for the good/bad points skip to the end of the review
Its worth noting the official site contains a demo (i dont know if its just one map or what not but if your unsure about the game still you could grab it and see)

Type of game
large-scale strategy (this means you will be trying to control multiple units and bases generally trying to attack while defending your own base to exploit your opponents weaknesses).
In short you will build hundreds of units fairly quickly, send them off to die (i mean take control of a area you like), train more units as your opponent counters, or exploits a lack of defence on your base, this struggle goes back and forth untill you or they/them break though and wipe you out

Gameplay
Like most strategy's of the war genre there is a Rock-Paper-Scissors based combat, this does not mean air kills land units, but each unit has a strength and weakness, so a helicopter with ground missiles is easy prey for a jet with high calabure machine guns, but a infantry man with anti air can happily take your pretty jet out of the sky, however if they can shoot at it, enough rocks with happily tear the paper in half
On top of that if you control special deposits of ore you can build mega units, these big boys can decimate a whole army, but like anything enough bee stings will quickly bring them down, costing the user more money than the units used to kill them, so needs a suitable force to protect them still
Sound
The music is a nice mix of Heroic/Inspiring music, its a nice mix but for extended play, you will most likly turn it off and pipe in your own music/tv over it while leaving sound effects on
Sound effects, these are not awe inspiring but are distinctive enough to tell whats shooting, and when a unit dies
AI
Due to the combat model used the AI is fairly competent, it throws a mixture of units at you and keeps up the attacks, meaning you will always have something to do, be it train more units, lead a offensive or counter attack, or defend your own bases
Campaign
At this time i havnt completed the Campain, while described as epic i think i was Spoiled by the campaign of Supreme Commander (1), leaving me to feel abit less epic. That being said the missions have good dialogue with each mission following on from the last. however start of fairly short. along side this the AI here tends to be fairly restricted at least on the 1st 6-7 missions leaving you to do most the attacking, and stomping them

Skirmishes
you and upto 3 AI
Like most War Strategy games this (and multiplayer) is where you will spend most of your game time. It features a nice suite of options including muliple landscapes eg, islands and climents (just for a change of scenery), and a handful of "popular" game modes,

Multiplayer
with the nice background of units, the multiplayer is failry equal, you have lots of statergys to use against your human opponent/s and spamming one type of unit might work, but can very quickly be countered. it doesnt support ui, meaning you cant have you and a mate battling too "robotic" ai. you have to face off another human team alone. you also cannot set it up as a private game, meaning if you want your friend you should time it, so no one else jumps in and steals his place(granted its a bit quite at the moment)

Options
most the normal options here, sound controls ect, resoluctions (upto 1080) and the ability to adjust particles (quality of the wepon's fire)
one of the negative aspects is the save option, it works but you can only save one game (although it seems Campaign save and Skirmish save is separate, but it mean you can only play one Skirmish at a time, and not bounce around between several, or have a backup save incase it gets corrupted (i personaly like to make a save at the very start as a map backup, incase i realy enjoy that map and want to use it again, but in another way)

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This game plays somewhat like Supream Commander (1), if you have played that and enjoyed it, you will enjoy this game, it might not be a grand or as pretty but its a very good spitual successor to it with plenty to keep you busy
pros:
Large amount of units to choose from
Large scale war, who likes mothering over 20-30 units, you trained them to die,they will die
Good selection of countrys to pick from, not just the old fashion USA/Russia/China choice (although the campain Revolves around these)

Multiple resolutions (most of them are common ones such as 1080)

Easy to use UI, if you have played a staregy game before you will generally feel at home

Keybindings (kinda)

Plenty of map choice (eg continates/sea/ islands ect)

Cons:
Most of the keybindings are your control groups or open the map, you cant set keybindings to build buildings or train units

No repeat queue order

Mini map is in a odd place and cant be moved

Default options have the unit cap at 1000, im assuming this might be the top end cap for phones, and pc's can go higher without a high fps drop (upto 5000 units)

Shadows seem to be a dark green which just looks odd when your near a forest

Low Res Grahics (commonly called charming or retro)

Only one Save slot (One for Campain, One for Skirmish)

No Private mode or AI in Multiplayer

Steam Overlay doesnt work

Excellent game, would recommend to anyone who loves the original C&C style games, especially the Red Alert series. It seems simple at first, but it can be very in depth with choosing your reserach and deciding what type of army to build. The tactical map is probably my favorite part, as I have longed for a map that in depth (with grids, unit locations, forces, ect) and tracked the warfare live. You can zoom out, get some good SA on the battlefield, and then zoom in where you want back to the normal game.

