I ordered this game a few weeks ago from Battlefront.com, the only place I could find it, after I'd heard good things about it (I think it got a 9.1 at Gamespot, IIRC). It showed up a few days later in a standard priority mail envelope--just the disc and the manual, not even a box. Installing the game took 90 freakin' minutes, not because I had to babysit the computer, but because of the size of the game.
The game rocks, though. Basically, it simulates the Eastern Front of WWII (Soviets vs. Germans) between 1941-1945. The game is a mix of turn-based and real-time strategy--the game pauses every sixty seconds for you to issue orders, and then you watch a one-minute movie of what happens as a result. Then there's another pause for an orders phase. It works better than many RTS games, where strategy sometimes just comes down to who can move the mouse fast enough.
The sound design is amazing--it's all directional, based on where the camera is over the field of play. My Harman/Kardon speakers are getting a workout. And the sound isn't just pleasant background stuff--it's all informational. (Sometimes you can identify enemy tanks concealed in trees by the sound of their engines, for example.) The sound folder for the game has something like 2,000+ .wav files.
Graphics aren't great, but they're okay, considering that the game was made in 2002. It's not really about the graphics for a game like this, anyway--most of the processing power seems to be dedicated to AI routines.
Exploding enemy vehicles are very satisfying--there's a nice sort of a PAP! sound when the shell penetrates the armor, followed by debris flying all over the place, followed by the enemy crew bailing from the vehicle and attempting to crawl to safety, followed by your guys mowing down the crew with machine guns as they try to escape. Speaking of armor penetration, what the game goes through to calculate hits is pretty hardcore--it looks at the make of the gun, the kind of shell, the month and year of the scenario (since the manufacturing process for making shells improved over time, resulting in a lower percentage of duds), the trajectory of the shell, the strength of the enemy armor plating for its given model, and the angle of the particular area of plating with respect to the ground. You don't need to look at all that stuff if you don't want to, but it's nice to know that you can.
It all comes together in a pretty intense experience--in the scenario I played yesterday, I was playing as the Russians and attempting to hold my ground against invading Germans for 20 minutes. First German infantry came running out of the nearby forest on what was pretty much a suicide mission; then I heard the sound of engines; then armored cars and halftracks came tearing out of the tree line, tearing up my infantry with machine guns (which made some of my guys lose their morale and cower down in their foxholes in fear). Basically the German infantry was sacrificing itself so that German armored cars could take out my flank. One of my squads tried to shut down the armored cars with a huge machine gun, but the gun jammed (which made them start screaming in Russian). Finally they managed to get the gun working and take down a couple of the cars, which made the rest retreat and regroup. I barely squeaked out a victory--bodies were sprawled all over the place; smoke was rising from abandoned vehicles; a couple of buildings had been destroyed; infantry units were lying scared in their foxholes with hands over their heads. Very cool.
There are dozens of scenarios (I think about fifty, offhand), plus ten multiple-scenario "operations." Some scenarios take less than an hour to play; some operations probably take about 15 hours. There's also a scenario editor that looks pretty intuitive and robust, though I haven't used it much. It's a nice mix, and it'll keep you busy for a while. If you like strategy games and games with tons of replay value, you should definitely give this a look.
The game rocks, though. Basically, it simulates the Eastern Front of WWII (Soviets vs. Germans) between 1941-1945. The game is a mix of turn-based and real-time strategy--the game pauses every sixty seconds for you to issue orders, and then you watch a one-minute movie of what happens as a result. Then there's another pause for an orders phase. It works better than many RTS games, where strategy sometimes just comes down to who can move the mouse fast enough.
The sound design is amazing--it's all directional, based on where the camera is over the field of play. My Harman/Kardon speakers are getting a workout. And the sound isn't just pleasant background stuff--it's all informational. (Sometimes you can identify enemy tanks concealed in trees by the sound of their engines, for example.) The sound folder for the game has something like 2,000+ .wav files.
Graphics aren't great, but they're okay, considering that the game was made in 2002. It's not really about the graphics for a game like this, anyway--most of the processing power seems to be dedicated to AI routines.
Exploding enemy vehicles are very satisfying--there's a nice sort of a PAP! sound when the shell penetrates the armor, followed by debris flying all over the place, followed by the enemy crew bailing from the vehicle and attempting to crawl to safety, followed by your guys mowing down the crew with machine guns as they try to escape. Speaking of armor penetration, what the game goes through to calculate hits is pretty hardcore--it looks at the make of the gun, the kind of shell, the month and year of the scenario (since the manufacturing process for making shells improved over time, resulting in a lower percentage of duds), the trajectory of the shell, the strength of the enemy armor plating for its given model, and the angle of the particular area of plating with respect to the ground. You don't need to look at all that stuff if you don't want to, but it's nice to know that you can.
It all comes together in a pretty intense experience--in the scenario I played yesterday, I was playing as the Russians and attempting to hold my ground against invading Germans for 20 minutes. First German infantry came running out of the nearby forest on what was pretty much a suicide mission; then I heard the sound of engines; then armored cars and halftracks came tearing out of the tree line, tearing up my infantry with machine guns (which made some of my guys lose their morale and cower down in their foxholes in fear). Basically the German infantry was sacrificing itself so that German armored cars could take out my flank. One of my squads tried to shut down the armored cars with a huge machine gun, but the gun jammed (which made them start screaming in Russian). Finally they managed to get the gun working and take down a couple of the cars, which made the rest retreat and regroup. I barely squeaked out a victory--bodies were sprawled all over the place; smoke was rising from abandoned vehicles; a couple of buildings had been destroyed; infantry units were lying scared in their foxholes with hands over their heads. Very cool.
There are dozens of scenarios (I think about fifty, offhand), plus ten multiple-scenario "operations." Some scenarios take less than an hour to play; some operations probably take about 15 hours. There's also a scenario editor that looks pretty intuitive and robust, though I haven't used it much. It's a nice mix, and it'll keep you busy for a while. If you like strategy games and games with tons of replay value, you should definitely give this a look.