This game was a real surprise for me. It's a survival game done right. Meaning you are not fighting zombies, pirates or monsters but hunger, the cold and looters. This War of Mine is an emotional rollercoaster. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions. There won't be enough food for everybody. Some of your survivors may freeze to death. When your supplies run out you have to scavenge, steal, loot, fight. You might be going toe to toe with trained soldiers or heavily armed thugs only wielding a kitchen knife. Is your group desperate enough to raid the local hospital or the church? A simple misunderstanding can lead to death and despair. Will you give your valuable medicine to these kids to save their mother? And if you don't have any, will you steal it for them from other survivors or trade your valuables away to get it? Doesn't sound like light-hearted fun, does it? It isn't. However, This War of Mine is one of the most intense emotional experiences I've ever had in gaming. It's very likely you'll make some decisions you won't be proud of before the war ends and not all of your survivors are expected to live through the ordeal. I'm not gonna lie, the controls take some time getting used to. That will make fights dangerous, especially in your first playthrough. You should really ponder if it is worth to risk the life of your best scavenger or if it is better to sneak past a dangerous thug - if possible. All 12 survivors have different skills, some valuable, some rather useless. They will respond in different ways to the horrors of war or helping innocents. There are different locations you can scavenge and different sets and variations of those locations. And since you can only have a maximum of 4 survivors at a time there is a surprising amount of replayability. I'm done with my 6th playthrough and it's not getting boring so far. This War of Mine is a strong contender for my game of the year 2014, it's certainly in the top 3.
I know what you mean and was sceptical myself but I don't think the game would change much if the gameplay was in full 3D PC standard. The important game mechanics are to decide where and what to scavenge and what to leave, who gets food and when, if you trade, steal or kill. I really love the art style they chose. I wish you could select survivors with F1-F4 instead of Tab-ing through them but that might come at some point. The developers have already added quite a number of suggestions from the community.
