There is no real story behind the game: all that we know is that the world has somehow turned into a massive battlefield where factions have no allies and only enemies and they fight for their own well being. Your goal is to build up your base, a solid army, and to make sure that you’re there to live, while putting an end to the miserable lives of others.
Unlike your regular base building game, Enemy Lines does come with a pretty interesting concept: a sort of a basic real time strategy element where you can actually attack other bases with the armies that you have trained, with a single goal in mind: that of destroying their command center and looting all the resources. However, what seems interesting at first turns into a repetitive and pointless feature after a few several battles since you can’t actually build more units during the attack phase, as you would be allowed to do in a classic RTS game and the “map” where the battle takes place is pretty small and limited. But at least it’s a new addition and a change to the generally static gameplay of this genre.
Back to your base, you have the regular share of buildings available to be built: resource-generating structures, barracks and defensive elements which will become very useful should an enemy decide to attack.
Waiting times are a major concern here, the game being divided a lot into small bits of gameplay because of the time limitations and this is another poor choice, especially since it occurs as soon as you start playing the game. It’s strange to see that Kiwi don’t know yet that you need to keep the player with your game as long as possible early on to actually have him or her get hooked. If a game tells me that I have to wait 10 minutes after less than 10 minutes of gameplay, it can kiss me and my smartphone goodbye.
Overall, Enemy Lines looks like a rushed product. The tutorial is rushed and not really helpful – but fortunately there’s nothing too difficult about the game, so you won’t have trouble playing should you decide to give it a try. It seems unpolished and lacking features – few construction options, no expansion potential right now and graphics that lack any personality. Combine that with the waiting times that will constantly nag you and you unfortunately have a dud here.
Final rating: 2.5 out of 5
