I'm a big fan of turn-based strategy, a genre that, like so many others, the mainstream game industry no longer supports because of its insistence on aiming for millions of unit sales, which TBS games never achieved. But games like Jagged Alliance 2 and X-COM UFO are, in their own way, among the greatest strategy games ever created.
In a way, Frozen Synapse is doing what Laser Squad Nemesis did: take the basic dynamics of turn-based strategy into an online, head-to-head multiplayer environment. LSN is, unfortunately, no longer extant, but Frozen Synapse is a worthy alternative.
In Frozen Synapse, you control a small squad of marines in a Tron-like environment; there's some hugger mugger about how this is transpiring in cyberspace, a transparent attempt to justify an inexpensive approach to the graphics. There are several different weapons: the standard machinegun, a shotgun that's powerful at close range but useless otherwise, a sniper gun with long range but which requires a long time to aim, a grenade launcher, and a rocket launcher that can take out walls.
Rather than the open landscapes of games like Jagged Alliance, combat occurs in a closed, indoor area with walls; the feeling is of arena combat. You plan 5 seconds of movement and combat for your soldiers, and can revise and fiddle with the plan to your heart's content, until you commit; at that point, your soldiers do as instructed, and the opposing side also moves and shoots, executing their 5 seconds of instructions.
The control scheme takes some getting used to, but is smooth and very flexible once mastered; units can provide covering fire, pause during movement, aim in a different direction from movement, and so on. Unlike Laser Squad Nemesis, which had some random factors (particularly in determining the path of a grenade), everything in Frozen Synapse is deterministic; the uncertainly lies in the actions of your opponent, not in the system itself.
Many turn-based strategy games can be slow moving, taking hours to complete a mission; because of the small size of its arenas, the small number of soldiers on each side, and the desperate lethality of its weapons, Frozen Synapse plays very quickly. A typical battle is over in ten minutes or less.
There's a single-player campaign with designed levels; but the game shines in online play against real opponents. This involves selection of a basic battle type; the game generates the level algorithmically, providing a high degree of replayability. The units assigned to each side are also determined algorithmically.
The turn-based nature of the game increases, rather than decreases, the tension of play; in a FPS, if you get slagged, you shrug it off. In this game, you invest energy and intelligence in trying to out-think your opponent and plan carefully -- then watch as it all turns to crap, because they did something you hadn't anticipated. In some ways, it's a more accurate depiction of small unit tactics than FPS games.
The graphics get a little tedious over time; the game's palette is invariant, and the graphics by nature minimal. But it's a fine, well-tuned, and compelling example of turn-based strategy combat at its best.
Frozen Synapse was a 2012 IGF Nominee in the Grand Prize and Excellence in Design categories, and won in the Audience Choice category.
Great for what it is
Frozen Synapse is great for what it is. The art is minimal, but it serves the fine tuned gameplay very well. The single player is okay, but mostly serves as a way to learn the game. The multiplayer is where it shines. If you have a friend who is interested I highly recommend starting up 5 games with them, one from each of the game types. (Always do "Dark" though, "Light" isn't as good.) The game types introduce a lot of variety into the game, so you don't get tired of just murdering each other.
Criticism blah blah
It's frankly shameful that it has taken this long for playthisthing to acknowledge Frozen Synapse's existence. I say that not owning the game, nor having any interest in purchasing it.
I'd like to point that this was previously exactly the type of game playthisthing would have been on top of. For a year or more it has only reviewed the most 2d platformist of the indy. If we're lucky we also get posts about facebook games. Table top Tuesdays has become hilariously named because it's the only section that seems to give a fuck.
Where are the reviews for Solium Infernum or Din's Curse? Or the retrospectives on meaningful indie titles like King of Dragon Pass?
Costik used to have something to say.
You're forgetting one of the most important things
One of the things that sets Frozen Synapse apart, in my mind, is the fact that you can test out your orders by giving hypothetical orders to your opponents, and simulating the results. At least, I am assuming that this is a novel feature, because I never played Laser Squad Nemesis.
Is this what you're talking about?
http://playthisthing.com/solium-infernum
In all honesty, I have noticed a decline in quantity (not quality) of postings, and the games posted do seem less interesting (to me, at least). In the latter case, I don't know if that's because of the market or reviewer tastes. But I also think that you're going a bit overboard; you could find a way to express your criticisms constructively, and bother to check before claiming that something hasn't been reviewed.
It's easy to sit back and complain. If there are games that PTT isn't reviewing which you feel are worthy of coverage, why don't you submit a review? Did you ever bother to thank Costik for the stuff he wrote that you liked? I would say that you haven't, since I bothered to read all your comments before making this claim. You appear to be annoyed that Costik isn't writing the reviews that you want to read, free of charge, but you never said anything nice when that was exactly what you were getting.