THEATRE OF WAR REVIEW |
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| DESKTOP PC WINDOWS VERSION |
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Theatre of War is a historic
real-time strategy game,
which depicts some of the
most crucial battles of
World War II during 1939
to 1945. In its core, the
game runs an extreme
quantity of militaristic
realism. As such,
velocity, range, and the
weight of infantry
bullets are greatly
conceptualized here. Whats
good about Theatre of War
is that it gives players
tremendous amount of
information for your
strategies. Not only that
but it also focuses more
on the excitement of
building excellent
tactics rather than
forcing you to win
battles. The overall
presentation is visually
gripping; however, there
are a few technical flaws in
the gameplay department
that needs to be fleshed
out.
Theatre of War features
five war campaigns with
30 sizable maps based on
real-world locations.
Players will have access
to more than 150 military
vehicles (such as tanks
and artillery units) and
literally hundreds of
small arms at their
disposal.
Youll
command a large infantry
of about 25 to 30
individual units, and
many of your soldiers are
tasked with special
roles, which take out the
hassle of constant input
from the player. Suffice
it to say, no matter how
spontaneous your infantry
becomes, you still need
to micromanage your
troops as they tend to
wander off aimlessly if
you dont tell them
to hold their position.
There is a bit of
unbalance in the gameplay
department. The LOS/LOF
system is somewhat broken
down, which puts your
squad in vulnerable
position. Without this
system in place, it is
very easy for the enemy
to spot you and
ultimately decimate your
infantry. The lack of
ability to take cover is
another setback in the
gameplay. Regardless of
what you use for cover is
inevitably ineffective.
You will still get
eliminated even if youre
500 yards out. The lack
for cover also takes away
the element of surprise
and the groundwork for a
great ambush. |
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On a positive note,
the human AI does a
fairly decent job of
making tactical decisions
such as taking the best
course of action
available to them. For
instance, when the
soldiers manning the
artillery are killed,
another unit steps up to
take position of their
fallen comrade. In other
instances, you will see
human AI take evasive
maneuver such as retreat
when outnumbered.
Graphically, the game is
amazing. The tanks and
other military convoys
have been given vast
amount of attention
complemented with damage
models to them. The
environment is huge,
filled with incredible
battle zones. You are no
longer restricted to
fighting on small
outskirts but rather on
the full length of
available landscapes. The
game does a good job
using a few weather
effects such as rain and
snow, giving the setting
a more realistic terrain.
You also get other great
visuals in the background
like smoke coming out of
the blown vehicles, acres
of small villages and
droves of trees, as well
as shack-like buildings
in far distant.
The action on field moves
relatively smooth for the most part. Youll
see heavy emission kick
up by tanks and trucks
as they pass by. However, not all
are in perfect order. It
seems like your troops
cant enter a
building, place mines, or
even dig in for bunkers.
The sound is somewhat
plain. Most of the audio
is monotonous. The weapon
effects are somewhat
faint and the delivery of
voice-overs is very
limited. The music isnt
particularly interesting
and youll feel like
youre out of place.
Overall, Theatre of War
is a mixed blessing. On
one hand, you get an
immersive WWII battles
with incredible historic
display of allies
vs. axis type of
scenarios. You also get a
decent human AI
interaction that gets
some of the tasks done.
On the other hand, the
gameplay is still in
rudimentary stage. The
LOS/LOF system is broken
and the sound is compromised. The game
basically boils down to two choices—you
either love world history, which Theatre
of War does well making that connection,
or you're a very big fan of RTS games.
For us, its a solid attempt on the
RTS genre but
very frustrating to beat. |
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