About This Game Frozen Cortex is a simultaneous turn-based strategy game from Mode 7, the creators of Frozen Synapse. Get a free key for a friend with every purchase!Make a plan for your customised robots on a randomly-generated playfield. Positioning, timing and reading the terrain are all vital if you want to outwit your opponent.Your moves, and those of your opponent, play out at the same time. Taut, competitive multiplayer and a deep, complex single player with three different league modes (including large-scale randomly generated league) mean that you can experience your own brand of futuresporting glory!“Another brilliant slice of strategy from Mode 7” (Eurogamer)“I’ve been looking forward to this as much as almost any other game this year.” (Adam Smith, RockPaperShotgun)Features Free key for a friend with every purchase Four core single player modes: roguelike “Knockout” mode; Global Cortex League mode; Manager Mode; Randomly Generated Season Mode Experience the intrigues of the Global Cortex League with a compelling story that spans the various modes - play how you want and keep up with the narrative! 7 unique AI teams each with their own coach who responds dynamically to the play Manager Mode - vast season mode featuring salary cap, roster management, free agent bidding, a college league, injuries and much more... Multiplayer modes: Full Match and Duplicate; several variants of each; make your own custom mode! Online rankings and fast matchmaking Team Editor: name your players, customise their stats, armour, faces and more! Further customisation options including Pitch Editor Music from legendary indie game composer nervous_testpilotThis game was previously called Frozen Endzone and was renamed Frozen Cortex while in Early Access 7aa9394dea Title: Frozen CortexGenre: Indie, Sports, StrategyDeveloper:Mode 7Publisher:Mode 7Release Date: 19 Feb, 2015 Frozen Cortex Cheat Code For Xbox 360 Super fun, super addictive. Graphics are enchanting, and the commentators are absolutely hilarious. Gameplay rules are pretty simple but lead to deep matches. Highly recommended for anyone who loves strategy or turn-based games or just having a good time.. Multiplayer is dead.Has a decent single-player if you dont mind some bugs, which really should have been fixed on release and it doesn't help that the devs have abandoned this game.. Being a football (American) fan and a Madden player for 20 years I wanted a different type of football game. I couldn't find anything outside of an emulator for a football type game. I researched Blood Bowl and while it seems cool, it just doesn't suit my style of strategy and sport simulation. I bought Frozen Synapse a year ago and had a lot of fun playing that title, so I felt this game could be a great mix of tactics and sports feel.With this game, I am able to release my inner coach mind into my team of 5....robot athletes. The visuals are really good, and the gameplay is good, for an early access title.The game modes for single player are AI skirmishes which are fun, and challenging but limited. No story or career mode, but I am sure there is one to tie in sooner or later.The multiplayer is way off....line?. No one on the servers.Correction: one player was on and invited me to a game, played 1 turn and went offline. I was so excited to play against a human, but never got the full blooded chance, yet. The best thing about this game is the strategy to fully control every robots pattern, without the Madden dogsheetery to come along with it. I am happy with the purchase, and will put in well over 17 hours (1$ an hr) to make this game worth my money and time. At it's current state it's a 7\/10. With a story mode and more customization options it can easily be a 10\/10 title. If you like Madden and\/or FS you will enjoy this game.. Frozen Cortex is simple, clear, and yet infinitely complex. With the fantastic artificial intelligence system and randomized playing fields, even single player games are constantly keeping me on my toes and learning more and more about the game systems.As someone who did not get very much into Frozen Synapse due to its complexity (facing \/ direction being vital elements), Cortex has instantly captured me by providing the same level of depth with simplified mechanics. As Ian Hardingham explained in a recent video, Cortex is based off a simple premise - "If you are standing still, you control the space around you. If you are moving, you are vulnerable." Mode 7 has done a fantastic job in creating a modern, fast-paced strategy game that keeps you guessing with every play.In addition, the music is fantastic. But I'm pretty sure everyone on this page knew that already.I would highly recommend this game to strategy lovers. It's an excellent take on the genre that provides a breath of clarity many modern strategy games seem to