While there never seems to be an end to the tide of historic war games, it’s rare to see anything other than the standard first person shooter. With Soldiers — Heroes of World War II, Codemasters and Best Way present us with a unique hybrid: A format with shades of both RTS and RPG, where twitch skills and puzzle solving ability come in just as useful as tactics and unit husbandry.
The game presents us with four single player campaigns, charting different arenas of WWII and allowing play as the Russians, US, UK or Third Reich. Each is broadly themed, with the Russian missions being far more dependant on infantry use than the armour-filled German levels. Mission objectives vary from ‘Clear the Map’ to
‘Somehow Avoid Detection’, with the one certainty being that you will be both hideously outnumbered and outgunned.
The play style is that of an RTS, but there is no building of units/structures, or resource gathering to attend to. Rather, the game is reminiscent of earlier games like Commando and even Cannon Fodder, giving you control of no more than a handful of men who have to fight, commandeer and loot their way through the highly detailed maps. There is a huge arsenal of 100 weapons and vehicles to assist or oppose you, most of which must be somehow acquired in the field. Individual units can be given general directions relating to movement, firing and posture, but you can also take direct control of a trooper or manned vehicle, allowing much greater accuracy and effectiveness in combat. The art comes down to juggling the movements of multiple units across the map while being ready to ‘possess’ your soldiers to win the actual skirmishes.
The levels themselves are lush and detailed, and full of interactive scenery. Terrain offers cover, minefields await discovery and buildings are there to offer refuge or act as speed bumps for tanks. The gorgeous landscape takes as much wear and tear as your men, and is soon littered with craters and smoking wreckage. This detail is well represented by the graphics engine, with both physics and unit animation being excellent. The game’s audio is also of high quality, with suitably martial music underlying the sound of every broken pane of glass or shot fired.
Incorporating so many polished features and styles of play, Soldiers should be a great game. However, it is let down by a number of technical problems. The graphics engine is not as smooth as it could be — this stuttering is particularly noticeable on the cut-scenes,
and slow-down can occur during hectic moments. Pathfinding and AI can also be poor, and it is frustrating to see one of your tanks happily plough over and through another friendly unit. Controlling multiple units is awkward, and so co-ordinating attacks as the
game demands can be as fiddly as the inventory system. And finally, the game is hard. Damn hard. The learning curve starts at ‘suicide mission’ and moves on up — the problems with the interface takes it beyond the realm of challenging, to a place where your load/save rhythm is perhaps more important than your gameplay.
All this said, Soldiers still offers an atmospheric package. Graphics and sound are good, and in spite of everything the game has that ‘just-one-more-go’ quality that could keep you coming back for more. There is a developing mod community on the Web, and also a
good co-operative multiplayer mode to give some variety. If you enjoy challenging and demanding gameplay, then there is a solid tactical experience here waiting to reward your patience and dedication.
Soldiers — Heroes of World War II
Requirements: P4 2GHz +, 512Mbyte RAM, 128Mbyte Video with T&L, 1.5Gbyte hard disk space.
Rating 70%
Contact: GameStop 01-8724305
11/10/04
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers