Lux DLX

Hardcore fans of games like Stratego and Risk need look no further than Lux DLX to fill their itch for universal domination. SillySoft’s port of their highly addictive and strategic desktop game lands on the iDevices and results in a slightly water downed version, but manages to be one of the best mobile offerings for fan’s of the genre.

Out of the box Lux DLX offers up the ability to choose 1 of 4 included maps and the ability to download  around 75 additional free maps over wifi and 3G connections. While there currently is no online multiplayer features in the game you can choose to play with up to six friends or computer controlled bots on a single iDevice.

With the ability to adjust AI speeds between turns, starting locations of armies, bonus levels for captured territories, and alter card distribution sequences you can ensure that you will never play the same game twice!

Graphically and audio wise the game is pretty vanilla when compared with some current iPhone offering. The graphics consist of some colorful and static images with battle objectives spread out across the map with some short battle animations, and sound bursts tossed in. but to be brutally honest this game isn’t about fancy graphics or animations so if you go into the game expecting a graphically tour De France you might be disappointed.

Upon starting the game the maps will be drawn and the gameplay will being. When it’s your turn you can begin placing your armies throughout your starting territories. Simply pressing down on an area will disperse one unit into the playing field while holding down will release multiple units at a time. A good strategy would be to press down on the bonus star prior to placing your units each turn to see what the current bonus levels are from selected areas.

After placing units, you can choose to fortify existing areas with armies from adjacently owned territories or begin you global domination by attacking your enemies.

Attacking unoccupied or unfortified land is much easier and you are less likely to lose your army than attacking defended units and objectives. When you do manage to capture an area you will be asked how many of the original army to move to this location. For example if you have 10 units and you attack an unoccupied land you will be prompted on how many units to place from the original 10 that have survived the battle into the new area thus splitting your army into two different armies.

You gain additional cards at the end of each turn as long as you take over one enemy country. These cards once collected can be exchanged for additional armies that can be placed anywhere on the map.

You can also gain extra armies from eliminating another player from the game, and by doing this you will receive all the card they were currently holding.

Holding an entire bonus region at the start of your turn will also grant you with additional armies.

As far as controls go you can also zoom in and out of the map using the pinch method and using two fingers will scroll the screen around so you can view the map better. You can also switch the map on the fly from vertical to horizontal positions by tilting the device.

A real time running breakdown of your teams current territories, armies, number of collected cards, and your projected army bonus earned at the start of your next turn is located on the screen at all times giving you a commanders view of the battle.

The game ends when one team has claimed all the territories on the map.

While this is a direct port of the desktop version of the game there are a few obvious features missing from the game in it’s current form.

Most noticeable is the lack of any online multiplayer, and while sharing the iPhone sounds good it’s just way to time consuming trying to figure out what is going on between moves.

When battling against multiple players the game can take some time during AI battles, and while you can adjust the AI speed I would have liked the ability to skip the AI battles, as this is a Portable version of the game and time is essential.

I would also liked to have seen different unit types added to your armies as it would add immensely to the strategy of the game.

In the end Lux DLX manages to take the immensely popular desktop game and cram almost everything offered from the desktop into the iPhone version of the game, with the are fore mentioned lack of multiplayer being the only real negative swaying me from claiming this the De Facto strategy game on the iPhone.

That said the current game is something hardcore fans of the genre will probably want to pick up immediately.  I do think pricing will be the biggest hurdle this game has. With a price point venturing into AAA pricing range I think the masses will pass over on it until it is reduced in cost, and that’s too bad. With an active user community currently offering over 75 additional maps, and the future prospect of online multiplayer combined with the multiple option levels there is a ton of game to be played here.

I would venture to say the worlds most notorious dictators could find peace in their souls after playing the game.. Now if we could just get Apple to give them out the world might just be a better place.

Click here to [BUY IT NOW]

I should mention there is a FREE version of the game as well so you may want to try that version out before buying the full game.

If you enjoyed reading this article or review thank us by submitting it to these services below.

Related posts:

1. Land Air Sea Warfare Review: An All Terrain Battle For the Ages
2. Rogue Planet Prepares For Arrival
3. Battle For Wesnoth HD Will Debut At $.99

Tags: Gaming, global domination, iPhone, Risk, Stratego, Strategy, turn based

Category: Games