lack. Frozen Cortex is clearly a labor of love from all involved, and in my opinion, surpasses and improves upon Frozen Synapse in every way.. The movement of your players matters. Run or Pass the ball? Plan it out on your tactical board. How much time will you have in this turn? This is easier to determine as the posessing team since you have an advantage in dominating the course of the game, nonetheless the defending team may have good insight and read the game.This is a simulatenous-turn game with an abstract play field. The geometry of the field is your playground. A plan worth 5 - 10 of your minutes thinking about it is compressed into a 5 - 10 second exchange that will reveal your success.This is the tactical 1v1 game I have been looking for. One one hand, it has the benefits of being turn-based, like board games typically are. On the other hand, it's based on the advantages of being a computer game which is reflected in the wonderful UI as well as in the rules and in the mechanics. I enjoy the tactical depth of this game very much.. tl;dr \u2014 Simultaneous-resolve turn-based sports game. If you like(d) either Blood Bowl or Frozen Synapse, check it out. If you're looking for a game that you can play with friends over long-distances that doesn't take a lot of time or emotional commitment, check it out. Mode 7 does great work, and nervous_testpilot's soundtracks are always top notch.If you hated FTL or Binding of Isaac (or any of the games I mentioned above), you may want to pass. And if you're on the fence, check out Northernlion's preview of it. He gives a good idea as to what the game is like.And now into the nitty gritty.All in all, I would recommend Frozen Cortex. It's highly addicting, really fun, and the games are short enough that you can play one on a break or with minimum time commitment. Bonus, it runs on my toaster of a laptop. The controls are snappy and responsive with no noticeable input delay, and the interface is simplistic and clean. The background designs are gorgeous, in that whole cyberpunk future kind of way, and it's fun to see my old friends from Frozen Synapse making a return as coach icons.That isn't to say I don't have my gripes with it, however. Overall, the game is not new player-friendly. That isn't to say it's not fun, however. It has a learning curve that is relatively short, but steep, and hopefully players will go looking for assistance when they confront their frustrations rather than making smear posts on the forums.Frozen Cortex can be absolutely rage-inducing at times. If you've ever watched (or played) sports, you should already be aware of the feeling of watching a good plan come crashing down. It'll happen. More than once. Get used to it.Once a match starts, there is no RNG. Let me repeat that: there is zero RNG. People will complain that the enemy blocks you more than you block them, but it's a matter of using the tools you have available. If you know what you're looking for, you will never be blocked the entire match. Plain and simple.However, there are RNG elements to the game. The pitch design is randomly-generated from a seed. Feasibly speaking, half of the map may be cut off from passing routes; corners may be entirely sectioned off and unavailable. End zones may have only two available avenues of ingress\u2014and both of them may be blocked by the other team's defenders, with no way to pass them other than by risking them intercepting a pass.The robots you have to choose from to upgrade your roster also appear to have randomly-generated stats; again, probably from a seed. In some modes, it appears that the opposing team's stats may also be randomly-generated, going from either junior varsity or the monsters from Space Jam.My main gripe about the game is that the "standard" difficulty should not at all be considered "standard." It's really "hard" mode. You're given a team of tired, limping robots and expected to pull wins out with them\u2014with better robots available based on your performance. So if you can't pull out a lucky win, by the time you get to Week 4-5 of a Knockout season, you're in hot water, especially if (again) you get a pitch that the more maneuverable opposing team can better take advantage of.In a similar vein, why the developers consider Knockout mode to be the "primary game mode" puzzles me. The other teams in that mode are not single-elimination (they come up with some nonsense about how money's tight, so if you lose *at all* the season's over, GG no re).Meanwhile, one click over, there's a much more "normal" season of 14 weeks, then a two-week single-elimination playoffs. I highly recommend this mode over Knockout, especially for starting players. The teams are on a more even playing ground, you can manage your money and hire better robots in greater numbers if you know how to bet, and the game