Parents' Guide to Crossfire: Legion

In an expansive, artistic medium that grows more creative every year, it's hard to put much stock in a title uninterested in transforming with others in its genre. Crossfire: Legion is a perfectly adequate real-time strategy game. When you add the prospect of playing with or against real people, it's fun and simple enough to shave off an hour or two. But it's one of those experiences that wears its welcome the longer it goes on. The campaign, which could've added quite a bit to the game in making it distinctive, falls horribly flat. Players are dropped into a world with implied richness in the middle of warring factions intent on doing what's "best" for society. Unfortunately, players will get little in the way of meaningful explanations as to how or why the world got to that point, which minimizes both the characters and their motivations. Of course, a limited story wouldn't have been so noticeable if the gameplay wasn't quite so unmemorable.

While there's enough variety to keep the game afloat for a session or two, it's hard to see many players – veterans of the RTS (real-time strategy) genre or otherwise – maintaining an interest here for too long. For one, many engagements feel less like a battle of the minds and more like a war of slowly chipping away at someone's resources until they're overwhelmed. This results in a slog of a "battle" that goes on far longer than needed. The positioning of your units, execution of your battle plans, and overcoming your opponent are all less tedious and more unique in other RTS games. Here, rather than choosing between deep, engaging real-time elements or turn-based, probability-centered mechanics typical of the genre, Crossfire: Legion exists in a middle ground that's neither satisfying nor entirely fun to play for long stretches of time. Crossfire: Legion "succeeds" only by being mechanically competent enough to function as a by-the-numbers entry, but RTS diehards will find themselves getting their strategy kicks elsewhere.