Last Front Europe for iPhone is a war that you will want to be part of

Last Front Europe [rating: 5/5]

Ever want to re-live famous battles from World War II on your iPhone or iPod Touch? Well now you can with Last Front Europe, a real time strategy game that see’s you take control of any one of four national army’s as you defend yourself against the enemy. You can play as either the British, Americans, Soviets or Germans and each one of them offers their own rewards so playing through the game as each of them is certainly worth while.

There are 3 modes of play, Campaign Mode will see you battle through 16 maps including some famous battles from WWII itself while Battle Mode lets you engage in defending yourself against a massive onslaught of enemies attack you in wave after wave of frenzy and finally online mode which I will come onto later in this review.

Last Front Europe Review iPhone_2

The navigation is nicely down and moving through the screens to get to your first battle is simple enough although some of the load times did seem a little lengthy especially between some of the menu pages rather than the when a new game is started. The graphics have a good military theme to them as does the music and they certainly help you get into the fighting mood!

The game is played in a 2D top down mode but the maps extend far and beyond the iPhone/iPod Touch screens allowing you to zoom in and out as well as drag the map around to get a full view of everything that is going on. Your simple mission, should you choose to except it, is to stop all enemy soldiers and their military vehicles from getting behind enemy lines.

Each map has multiple starting points for the enemy soldiers and there sole aim is to get to the other side of the map, both of these goals are signified by flags. As the game starts you get a brief opportunity to survey the area before the first wave begins. You have two options to start with, a machine gun post for offence and a pill box for defence. As you would expect in such games you can simply drag and drop either option to place it on the map and each item will have a varying cost. Be careful on where you place any item though as once it’s placed there’s no turning back, unless you simply want to buy it back for a lot less than you brought it for.

Last Front Europe Review iPhone_5

The enemy soldiers will attempt to take the shortest route to their goal, however as there are multiple spawning and ending points you can’t just place all you weapons in one place and watch as you annihilate all the enemy. Instead you must balance your choices and placements and the balance between the cost of the placement of units is and the money you earn from killing the soldiers is ideally balanced.

To complete each level you need to defend yourself against a set number of waves while ensuring that less than 20 enemy soldiers make it through. This starts pretty easy but as you progress the difficulty raises ensuring that things are kept interesting at all times.

To play online you need to register an account first, this not only gives you access to play online however, this also gives you access to track your progress and more importantly it gives you access to a Map Editor that I will come onto shortly. In the online game mode you won’t find yourself battling directly against other players but instead you will all play the same selected level for a given amount of time. At the end of this time you will be ranked based on your success. This is a great addition to the already fun Campaign and Battle modes that already provide so much value for money.

The beauty of Last Front Europe though is the ability for users to create their own maps and share them with other players, this may not be the first time that this feature has been provided on an iPhone/iPod Touch game but it’s certainly the first I’ve heard of and should continue to add value to the game for a long time to come. The map editor is based online and can’t be accessed on your mobile device. Creating maps is very straight forward, you can vary the overall size of the map and then set it in either the desert, forest or snow. From there you can add all the features that you see in the pre-made game itself.

Last Front Europe Review iPhone_3

Each map gets a code for you to be able to download it to your device, you can then provide this code to other players or they can find it just by searching. This ingenious addition to what is already a fun game should keep it flying high for quite a time.

For me this is a must have game for any iPhone or iPod Touch owner to add to their collection. It’s easy to learn yet hard to master and with the unlimited maps available from users it will keep you going for as long as World War II was itself.

The Good

  • Smooth learning curve
  • User created content
  • Great single player and online modes

The Not So Good

  • Some slow load times

Reviewed By: Craig Willis

Last Front Europe Features PART 1 & PART 2

Price: $3.99 (iTunes Store Preview)
Released: Mar 02, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.02 1.02 (iPhone OS 3.0 Tested)
Size: 12.9 MB
Languages: English
Seller: Plow Digital
© (c) 2010 Plow Games, LLC
Rated 9+ for the following:
Frequent/Intense Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone and iPod touch. Requires iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later.

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One Comment on ““Last Front Europe for iPhone is a war that you will want to be part of”

  1. Gamer

    The Last Front Europe game is great game I have been playing all week… grea job Plow Games. its nice to see great games form small developers

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