doesn't automatically send you back to square 1 if you make one mistake.I find the match length rather short, furthering the "roguelike" moniker that if you make one single mistake (which may come down to a coin flip, even in the best of situations, if RNG just happens to stack that way), you will likely find yourself in an unrecoverable disadvantage. Furthermore, since we're human and the AI is not, one error often leads to another made in haste and frustration, while if the AI makes a mistake, it coolly carries on. This is why I said if you hated FTL or Binding of Isaac (or similar games), this one may not be for you. There *will* be times that you're put up against overwhelming opposition with no way to counter and a pitch that hampers your every move while the other team goes trolloping around. And you will lose. And if you're on Knockout mode, that's the end of your season.But then there are the times you get it right. The times you land your blocker right in the runner's path and he kicks a robot in the gut, catches a pass, and lobs it back across the pitch to your runner on the far side, who squeaks out an easy and uncontested 11 points in a single run. There will be the times you'll punt it away only to run up and sucker punch the guy who claims it in the jaw. Those moments are priceless.Last but not least, I feel like the tutorial is incomplete. This may be intended. There are parts of the interface that go unmentioned that can take a lot of the mystery out of the game, for better or worse. For example, the movement node is filled with color if the intended move can be completed without risk of any other players coming to block them. Nowhere is this mentioned in any of the tutorials I have seen as of the time of writing this review. It means that new players are going to get frustrated because they don't know all of the tools available to them, and that's not even factoring in the simulation mode that Frozen Synapse players are already familiar with.But all that complaining aside, I still recommend the game. It takes a bit of figuring out what modes you enjoy most, but once you've got some practice down, you'll be throwing long passes with the best of them. Moments of rage pillowed by hours of fun.Bonus: You get two copies when you buy it, so do yourself a favor a bring a friend along for the ride.. I greatly reccomend this game.Its very accesable with tonnes of replayability. Customization of leagues, purchase op robots, smart AI. This game has many features that you'd certainly enjoy.I bought this game without having a clue as to what i spent my money on. I got in, and played the toturial which, i must add, was very intuative and helpful. After completing the toturial i went onto knockout mode adn chose the easy AI. At first I couldn't beat them. But after 30mins of playing I was able to enjoy the thrill of murdering robots. The smell of oil is good.This game is NOT about sports. Its strictly strategy. So if you like strategy, you'll love this.Give it a go. :D. I greatly reccomend this game.Its very accesable with tonnes of replayability. Customization of leagues, purchase op robots, smart AI. This game has many features that you'd certainly enjoy.I bought this game without having a clue as to what i spent my money on. I got in, and played the toturial which, i must add, was very intuative and helpful. After completing the toturial i went onto knockout mode adn chose the easy AI. At first I couldn't beat them. But after 30mins of playing I was able to enjoy the thrill of murdering robots. The smell of oil is good.This game is NOT about sports. Its strictly strategy. So if you like strategy, you'll love this.Give it a go. :D. Super fun, super addictive. Graphics are enchanting, and the commentators are absolutely hilarious. Gameplay rules are pretty simple but lead to deep matches. Highly recommended for anyone who loves strategy or turn-based games or just having a good time.. On my 4th game ever I played the 3rd ranked player in the globe. It came down to the final play and as I committed my turn I thought I had it in the bag. As the play unfolded and I watched my enemy's robots effortlessly swat the ball from my runner, I realized there was a complexity here I hadn't appreciated. While the game came down to the final play, it wasn't really ever that close - my opponent had boxed me in and there was simply no way out. I love a game that makes you believe you can win until the final instant, only to realize that the depth of tactics ran far deeper than you had anticipated. Is this game for everyone? No, probably not. But it deserves more folks playing online and giving it some life online. It could use a bit more polish, but I'd rather have a great idea with good polish than a good idea with great polish.
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