TASTEE: Lethal Tactics

From the school of Frozen Synapse, a plan-and-go turn based tactical game which is going to shine in multiplayer.

A turn-based tactical effort that manages to deftly marry cheeky style with small scale strategy, TASTEE Lethal Tactics might not be the most groundbreaking effort around but its charm and accessibility make for a compellingly fun prospect.

TASTEE: Lethal Tactics is a perfect upgrade of already consolidated mechanics. It doesn’t offer major innovations, but its cartoonish graphics and characters’ unique abilities give it a unique twist.

It’s fair to say that TASTEE is probably one of the most tactically fulfilling games on the market at the moment, but it’s also incredibly good fun and is not as complicated as it might at first seem.

TASTEE scratches a tactical itch in a Dark Souls-difficult, but ultimately rewarding way. The asymmetric multiplayer is unique in the genre, offering a new way to play. If you are a fan of deep strategy, ignore the goofy name and check out TASTEE: Lethal Tactics.

The gameplay dynamics of TASTEE are pretty much the same as Frozen Synapse, which is definitely a good thing, together with a cartoonish art direction and a user-friendly UI. The main campaign is a good challenge for everyone, but the best comes with the multiplayer modes.

In all ways well-designed tactical turn-based strategy is perhaps too close to Frozen Synapse, and it suffers with bugged controls, but for the fans of the genre it is still an obligation.

An uncompromising game to get into, never once changing gears from its difficult plateau. It’s firm but mostly fair, where your failures are usually based around that one lapse into laziness. But when you play back your success, and see this 20-minute incremental strategy turn into 40 seconds of ferocious B-movie action, it’s a violent ballet that even John Woo would be proud of.

TASTEE: Lethal Tactics may not be the most welcoming strategy game around, but once you manage to crawl your way over the seemingly insurmountable hurdle it initially places in front of you, there’s a great sense of satisfaction when you finally start racking up those victories.

If you do have the patience to spend five minutes setting up your turns, and dig the idea of taking a team of mercenaries into battle, then the game’s concept, aesthetics and complexity will give you a challenge that you have a right to brag about for years to come.

A respectable effort in turn-based strategy, but if you’re after a story and a welcoming hand, you’ve come to the wrong place.

It's an intelligent, difficult game with a high barrier of entry, and without patience, you might not see how great it can be. But once you see the layers hidden beneath the surface, Tastee Lethal Tactics becomes an intricate game of cutthroat poker. It just takes a bit of frustration to buy in.

The concept of TASTEE works so well that any fans of strategy games should give it a try. It needs more content, but the online modes are solid enough to make the lack of content forgivable.