Balance is very well rounded, no massing one type of unit with no counter, every unit in this game, while seemingly OP, has a good counter, so no BS wins.

Definitly worth the purchase, I got the 4 pack and me and my buddies play it every night, a good break from the monotony of the other games we play.

A great RTS. Lots of big battles, challenging AI. Enjoyable base building - not quite as extensive as the castle/wall building in Battle for Middle Earth 2, but you do get a sense of "home base" that is sometimes missing in other RTS, or is too artificial in games like COH where you are limited in the scope of your base building. And you can create sprawling bases, or have satellite stations with defense structures to help maintain control of areas. There's a good selection of defense structures and weapons, as well as various ground, air and naval units.

Graphics are 2D, but don't let that fool you, there's plenty of gameplay under the hood. You can also stack buildings, for example undersea energy generators beneath floating air defense platforms.

In addition to Tech Levels, there are specific research enablers across Air, Land and Sea - for offensive and defensive units. Additional map features (e.g. magma flows) add strategic resources that can be fought over.

Economy plays a secondary role - you don't need to micromanage your economy, but you will need to maintain ore and energy reserves to build units and advance technology levels. Base building is important, as defensive buildings have limited range, so as your base expands, you'll need to build outer layers of defenses.

Some really memorial battles - across Air, Land and Sea (underwater too). Lots of good tech advancements. Oh, and you can pretty much play as any country - Ireland for World Domination (TM) :)

The UI is not perfect, but nor does it get in the way. And there's nice single-click options to scout unchartered territory, so you spend less time uncovering the map and more time building your empire and expanding your war machine.

Plenty of game options to start at different tech levels, starting resources, mutators etc.

And an indie developer that cares about customers.

I've not tried it multiplayer, but single player campaign and especially skirmish is extremely good fun.

Buy it if you like Supreme Commander, BFME2, Company of Heroes etc. Or buy it if you want a fun game that can easily absorb hours at a time on a mammoth battle.

This game is pretty good, definitely a step up from the old Land Air Sea Warfare game.

I actually started playing LASW when it was first released for IOS. I actually helped James at Isotope 244 with some ideas for the game on Facebook. If I remember correctly, 3 or 4 people pitched ideas on the Isotope 244 Facebook page. My suggestion was a nuclear power plant mega unit that blows up when destroyed. Good call not including that James, it was a bad idea.

Compared with LASW I feel like Machines at War 3 is just a big update. Graphics are the same, units are a tiny bit different, and the AI is a little more aggressive but no necessarily better. However, Machines at War is a game in its own, so I'll treat it as a new game for this review.

Graphics / Gameplay: 2D icon type graphics with some cool particle effects and decent physics. The graphics work well for the RTS genre, but the grid system is where the game really shines. Being able to zoom out and look at the map in the form of a giant graph is mad cool. It makes me feel like I'm some cold war commander controlling robots from a underground bunker somewhere.

I also love the stats that pop up at the end of the battles. Its super cool being able to break down your strategy into the raw stats and numbers.

Music: The soundtrack is OK / Bad. The real problem is trying to play your own music instead. I'll cover this later

AI: The AI is a huge part of any RTS, and this one does pretty good.

Back in LASW the AI had OK strategy and terrible tactics. In Machines at War 3 the AI has become very aggressive strategically, but not much smarter tactically.

Strategy: The AI knows that the key to success is mega units and Ore. So it conducts search and destroy missions for the special resources from the start of the game. Once it has the resources, the AI is able to out produce you, and overwhelm you with massive amounts of building, units, and mega units.

If you don't get a leg up on the AI by getting some special resources in the early game, you're on the defensive for the rest of the game for sure.

