Bonecraft review from a german player (wall of text/spoilers included,care)

[Starpilot]

You aren't using your rifle, are you? The rifle is the master weapon in this game. It's a mega-beer blast with uber range from BT. And it has been improved so it fires through basically anything. I owned the field on my first hard play through on hard. Use the girls as target finders for you, and shields if you feel like it. Use your rifle to push back and kill anything coming towards you when on the ground. Quick swap to cannon to rain down hell on egg clusters. If you get into too much trouble at once (mass rush from all sides cause you were using the cannon and it has the bad effect of SCATTERING enemies), then just rifle a hole in their lines, jet fuel run a LONG ASS WAY, get high if possible, and clear things out. If you have to jet run all the way back to the start, do it. Heal up, let your dead squadies resurrect, set everyone to defend you (so no one gets lost), and readvance.

Honestly, as soon as I stopped using grenades, which have the bad habit of killing your squaddies and severely hurting you, regardless of if it goes off halfway across the map or because one of the girls just ran right in front of you as you start to toss it (point blank detonation), I seriously owned Hard on that map. If you like grenades, then just use the cannon. You can use it to shoot anything directly in front of you, harming all enemy nearby and scattering all enemy away from you. Quick swap to rifle, sweep out the area.

The girls aren't useless. After your rifle, they are your number 2 weapon on that map. If you kill your squaddies yourself with a grenade blast --- or they kill themselves by running off too far from everyone else--- you can clear the entire map ON HARD with just them. You can keep sweeping the area around you of the spawned monsters, using cannon and rifle, and they will murder the eggs (spawn points) for you. They are great enemy detectors, good shields, and even make good decoys--- you take them close to the spawn points using the "defend" order, order the girl to attack, and retreat. The girl will stay RIGHT THERE, and the monsters will run up to kill her. She's immortal, so she never dies. After you back off, you can cannon the monsters, then carpet bomb the area. Order the girl(s) to defend you, and rifle the hell out of the area to get all the monsters headed your way. REMEMBER--- rifle is magic, and fires through trees, hills, monsters--- nothing but the game map edges stop the rifle, and it has a large cone of attack.

Every once in a while you won't rotate your fire fast enough between the two main attack paths the monsters are using, and you'll get tagged by one group. If its the biggest guys, RUN and fuel boost. Get some distance, and smash them with the rifle. Or scatter them if you like with the cannon. Then get back to work.

Honestly, with just using a couple of common tactics, it is easy to own any map in on any level in BC. The hard levels just require that you have at least 2 upgrades on your squaddies (but max is best). Tactically speaking, since each squad type (ie, sergeant, major, commander) have different weapons, you should be using a mixture of squad member types. That lets your squad function best, as they will have a several ranges of attacks (ie, rifle, shotgun, flamer, cannon) when together, so they won't be useless on half the maps. Don't let them scatter, which is what they will do when on attack. That's why you have to rotate their orders occasionally from attack to defend--- to pull them back in together. Then swap over to attack, and concentrate on whatever you want.

As I said, BC does offer several tactical possibilities. It makes the game a lot more enjoyable when use them. And don't forget to retreat and heal. On the final mission, you can retreat to a less active zone (one you've cleared out), have the girls retreat with you, and then sex up your health and butt zapper. YOU can't be hurt while screwing, but your SQUAD can, so choose a less active zone to stuff your meters to max.

Didn't you sex up sex bot during missions when you got really low on health? That's what she was there for. Final mission gives you two pretty, immortal, attacking sex bots to back you up. They can be shields, decoys, enemy detectors, unlimited health refreshes, and field mortars (bombing the spawner eggs). And you have the bonus that with the helper elves, you don't knock them down when you fire through them at a target. Sex bot gets knocked down if you do that to her, but the elves are allies, just like your squaddies, so you can only hurt them with your grenades.

Now, don't get me started on how stupid the game is having you in space armor with a closing bubble helmet but requiring you to BREATH the air, not having slopes from the map level area to the bottom of the water so if you fall down into the water you can't get back up because theres no connecting slope to run up for at least half the water on the map (and it gives you that crazy camera angle change that BT does when you fall in the water), the fact that your cannon can go off point blank blowing all the enemies across the map and not hurting your allies (including naked helper elves in the final mission) but a little grenade going off half way across the map from everyone can kill your allies and knock out 80% of your health, etc etc etc. I have a lot of issues (mostly irritant level) with BC. But overall, it is a decent fighting game with great (animated) sex. Adventure wise (exploring), it is a bit weak, but once the modders start modding new maps, new missions, and new girls, well--- it should just get better and better.