Strategic Assault

US General George Patton, Jr once advised, "Make your plans to fit the circumstances." Success on the battlefield only comes, as Gen. Patton claimed, from adaptation. Strategic Assault ardently attempts to do just that, squeezing the enormous breadth of real-time strategy onto iPhone - a device with no buttons and a small screen. These challenging circumstances put the game at an immediate disadvantage, one that it never overcomes despite an commendable effort.

Strategic Assault chronicles a 15 mission-long war between two unidentified forces. You command one of these unnamed armies in a push to obliterate the other side, destroying their base of operations in each mission. Completing a mission provides you with a promotion, unlocks the next task, and opens up the previously completed level for free play.

As with any strategy game, you must amass resources in order to construct key buildings that allow you draft units. And of course, the formula has been trimmed down for portable play.

You only need to concern yourself with one central resource collected from captured neutral bases. Accumulated resource points can be spent on buildings or units, although you first must plunk down core structures in order to access basic units. Each mission starts you off with a primary base, but it's up to you to expand it with factories, walls, and defensive turrets.

Tapping the 'build' button prompts your available choices, which you can buy if you have enough resources. Once bought, you then touch the area on the map where you want the structure built.

Unfortunately, it's an imprecise way of building because everything is far smaller than your fingertip. Placing a turret which must be situated against a wall, for example, can waste precious minutes as the game fails to register your taps as legitimate. The problem only relates to structures since units are automatically placed on the map.

Strategic Assault wisely leverages hot key groups and a mini-map to ease unit management. It's simple enough to select units and assign them to squads, selecting them with a contextual box using your finger as you would with a mouse. Selected units can be moved by tapping on the screen at the desired location. You don't have to worry about issuing attack orders since units automatically engage any nearby enemies.

The mini-map, though, is entirely too small to be an effective tactical tool. Since you're not granted the ability to move the view by touching the main map, this is reserved as an exclusive function of the mini-map. The inclination is to swipe your finger over the main action window, which would have been far more intuitive. Directional buttons at the edges of the screen would have been preferable to imprecise taps on a map barely bigger than your fingertip.

It isn't just the mini-map that's small - Strategic Assault underwhelms with a limited number of units and tactical options. While an effort has clearly been made to distinguish what few units and structures can be built, it's far from enough to make a compelling real-time strategy experience.

Perhaps if more tactical variety was in play, the few units available here would be sufficient. Small maps and only a handful of units restricts your tactical options, which is the point of playing a strategy game.

Even though you're limited to basic defensive tactics and a few simple offensive manoeuvres, Strategic Assault is decently done for what little it offers. However, don't expect variety or substantial depth. While it may not have adapted well to iPhone, that makes it all the more important to fit your purchase plans to the circumstances.