Men of War - PC Reviews

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Men of War is the third in a series of poorly-named WW2 real-time tactics games, following Soldiers: Heroes of WW2 and Faces of War. I say "tactics" rather than "strategy" because this is more of a sub-genre of games where you don't manage bases or worry much about resources; rather, the focus is on in-depth tactics and keeping your men alive while killing the enemy. I played Soldiers (the first game in this series) and found there to be a number of problems that kept me from enjoying it, particularly the finicky control scheme, horrible user interface, and gruesome difficulty that was more frustrating than gratifying. This time around, however, Best Way has got it right.

The main difference between this game and other WW2 strategy games such as, say, Company of Heroes, is that this is is an organic battlefield; it doesn't feel static, but dynamic. Every one of your soldiers has their own inventory, can sneak, or can be placed under AI auto-movement in order to cut down on your micromanaging. The game has both massive clashes with hundreds of soldiers, tanks, artillery howitzers, and special ops units, and stealthy night-mission commando raids where you surgically cut into your opposition.

To illustrate, one of my favorite missions begins with you sneaking four Russian commandos around behind German lines, placing bombs on guns and sweeping minefields. There are more guns than can be destroyed, so you have to think ahead and decide which guns, whether machinegun nests, mortars, howitzers, or anti-tank cannons, must be destroyed for the battle that will follow when the sun rises. When you're ready, the next morning's battle begins as you charge infantry across trenches, battle with tanks, and perform precision bombing runs. The mission continues as you fight through mountains, mined roads, and finally a German base; and it's totally up to you the player how to accomplish your goal.

There are some very rough edges, but they can be forgiven when you realize how fun the game is. The voice acting is the worst I have ever heard in my life (with the exception of one voice actor out of around twenty), the difficulty is pretty rough at first (though you can slow down the action to about one-third speed, which helps in single player), and there are a few unit animations that are shoddy, but overall this game has become my most-played in the last year. I would recommend this to anyone who likes RTS games, and even to many who don't.

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After reading a number of reviews that compared Men of War (MoW) to Company of Heroes (CoH), I bought this game with the mindset that it would involve much more realistic military strategy. I can say it most certainly does, but at a heavy price: fun.

If Company of Heroes is like playing a game of checkers, Men of War is a game of chess.

I've played my share of real-time strategy games, but to say MoW is 'for experts' and requires a 'lengthy learning curve' would be an understatement. To my dismay, there was no interactive tutorial mission. The instruction manual does not get into much detail, other than what each command does.

The concepts of the commands are not complicated, but there are a lot of them. A few of the commands I simply could not imagine using in a strategy game; like holster weapon, or melee attack. They may as well add 'Throw rocks'. Learning how and when to use each command effectively is much more involved compared to most RTS games. It'll take you a lot of time to figure out what the heck you're doing, before you can focus on any serious strategy.

While there is no building or resource management in MoW, the micro-management of your individual infantry and vehicles makes this game much more complicated than most. This drags the game play down to an absurdly slow crawl.

Some elements of micro-management I could appreciate. For example, controlling the stance of your infantry (e.g. standing, kneeling, prone) to affect their aim and protection is useful. And ordering soldiers to repair tread damage on your immobilized tank is much more realistic than 'zapping it' back to health with a magic wrench.

Other elements I found to be excessive. In the first mission, my one and only tank had to be repaired twice. That's fine. But near the end of the mission, my tank stopped dead. What could be wrong? Out of gas.. Worse yet, I could not locate a gas can anywhere. So my troops couldn't siphon fuel to refill the tank. This is called a 'realistic annoyance'. I'm sorry, but I'm not looking for a level of realism where my tank runs out of gas and my soldiers have to get out and walk. (Sadly, there is no 'Get out and push' command. My tank was abandoned.)

As far as the details of the game itself, the sound effects are mediocre, though the voice acting is okay. While many reviewers have praised the graphics, I maxed out all the settings and still found them to be very plain. Being able to crash a tank through the house two enemy soldiers are hiding behind should be fun, but the animations just aren't very exciting. Like its slower pace of game play, MoW lags behind CoH for graphics and sound.

