The H.P. Lovecraft books that form the center of the narrative in Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land are still powerful. Lovecraft latched onto something so strange and otherwordly that his visions continue to power books, films, comics, and games so many decades later. The Wasted Land isn't exactly what you might imagine, in the sense that it doesn't slap you over the head with grotesque visions from the outset. What it does well, like the source material, is build slowly and steadily to a payoff where you start to feel appropriately creeped out. The setting is WWI, which is already ripe for bleak imagery. Add in some undead, hell-spawn, and followers of the occult, and all the makings of a Lovecraft story are in place. The Wasted Land is played from a top-down perspective, so you're pulled back at a bird's-eye perspective, steering the action from on high. This takes a certain amount away from what might be more visceral at ground level, but you'll still feel anxiety over losing troops and watching various horrors flood the field of play.

There are lots of small touches in the game's design aimed at giving you depth of information about the characters. A "Game Guides" section lets you view pages of weapons, units, and equipment available to use in the game. Similarly, there are screens filled with background on each character, showing detailed stats you can adjust between engagements to build a more custom experience. It's as if developer Red Wasp was aiming for something closer to a board-game experience on the iPad. The sound design isn't quite on par with the visuals, but you do get the satisfaction of guns and explosions during battles. There is a musical backdrop that works fine for the subject matter, but we wished for more in the way of effects and music during play, that emphasized the surreal mood of battling against enemies inspired by Lovecraft's imagination.

We alluded to it earlier, but there's a bit of a board-game aesthetic to Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land. It's a turn-based game you play from a top-down perspective, so that immediately creates the vibe of a traditional tabletop game. Backing this up are the relatively involved game mechanics, and the steep difficulty curve. There's a definite time commitment required here, but the payoff for dedicated players is absolutely real. As it turns out, developer Red Wasp Design worked with RPG developer Chaosium to make this feel as much like the "analog version" as possible.

As the game begins, we fade in on trench warfare during the first World War, where a team of soldiers drill in preparation for their missions. This immersion approach to training is a nice touch, and gets you right into the action. The next few missions introduce the notion that something different is afoot on the battlefield. Your team is gradually joined by experts in occult phenomena, carrying spell books in addition to firearms. The opposing forces are reinforced by abominations and undead versions of the German soldiers previously occupying foxholes across from you. As things get weirder and the opposition mounts, you'll need to preserve your team's sanity and use strong planning in order to prevail.

The Wasted Land plays out as a series of missions, each with at least one specific objective. Usually, you're required to keep certain team members alive, which means others are expendable... If you can envision a typical level map, there are "travel" objectives that force you to navigate obstacles and reach waypoints with all required units intact. Between missions you have the opportunity to equip existing units, add new members to your party, and upgrade certain attributes based on good performance in past levels. These moments are some of the most complex in the game, and arguably make the most difference in your play experience. Choose upgrades poorly, and you may handicap an otherwise excellent character. Selecting the right equipment is equally critical, and can mean the difference between success and failure in a level.

If Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land sounds overly complicated, it does verge on that, especially for players used to typical turn-based strategy titles. Sure, you have precedent like the Final Fantasy job system, or the option to improve and upgrade equipment that is present in lots of RTS games. The right way to approach The Wasted Land is as if you were playing a tabletop RGP or other strategy board game. Viewed through this filter, the game has an appropriate level of customization, and there's no question that the A.I. responds well enough to keep things challenging. Just as Chaosium created its Call of Cthulhu RPG series around a more approachable role-playing model, this game actually simplifies much of what would be a very manual process in a traditional d20 RPG. Saying this doesn't change the fact that players in The Wasted Land have to keep track of a lot of information on and off the battlefield. Unique combinations or items and abilities are necessary for each main character, plus you have the ability to generate new team members who may help turn the tide of battle in your favor. Navigating each map's landscape comes with a learning curve, plus the amount of information needed to fully understand the opposing army. Much of this can be learned on the fly, or by reading the impressive amount of documentation accompanying Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land. One great thing about coming from a well-developed gaming tradition is inheriting a rich narrative and rule set. All the same, we wondered at times if Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is almost too niche to appeal to new audiences, and too limited from a social perspective to appeal to traditional tabletop gamers. Time will tell, but there are definitely some hurdles to adoption for new fans.

It's in this department where Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land has the roughest edges. Covering up so much depth just isn't possible, so you're constantly confronted with menus, buttons to press, and lots to read. In a PC setting, there would be keyboard shortcuts and other ways to eliminate all the interface, but playing on the iPad you don't get those benefits. The main technique used to eliminate menu clutter is the long press. This mostly works, but there are lots of awkward moments because of how you must start with the friendly character attempting to shoot or act on an enemy. If you do a long press on the enemy, you'll see the attack options, but if you get the long press wrong, you'll just select the enemy unit. It may sound like a small thing, but when you have to swipe across the page to see enemies and then swipe back to control units, it gets tedious. Short of having a miniature, top-down view of the entire battlefield, we're not sure how this mechanic could be improved. You get the visceral satisfaction of touching enemies, but erratic results can create some frustration. Navigating character menus and using items works in much the same way. Movement is handled with a single tap, and mostly works fine other than some false positives if you tap a wrong square.

The controls are forgivable when you consider the depth and replay value of Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land. Depending on your choices during the game and your strategy for developing characters, things won't play out the same way twice. Fans of the original RPG will no doubt find a lot to love about this adaptation, and iOS gamers interested in a real thinking-cap game will find it here. The sheer amount of moving parts during each level, combined with the strategic elements you have to master to see the credits roll, will intimidate some players. This is fine and well; it's why we still have chess for some people and checkers for others... Compared to Tower Defense and most other turn-based strategy games, Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is a cut above. Bring as much sanity and firepower as you can muster to this game - you're going to need it.