Tactics: The AI is still lacking a bit on the tactics side. The AI tries to overwhelm you with massive amounts of units, and it really isn't that effective against a human player who can set up decent defenses. One thing that I noticed was that the AI only attacks with one kind of unit at a time. The AI will launch an air attack, and then a land attack, and then a sea attack, waiting in-between to rebuild more units.

A human player easily defeats the AI in tactics because we know that you're supposed to attack with air, sea, and land at the same time. No point in sending in tanks if a helicopter will destroy them. No point in sending helicopter if a fighter will shoot it down. No point in sending a helicopter, tank, or fighter if a gunboat or submarine is covering the river. The AI does not understand this, and sends units into areas where they cannot help or get slaughtered.

In addition, I just have to mention how horrible the AI is with building facilities. Why the hell would you rebuild your mother base next to mine? How does it make sense to build a factory within shooting distance of my factory? The AI is just too aggressive with building factories and buildings, and it ends up just being a waste of resources that the AI hoards.

Other: I have to mention that this game has troubles on Mac. You cannot go into big picture mode while this game is running. You have to save and quit if you want to do ANYTHING ELSE while the game is running. Want to play music through iTunes? Better not want to change a song, you have to save and quit. Why is this still a thing Isotope 244?

Rating: Overall, I think Machines at War 3 is pretty good. I don't think it is worth $14.99 though. I would suggest this game to my friends, and I think that its great that Isotope 244 still makes RTS games even after they have fallen out of style all over the Mac / PC space. In addition, it is great to support an indie dev.

I'm also really glad this game was released on steam. No offense James, but your website made me afraid to buy your game for a long time.

If you like Total Annihilation, you like this too.

First got addicted to mobile version, then fell in love with the desktop version. I have roughly 600 hours in this game across both platforms and it is still one of the most addictive games I have ever played.

Your enemies can build wherever they please, but you can't. They build whatever they please wherever they please. You, on the other hand, can't build anything unless you have vision. Even after you build the 'Eagle Eye', which gives you full map coverage, you still can't build anything unless you have a unit nearby.

5/10. I'll just go play LASW on my phone as I've been doing for years.

Edit 4/28/2021: I decided to revisit this game just a minute ago. I built up a base and basically boxed the computer out of all resource nodes. Imagine my shock when the computer built on a special resource it had no vision of. Dude, I know you're one guy but what gives?

To be fair to this game, it's basically low spec Supreme Commander. The last few hours, I have been mining Ethereum on my machine while playing this game. GPU has been pegged at 100% with no issues in-game. The turbines on the 7500 power plant do spin clockwise instead of counterclockwise while building, but that's just a weird graphical bug.

Overall, the game is fantastic. The art is good, the sound is decent and the game keeps your attention. However; when you play in skirmish, the AI seems to pop up EVERYWHERE. Even in your base. Not to mention that, when you seem get rid of them, they'll sometimes spawn in the same spot no more then a second later. Other then that, there are a few bugs here and there but it's still very much worth the money.

if you enjoyed the old C&C games this might be for you.
the game is easy to get into and i really have a lot of fun playing it.
it may has a few flaws and the graphics are pretty old school but if you into this sort of game give it a shoot,
machines at war is well worth the little money it costs

Machines At War 3 is a Command and Conquor like RTS game taking a ton of influence from the 90s series. The graphics will instantly remind you of the C&C series like Red Alert 2, but that isn't a bad thing.

Postive's (+)

Gameplay
Great if not excellent AI
Tons of units and buildings to have at your disposal.
Large Maps
Tons of unit upgrades
Good amount of factions
Decent single player campaign
Large amount of of units for epic battles

The negatives or just things I thought could be better ( - )

The UI is weird ( not sure if it was released before or after mobile version )
Sometimes the reflections don't look like reflections ( on the trees in certain lighting )
Some of the graphics could be more consistent
The price tag I personally think is a little steep for this game, but I guess it depends what you find yourself getting out if !


Over all it's not C&C, yet it feels so good to bring back the 90s style RTS. I would recommend this to hardcore RTS fans, and those trying one out. The system requirements are not surprisingly low, but that does not kill the fun factor the game gives. Pick this game up especially if you like the older C&C series!