The game proper does present a few additional surprises, although not with such distinction. There's the setting, for one, which tosses aside the genre's reliance of fantasy tropes and sci-fi trappings for a roughly contemporary setting in Africa in 2019. The stage here is the fictional Republic of Zandia, and apparently things go so badly in the next couple of years that corporate armies from multiple countries are squabbling over resources across the savanna.
After so promising a beginning, Soldiers Inc. quickly slides into the familiar dance of building bases, collecting resources, and engaging in a few PvP battles. Unfortunately, it lacks some of the flair of these other entries, resulting in a game that feels too entrenched in the past. That's most apparent in what passes for the actual combat, which eschews the lightweight tactical skirmishes of a game like Vega Conflict for a simple screen that merely shows the outcomes of an abstract battle based on your stats.
Alas, that means it's difficult to escape the impression that Soldiers Inc. wants you to spend money often to keep those stats up. Reminders to speed up construction, healing, and training abound around every corner, although naturally the ability to join alliances with other players eases some of the burden. All the same, it all builds to the same head: you're merely piling up enough stats and units to beat the other guys in the abstract battles – be they NPCs or fellow players.
That aside, Soldiers Inc. does its job well by playing by the genre's established rules, and it's currently not hard to find other players to form alliances with on account of the literally hundreds of thousands of people who play. Just don't expect to wander into this beleaguered corner of digital Africa and find something that'll leave you questioning the quality of everything you've seen of Facebook until now, aside from a catchy soundtrack. Heart of Darkness this is not.
Subscribe to Daily Browser Games News!