Taste of Power is a nice distracting game in its early-access form for those with a love of history and strategy games in the vein of Total War. Developed by OneOcean LLC, the game revolves around pastiches of European, Chinese, and Arabian armies, each with somewhat similar but varying units. They are not exactly like them, admitted as much by the game (for example, the basic European troops actually seem to be based on Russian troops). The armies have cavalry, countered by archers, pikes and forts, healers and healing buildings (in one case, a healing chariot!), countered by having weak melee stats and light armor, everyone’s favorite class since Team Fortress, the spies (or agents).
Taste of Power is played from a sort of top-down perspective, very similar to Dawn of War. Much like Dawn of War, many of the mechanics function around creating, upgrading, and defending different buildings (particularly administration – your heart will surely bleed for those poor, defenseless bureaucrats!). Unlike Dawn of War, there is an economy system to go along with the resource system, much like the overworld map of Total War, creating a nice mixture of the two systems in a more scaled down package.
While the graphics may not be anything to write home about, this is not a triple-a game, nor is it a particularly big game, but it is a fun game. I will say that on easy, it did feel like Taste of Power was playing itself. That said, the introductory videos and guides (with some cheesy and humorous voice acting) were very well done and should be able to introduce even the most novice or struggling strategy game players to the gameplay well enough. There are a few different modes to try out such as survival and wargaming (I mostly tried the former), so it should keep players occupied for a decent amount of time.
To be honest, strategy games such as this are not one of my niches. I love Total War and Dawn of War, but when it comes to strategy games, I prefer the base management and squad-based combat of a series like X-COM. That said, I can appreciate a good strategy game when I see and play it, and Taste of Power is checking a good amount of the boxes for its meager price point of just fifteen dollars. Its complete release date as of now seems to be August 27th 2019, so if you are feeling a little flight of fancy for an easy to pick up and play strategy wargame, check it out!
Check Out the Taste of Power Trailer:
You can wishlist Taste of Power for PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam Early Access right now. The game is slated to fully launch on Steam on August 27, 2019.
Your local neighborhood nutjob, gamer, and teacher! I'm an avid fan of many genres such as platformers, shooters, horror, etc. I am also an avid tabletop gamer - hugely into the worlds of Warhammer and all of their spinoffs. I'm a big believer in being objective - even if something is not my cup of tea, I want to talk about it on the objective level - is it well made, crafted with love, and with care for the fans? If so, that's a good game in my book for someone and well worth their hard earned dollarydoos!
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