starcraft in its presentation (but more Warcraft since it’s a fantasy setting). The screen layout, character/building creation screens and unit grouping schemes are all very similar so if you’ve experienced Warcraft or Starcraft before, you’ll be able to jump right into LWG.  There are only a handful of structures to create, 3-4 military units (soldier, rifleman, mage and catapult) and only one resource to gather. You can make use of hotkeys and you’re also able to group units and the unit cap also seems to be around 90-100.

The visuals are old-school 8-bit and the music is appropriate for a fantasy setting. LWG runs very well too, keeping up a nice frame-rate even when there are numerous characters on the screen at once. And while I really liked the visuals for the most part, I found that some structures look a bit too similar to one another and were sometimes hard to tell apart when looking to make units. Similarly, when engaging an opponent, I sometimes found it hard to differentiate between my units and my enemies, since all the sprites look relatively the same.

After you finish a game, there’s even a post-game report with stats to show your dominance with options to save a replay of the completed game. There’s even a stat which keeps track of Actions Per Minute (an important stat for pro RTS players).

Overall, I’m pretty impressed by LittleWarGame. It’s fun, it plays well and it’s cheap – there’s not much more you can ask of a browser game. And considering all the various built in maps and ability to play other humans online, LWG has a lot more to offer than most browser games you can find online.