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THEATRE OF WAR PC REVIEW |
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Theatre of
War is a historic real-time strategy game for
the PC platform, 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. What’s
good about Theatre of War is that it provides
players tremendous amount of information for
calculating 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 number
of technical flaws in the gameplay department
that needs to be fleshed out. Theatre of War
features five sing-player 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. You’ll command a large scale
infantry, comprising of about 25 to 30
individual units. 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 don’t 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's easy for enemies to spot you and
ultimately decimate your infantry. The lack of
ability to take cover is another setback in the
gameplay. |
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PRODUCT
OVERALL RATING: 7.5 OUT OF 10 |
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Regardless
of what you use for cover is inevitably
ineffective. You will still get eliminated even
if you’re 500 yards out. The lack for cover also
takes away the element of surprise and the
groundwork for a great ambush. On a positive
note, the aritficial intelligence sided to human
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. Theatre of War does a relatively
good job exhibiting 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.
You’ll 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 can’t
enter a building, place mines, or even dig in
for bunkers.
The audio component is somewhat plain. Most of
the environmental noises you'll hear are quite
monotonous. The weapon effects are relatively
faint and the delivery of voice-overs is very
limited. The music isn’t particularly
interesting and you’ll feel like you’re out of
place. Overall, Theatre of War is a mixed
blessing for fans of PC RTS. 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, it’s a solid attempt on the RTS
genre but very frustrating to beat. |
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