Outside
of puzzle games, strategy titles have always represented the gold
standard when it comes to twisting your brain. Not only do you have
to unpack a fiendishly difficult combination of interlocking unit types
and specialities, build orders, and nuanced terrain, but it is a
riddle that constantly evolves as you attempt to solve it, sucking
you into an ever escalating grudge match of counter stacked atop
counter until you’re sitting with something even Derren Brown
couldn’t unravel.
And
that’s on a good day. On a bad day, you will be confronted by a
puzzle so uncompromising, so unrelentingly evil, that at best it will
leave you with a splitting headache, and at worst, with a broken
keyboard, or sat at the kitchen table scoffing more ice-cream than
you really should.
These
are the missions that despise you, that are there to shatter your
belief that you’re the very best general gaming has to offer and
send you howling back to boot camp with your tail firmly between your
legs.
(Note:
everything is easy once you know how and so the article is written
from the perspective of a new player. No cheese strategies or
exploits allowed!)