I'm always on the lookout for great Android games. Well, yesterday I stumbled across Art of War 2. Does this one qualify as “great?” Probably not. But is it worth checking out? Definitely.
I downloaded Art of War 2 (the free, “demo” version) hoping for sort of a “Command and Conquer” type experience, but on my phone. I'm very pleased to say that overall, that's what I got. It's a real-time strategy game through and through, complete with base-building and plenty of challenge. Even on the “easy” campaign setting I found myself being overwhelmed with enemy soldiers more than once.
The control scheme works pretty well for a touchscreen device, and I found it to be very intuitive. Tap building, tap arrows to choose what unit and how many to build, tap to begin training. All very straight-forward, and very streamlined. I found it to work quite well.
I read in the comments that a lot of people were experiencing sluggish performance. Either this issue has been corrected via an update, or my Epic just didn't notice it, so your mileage may vary. That's not to say that the game isn't without its quirks though. I found the music to be way too short of a clip that repeats way too quickly, and didn't much care for the tune anyway.
Also, there are no sound effects to complement the music. Fortunately, I usually play games on my phone with the sound off, anyway, and this game does ask at the very first screen if you want sound. Another thing I found odd was that, although the game gives you the ability to save your game, there's no “load game” on the main menu screen — you have to start a game before you have access to the save/load menu.
That wouldn't be that big of a deal, except that when you start a new campaign, the game auto-saves at the beginning of the level, thus over-writing your previous save. I sincerely hope I'm overlooking something, because it seems impossible to be able to pick up where you left off. I will be emailing the developer to see if I'm missing something, or if this is only true of the “demo” version.
Overall, while this game has a few annoyances, it's one of very few real-time strategy games available on Android, and I've found it mostly satisfying so far. There may be a few tweaks to iron out, but anyone craving a C&C experience on their Android phone should at least give it a shot. I've only spent a few hours with it so far, but I've enjoyed them so far. If it sounds like your cup of proverbial tea, download it from our database or scan the QR code below.
