Men Of War Review

Men Of War
PC DVD
Developer: Best Way
Publisher: 1C/505 Games
Game website: www.menofwargame.com

Overview

Action Man was one of my favourite childhood toys. I would happily play with my collection for hours on end. I loved changing the uniforms, weapons and accessories around and acting out various war scenarios with my friends. Playing Men Of War brings back the feeling of playing with the toys in a very nostalgic way, however the big difference is that the soldiers here come alive onscreen and blow the living crap out of one another!

This is the third game in a series of WW2 strategy games by Russian developer Best Way, having previously done the critically acclaimed Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2 and Faces Of War. On the surface at least, the same basic formula is here for another stint into WW2. You have 24 missions spread over 3 campaigns; one for the Russians, one for the Americans and one for the Germans. You also have all the usual multiplayer options, together with the ability to play any of the 24 main missions co-operatively.

The same small scale, squad based real time strategy is present, together with the direct control system, where the player can move units around with the cursor keys and aim the weapon (or turret when in a tank) with the mouse. It’s still a great system that still works well, two games on. You also still have the ability to equip your soldiers with whatever weapons, ammo, equipment and even helmets that you find dotted around the battlefields, in crates, in vehicles or on the dead bodies of fallen comrades or the enemy.

In terms of differences or improvements over the previous efforts, there are a few worth mentioning. For starters, the squad-based grouping that was first introduced in Faces Of War has been given a good tweak and you can now simply just click on an A.I controlled ally when the “clutching hand” animated icon appears. This is much less fiddly than having to click on a interface icon and then find a sweet spot on an ally to click on to encourage them to join your team. The squad cover system seems to have been improved also and now when you have a team selected and you click near a building or sandbags etc, the soldiers intelligently take cover around the structure.

The Good Stuff

The real gem with Men Of War is the sense of scale within both the environments and the level of destruction. Gunfire, explosions and the sheer tonnage of a tank can lay waste to both property and human life, in abundance. In the heat of the action you get a real sense of being involved in a gritty conflict or one of those old, Sunday afternoon WW2 movies, which I love. The effect is so compelling, at times you feel almost sorry for the for the enemy as the poor little buggers desperately try to hold a position, only for you to blow the hell out of their cover with direct fire from your tank, sending bodies and debris flying into the air. I make the game sound a bit easy, but in fact this is actually a very tough game.

I’m a seasoned strategy gamer, but I found myself switching back to the easy level after a couple of missions and unfortunately, this may put some people off. The good news is that while it is stupidly hard at times, you have so much fun that you quite often don’t mind the challenge.

The Bad Stuff

Unfortunately, the poor path finding from the previous two games is still present and you quite often find your troops taking the longest way round only to get killed, or a tank plough through cover that you were planning to use later during your assault. I can appreciate that having a fully destructible environments presents a challenge for coders, but I thought path finding had progressed beyond this poor level.

In terms of the overall quality of the game, this is probably one of the worst titles in recent memory for voice acting, which is a real shame as the production values in other areas of the game are quite high. I have noticed that this is a common problem with games developed in Eastern Europe, but I do wonder if Best Way simply ran out of budget for this, as the quality really is poor.

Conclusion

I liked Men Of War, but it has to be said that there is nothing much original about the game or the setting as it is yet another WW2 real time strategy game. This is not really helped by the choice of settings within the campaigns as you have an interesting one with the airborne invasion of Crete for the Germans, but the Russian and U.S campaigns are settings that have been done to death. It would have been nice to see maybe an operation in Burma with British troops, or maybe resistance/partisan fighters instead of the Russian setting (or hell, maybe even a Japanese campaign?).

If you love WW2 strategy games, like a good challenge and can forgive some of the games shortcomings, then I can highly recommend this title. It’s a fun game that will keep you coming back for more.

Score: 8 out 10