Crimson Fields

Overall- 4.5/10
Crimson fields was hard to review. Why? Well, because it's not such a bad game, but something is missing.. I mean at first it was a bit hard to play, then after the tutorials it was just hard to look at and after getting used to that it was the out dated game mechanics that annoyed me.
Now, don't get me wrong, this game isn't bad, but it just isn't very good.. The game has plenty of modern age units to choose from, like tanks, and jets, but there's no imagination.. Medium tank, heavy tank, one's slower and more powerful, yada yada.. Why not make new units? A-la C&C? Where's my laser tanks, my fire troopers, my.. I don't know.. Invisible.. Something.. Some diversity wouldn't hurt.. In the game your units will level up after killing opponents, becoming stronger, but never any different, and the game won't tell you how much stronger your unit just became. But the worst thing of all is the way the game plays, for example, attacking is done by moving your unit next to the target, then having to select your unit again, and choose to attack. So far a bit cumbersome but here's the kicker- You have to wait all the way until you finish your turn, only then will your units attack.. And because there's no easy way to calculate damage you'll sometimes end up with units that are ordered to attack a unit that's already been destroyed. Other elements that bug me are the unit menus that are very laconic, and lack details, the fact that you can't tell how much HP you've got left, or how much the enemy has lost, the minimap is not a part of the hud, actually, there's no hud at all, not enough maps, and not many good maps, etc...
It's not a bad game.. It just lacks.. Flow.. And it feels pretty outdated, after all Crimson fields is based on a 1991 DOS game called battle isle..
All that being said, the game really isn't bad, and it does have its strong points- control is great, the hardware keyboard works, and right click is somehow implemented. Some of the levels are pretty good too. Oh, and you can play multiplayer over email, which is cool. All in all it's playable.

Graphics- 4/10
Sadly, graphics aren't one of this game's strong points, and that's a shame, because good graphics might have made this game a big more user friendly- The units are very small, and it's a bit hard to tell them apart sometimes, and the units are all the same colors, which is visually very annoying to look at. Same thing with the terrain.. Not enough colors.. It's just much less fun to play when it looks like this.

Sound and music- 0/10
Nothing.. Which is a shame, could've had some kick ass soundtrack, and sound wouldn't have hurt anyone either.

Gameplay- 5.5/10
Yes, it's playable, yes, it's somewhat fun, but the total lack of imagination in the units, the graphics, and the missions kind of lowers the fun threshold.
Add to that the various issues mentioned above (no hud, no onscreen minimap, bad combat mechanism, etc) and you might understand what I mean by "lacking flow"