Transcends "game". This is Art.

Machines at War is everything all the other reviews say - well-balanced, deep, immaculately crafted, with great controls and years of playablility.

It is absolutely, positively worth the money. If you loved C&C, this is even better.

Its also one of those rare games that transcends being a piece of entertainment, and is able to do something more. Games like Braid, Okami, Bastion. Heres just one example:

As you play, building and building the music keeps time, crescendoing and pushing your pulse along. Finally, you develop an ICBM. First. You build, arm, and launch.

And in flight, you notice that the music has changed. Its pastoral, everyday. It makes you think of everyday people, going about their everyday lives in relative peaces. Thats where your screen-shaking missle falls.

Ive never played *any* shooter-type game that manages to balance playability and fun with a sense of gravitas, to keep a foot in the real world.

Machines at War pulls it off. Its a great strategy war game, wonderful to play, yet just grounded enough to remind us that actual war is a terrible place. Beautiful. Masterful. Art.

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