Beyond the Law: The Third Wave Critic Reviews

The concept of stopping the mob instead of some ancient civilization, railroad, or third world country is something different for a strategy game. But the mob just doesn’t seem like the mob during most of the game. You could easily replace the mob with ancient warrior of a great civilization and the game would play the same.

With dated graphics, redundant settings and gameplay, mediocre production values, I can only recommend this for fans only—those who have to play every tactical game that comes down the pike, whether its taking on the Nazis, Western bad men, a Nottingham sheriff, or runaway Mafia.

The concept is all there, but some features, such as funds management, background story and sounds, are only half-baked and appear as if the developers lost interest in completing the title.

Unfortunately game play is spotty and uninspired as are the graphics - the sound on the other hand is, well it's intriguing.

Is this game as bad as it seems? Not really, but if killing terrorists is your pleasure, you’re better off doing it in 3D with one of the Rainbow Six games and focusing your time on Al-Qaeda-like enemies, not the local goombas.

The Third Wave doesn't manage to achieve consistent entertainment, though, and is challenging for generally the wrong reasons.

Despite non-existent AI and a lack of polish, the simple mechanics and decent missions provide some minor entertainment.

Its main flaw is a lack of depth, whether it be in the graphics department, menu options or gameplay itself. What little strategy The Third wave involves is mostly geared towards stumping the clumsy AI.

I should probably have undergone some therapy before writing this review, as the game left me frustrated beyond belief.

To paraphrase an old psychology axiom, if the game sounds bad, looks bad and plays bad, it probably is bad.

The graphics are about on par with everything else in the game. The resolution is locked at 800x600, and even if you ignore the blockiness of the graphics the small levels are bland and uninteresting and the cutscenes smack of stock-footage amateurism.

The Third Wave is embarrassingly primitive in every conceivable way.

It’s not a terribly good team-based strategy – in fact, only if you’re a team-based strategy freak should you pick up this title, as it offers very limited gameplay and extremely limited enjoyment as you struggle through the ongoing clobbering that Magnum Games likes to call missions.

Consistently poor design decisions were what seem to have drained all the fun from this title, a pity because it’s not like the market is saturated with Squad-RTS titles.

Compared to Commandos and even knockoffs like Desperados and Prisoners, it's primitive and feeble, like an old Mafia boss that's out of touch and can't see the G-men bearing in on him.

Doesn't offer anything worth even a cursory glance. Even squad-based strategy-game fantatics should take a pass on this lousy $20 beer coaster.

From top to bottom BTL screams “1997” or at least, “1998.”