Review by: Mitch Dyer

I’ve never been one for turn-based strategy in video games. I’m fine with board games, so when it comes to a mouse and keyboard, controller or handheld, I’ll only take turns with Catan and Carcassonne players. I hate waiting. I’m impatient, and I want some sort of action, movement, goings-on in my online gaming. Frozen Synapse meets me halfway, and it does it so successfully that it’s fast become one of my favorite go-to games.

Two players take turns ordering their neon soldiers around a digital grid—it’s a distinctive look, odd yet appealing—before submitting their turns together. Once the game knows where your dudes are going and how you’ve told them to behave, the primed turns play out as one 5-second turn. They shoot on sight unless otherwise instructed, keep a keen aim where you’ve told them to look, and can take cover behind walls and windows.

Each unit plays an important part, and the random distribution of types makes each match interesting and unpredictable. Rockets rip structures to pieces, snipers can see the length of a map and pay for it with a lengthy reload; grenadiers can bank explosives off walls; and shotgun guys are great for ambushing, particularly in tandem with the longer-ranged machine-gunners. Sabotage, timing, luring and ballsy assaults are all viable strategies—it’s how the other player thinks that determines when and what you should switch it up. It hits hard when you lose a guy, or when you know you’re about to, and it’s a gleeful moment when a bit of red pops out of an enemy you’ve outsmarted.

The greatest asset Frozen Synapse has is something I want to see in all games—I don’t care what genre, I’m greedy that way. I don’t understand why we don’t see more email play. Playing a turn when you can accommodates all schedules, and is something that only this genre can really benefit from. Turn-based strategy doesn’t employ the same urgency as an RTS or an FPS or, really, any other type of game. Action doesn’t necessarily mean we need to sit in front of a screen to see it right then and there. I love having five or six games going at a time, and returning to any of them at my leisure.