I got the full thing, and this game officially rocks. It will definitely keep me entertained for the next couple weeks while I wait for NCAA. OK, more impressions from yours truly (with pictures!).
Basically, Soldiers: Heroes Of World War II feels like the evolution of Commandos. At least it does to me. Its a bit more fast paced, so hardcore fans of the series might not like it. But, it requires icey nerves of steel and all that stuff...this game is
hard.
There are around 30 missions (with room for mods and bonus missions). You can take command of the Russians, English, Americans, and in an interesting twist...The Germans.
Each mission starts off somewhat light. You don't get full blown destructive powers, and the odds are stacked against you. In the German one you have to hide 3 Tiger tanks (which look like they can destroy anything), and then command a handful of soldiers to take a bridge held by British commandos. Its pretty cool. You set out your heavy machine gunner behind an abandoned car, get two of your machine gunners on either side of the road and use the fourth guy as backup. Bingo, you've got a little ambush for the poor bastard walking point...The commandos wrecked me pretty quickly with well coordinated attacks.
The AI seems to be really good in this game. In the American mission, you a paratrooper who has to find his crew and a gun. I crawled along the forest while I watched truck loads of Germans shoot down American troops who had just landed. This particular scene reminded me of a Band Of Brothers episode. Anyhow, back to the AI. Somehow one of the German's saw me....I tried running away, but he called for backup or something. Because they sent out a friggin search party through the forest and really hounded my paratrooper. No details are needed on what happened next. So, lets forget about that and get into the really cool stuff. Tanks.
Notice the soldiers sitting on the tank! How cool. Because the missions start out with low weapons, my tank usage has mostly come through the training mode (which is well done by the way). Tanks can break through buildings, run over trees and people, and destroy basically anything you aim at (providing you are using the correct caliber). There are a variety of tanks in the game, my favorite so far would have to be the Tiger which is just HUGE.
There seems to be a really good emphasis on stealth, at least at the start when your a pip squeak without any weapons. In this picture, I'm controling a Birtisth commando who's job it is to make the docks safe for a landing ship. He comes equiped with silenced gun. I won't go into the details of this mission, but I fucked it up and was shot repeteadly by evil Germans.
Graphically, the game is a gem. You can tell just by looking at the screens I posted. What you don't see is the animation of the individual soldiers, its fantastic. So very detailed, everything like taking out a gun, crouching and setting themself in place is done very well.
The performance is better then the demo. Its definitely noticable. I'd say I was averaging 15-25 more fps then the demo. Nice.
Sound is pretty good. Standard explosions and whatnot, birds chirping and all sorts of nature sounds to remind you of the insanity of war. Voice overs are done well. The best part of the sound would be each characters reaction to you when you tell him to do something. Each nationality has its own accent and slogan. Pretty cool stuff. My favorite line would probably be from the Germans "Alright boys, who vants a medal for bravery".
I'll probably post more screens/impressions when I start blowing shit up. But so far this is a kickass strategy game. Its complicated, but not overly so...and it has an emphasis on action. Very cool game, highly recommended.
