I found out, while researching this game, that the term ‘Broken Arrow’ is used when a nuclear weapon goes missing. More exciting, perhaps, is that there was a John Woo film of the same name released in the ’90s featuring John Travolta and Christian Slater. The trailer is fantastic, even if the movie doesn’t seem to be. This, I believe, has nothing to do with the RTS game Broken Arrow, but a man can dream.
Broken Arrow is a real-time strategy game that leans heavily on the ‘strategy’. Tactical, and with a very metered pace, on the surface it plays a little like a Company of Heroes where sheer numbers do little to guarantee victory, where you need to exploit your surroundings and nouse to come out with minimal losses, and, as we’re told early on, losses cost money – and losing money is not an option.
Think about what would happen if Command and Conquer had a baby with Arma, then that baby was raised to despise and want to destroy every building and concrete structure in the world. That’s Broken Arrow, an RTS game with a penchant for realism and pyrotechnics.
Let’s start from the tutorial. You control a Humvee from above and are tasked with driving a visiting bureaucrat around a huge military base, showing him what all the tax dollars are being used for. We learn what different types of tanks are good for, how infantry can be concealed, and just how devastating air superiority can be.
My character is bit of a curmudgeon, apparently, a relic of wars gone by, and not much of a talker. The pencil-pushing authority figure has never been in a real firefight and sees our troops as numbers on a spreadsheet. I give him the tour, and let him take control of a mounted machine gun for some reason, all the while familiarizing myself with the basics of modern combat.
The chatter is the type of inane military banter you might hear in, say, a schlocky ’90s action movie – I guess Broken Arrow gets its social skills from the Arma side of the family. Anyway, we throw it back and forth, we destroy (presumably) unmanned tanks some and (presumably) non-human human combatants, and then I’m ready for the big time.
The first mission resembles a gauntlet of sorts, a long stretch of highway with small towns dotted along the way. I have to take these, by force if necessary. My first attempt is successful but flawed; I take casualties and fail the secondary task of…not taking so many casualties, I guess.
Barreling through these towns means that I run headfirst into whatever defenses the enemy has set up. I take a beating but ultimately come out on top. It works, partially, but with so many KIAs I feel like I can do better. Let’s try again.
This time, I take stock of what I have on hand. Basic tanks, the cannons of which are powerful enough to obliterate most adversaries with a few rounds. I also have troop carriers with guided missile launchers – these, I find, are excellent for taking out enemy armor, so positioning them on the high ground to the sides of the highway gives me a range advantage.
You can repair and resupply with dedicated stations, set up by auxiliary forces, and I use this to reach full strength before plowing on. With each capture, I earn more points, which can be used to call in more tanks, more missile launchers, and eventually helicopters. By the end of the mission, I am barreling down the highway en masse, focusing fire on any red unit that’s unfortunate enough to show on my screen.
It isn’t a battle of wits, but it demonstrates how terrain and approach affect combat. Reaching the last checkpoint I decide to set up a defensive perimeter, tasking my missile troops to exit their vehicles and occupy whatever buildings that are left standing. Although the enemy attempts a counterattack, they are now woefully outgunned, and as a result, are left smoldering before a real fight breaks out.
This is only a small taste of what Broken Arrow has to offer, but from the looks of it, it’s a solid tactical RTS with an extremely high attention to detail. Those in the know will potentially be delighted with the granular nature of these modern killing machines. Manually pop flares to reroute incoming missile fire, angle tanks so your weak side isn’t showing, and place a line of smoke to obscure a retreat – effectively using these tools to win a fight feels very satisfying.
My concern is that Broken Arrow may lack personality. This isn’t a game that uses war as a backdrop for bigger things; it relishes in the logistics. There isn’t anything wrong with that, I suppose, I just need something that makes me want to push on. Sadly, I don’t think a man in a suit barking orders is going to do that, although I fear that may be a real snapshot of what being a soldier is like.
Really though, who knows where Broken Arrow will go. The core building blocks of a satisfying strategy game are there already, I just need something a bit extra for this to fall into my ‘must play’ category. I’ll be keeping an eye on Broken Arrow though, that’s for sure.