This game is much slower and more detail-oriented than other RTS games, like CoH or World In Conflict. The emphasis is on thinking, not reacting, so be prepared to sacrifice excitement for realism. If you typically play first person shooters or fast-paced RTS games (e.g. Call of Duty, Command & Conquer), you'll want to steer clear of MoW.

If you're prepared to account for every element involved in deciding, planning, executing, and adjusting a battle plan on the field of combat (from sharing ammunition between soldiers, to planting bushes to camouflage your artillery) then this is the game for you. Patience is required.

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As others have noted, this game has a few rough edges. However, it is the most engaging real time tactical game that I've ever played; indeed, in my opinion it is the most enjoyable tactical game to hit the PC since the original X-COM came out in 1994.

Men of War puts you in the shoes of Russian, American and German forces during the height of World War II. You may be thinking, based on this, that it's just another Company of Heroes ("CoH") clone. It is not. The focus, pace and structure of the two games are hugely different. While CoH is a real time strategy game with limited base building and unit recruitment, Men of War gives you some soldiers, and perhaps some heavy weapons and vehicles, and that's basically it everything else in the mission you will have to find on the battlefield. Your men can drive every vehicle they find on the field, can use trucks to pull artillery weapons, can load either high explosive or armor piercing shells into the heavy guns. Tanks can drive through buildings and walls.

The detail here is incredible. From the realistic physics (the angle of impact an armor piercing shell hits a tank, and where it hits the tank, make a big difference, for example) to the fact that each and every soldier has his own inventory and weapon proficiencies, there's a lot to fiddle with, which is great. A lot of times, you will control only a small front in a much larger battle. I haven't ever seen such a large scale simulation of battle in a game of this type before.

Two other fantastic features are "direct control" you can take direct control of each unit in the game (enormous fun with tanks) and multiplayer coop, enabling you to play through the campaigns with your buddies online.

I could go on, but I won't. For the discerning strategy gamer, Men of War is a must buy. It's not for everybody I have read some complaints from those expecting another CoH; there is almost an overwhelming amount to manage, and the game can be very difficult but what the game does, it does extraordinarily well. I think it's a modern classic.

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Having played Soldiers: Heroes of WWII I kind of knew what to expect.

On the plus side, it's the same as it's predecessor where you strategically move your soldiers across the field and manage yor resources.

As it's been said, there is a whole lot of micromanaging as you can scavenge almost anything off of the battle field.

It's a lot of fun if you have the time to dedicate to even just one mission which could take almost an hr or more to complete.

My only complaints are that along with that micromanaging you have to know sometimes to click off of one unit before you move to another. ANother gripe is that Sometimes your objective comes a bit muddled and you may not know where to go or exactly where to set up and sometimes you may not have enough time to set your soldiers before you are attacked (but to be fair, this is war after all). This isn't a build and rush game like Company of Heroes. You may sometimes find yourself overwhelmingly outmatched and that in itself is the beuty of the game...outwitting the AI...which plays a mean game of kill the soldiers!

My biggest gripe overall is that for a new game, it has some very dated graphics and lacks a lot of detail and I am running this game with an overclocked video card and I thought it would have stood up to Company of Heroes in that department. Again to its credit, there are plenty of things to destroy in this game and the back ground is rarely ever static and yes, the voices are very cheesy

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I bought this game digitally on a impulse buy because there was a half off sale... if i had knew the amount of fun that was in store i would have paid full price immediately!

It is different from regular Stradegy games, much more difficult in my opinion, but you can read about the specifics in other reviews, my point is simply that i was surprised by it. hard to get a hold of it at first, but once you play it for a couple hours it is great fun.

the multiplayer is kinda retarded, you need a gamespy account, and i hate gamespy...

but the lan play with friends is fun and adds a new competition to the gameplay.

my major complaint is the lack of a skimish mode or random situation genorator. after playing through the campaigns 10 times I could go for a random battle here or there with simple blowing up of enemies :)

all in all its a great game and would highly recommend it to a WWII game lover like me!