I was first introduced to “Sea of Fire” about a week ago, and I haven’t been able to stop playing it since. It is pretty much a bare bones version of “World of Warcraft,” (it’s a bare bones version of Warcraft) with the exceptions being that it doesn’t have multiplayer and that it’s a game found on a flash game website.
Sea of Fire is a strategy war game that is directed in creating an empire through force. You have to fight other territories to gain resources which allow you to create additional weapons, or gain extra money. Each territory has unique fighting styles depending on the resources available within the territory.
The strategy comes in balancing what you create in the way of buildings, one pixel troops and when and how to attack. For such a simple game, creating troops to send across the screen to defeat the enemy is a lot more difficult than it looks. Judging on what the enemy is using for its attack, you have to quickly decide what to build. Do you want to build lots of barracks and rush the enemy with masses of infantry? Or, perhaps you want to set up a well defended base, so you can create bigger and more damaging weapons, which take longer to build?
The game is simple in play yes, but there is a lot you can do when you are supposed to be doing something else. There are three different difficulty settings, and easy is plenty difficult so if you choose to play in a different setting be warned. You can choose to play as both the dark and light sides of the land you are fighting to conquer. Also, each side has different weapons to start out with, different capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses. The light side– known as the new hope alliance, has little money to start out with, but their weapons have a longer range, and their troops are stronger than the enemies. The dark side-known as the Temple of Snakes, or more affectionately called the cultists by the New Hope Alliance, are weaker in strength and range of weapons, but at the beginning of the game they have more troops at their disposal and more weapons to choose from such as the flame thrower, which can cause many problems when fighting against it.
The campaigns are rather long, because the battles can take a while to complete. There are sometimes major barriers to get over like defeating an enemy with nuclear capabilities. However if a player chooses to just do a few missions before heading off to do the work they actually set out to do, then they can choose the skirmish mode, and fight a customizable battle to your liking, it can be fun but the campaign mode is even more enjoyable.
The weaknesses to this game are few, because you have to keep in mind that this game is a flash animated game. One weakness of this online game was that there is no multiplayer, which I do not mind, because that would probably jack the price of this game up, and if you had to pay for this game I probably wouldn’t recommend it so highly. The other minor problem I had with the game was that the enemy never attacked back. I mean that after you conquered a region you didn’t ever have to worry about it again. If it was bordering a neighboring enemy territory, the enemy just kind of sits back and waits for the next blow to come.
The sound in the game is also a lot of fun. There isn’t much mood music except when you are at the menu screen; however, when playing the game there is a full repertoire of war sounds such as the screams of dying foot soldiers, the high pitched whine of a rocket being launched at you last remaining barracks, and the howl of planes flying overhead as they drop bombs on anything they feel necessary.
For a game with very little by the way of graphics, this game has a lot to offer, and it can be checked out for free at www.gamesforwork.com. I know I had fun playing it when I was supposed to be writing other articles, so if you need something to kill time with, this is a game that should be played.