Pathway to Glory Review

Pathway to Glory is one of several success stories on the N-Gage. Unfortunately, the successes that are so evident, among them Ghost Recon, Colin McRae, Rayman 3, Ashen, Tiger Woods, and to an extent, Asphalt GT, it just has not broken through to the mainstream. I doubt Pathway to Glory will bring the N-Gage to anything but the same niche market that the N-Gage currently enjoys (actually, suffers from).

For those not familiar with Pathway to Glory, it is a turn-based strategy game. Where Warcraft 3 and others has all-out action, Pathway to Glory’s slower gameplay requires more thinking, planning, and ultimately, a higher skill level. You will control several soldiers, with personal stats (which are upgradeable from experience), and qualities. For instance, you do not want machine gunners taking out enemy snipers.

Pathway to Glory will start you off with a nice cut-scene, full of actual World War II images. Also included is a musical score. The first level will have you in Sicily, taking out a water tower with explosives. To do this, you will be using your turn to strategically take out men along the path to the water tower. Each turn, the members of your unit are assigned with x amount of usable points. Points are taken for moving, firing, healing, etc. However, you can duck/crawl/stand without taking up points.

One of the cooler features of the game is vehicle implementation. Is it necessary? No, not at all, but it compliments the game’s ability to take several routes of gameplay. Your units can jump in a humvee or tank. The tank will be limited to movement, but have firepower to remedy that defect. The humvee is fast, but has limited firepower. Cooler yet, in Bluetooth multi-player, I have cornered opponents, so they could not escape.

The game is long, so do not expect to finish it in one sitting. It can also be played co-operatively with a friend, but saved data from single to multi-player is not interconnected. There is also an offline multi-player option that compliments the game very well. It is recommended that you play the campaign with a friend, then, once you have mastered the techniques of N-Gage warfare, duke it out over multi-player. We do NOT recommend multi-player over N-Gage Arena, as you will constantly lose your connection. It is a shame too; this would have been a great multi-player game online.

Pathway to Glory might not fulfill all of its duties (i.e. online play), but the game is not just playable, it is a blast, even for non-strategy people like myself. The multi-player alone makes this game worth, at the very least, trying. We give our greatest compliments to Nokia for their solid effort in this genre.