IT MUST be a good time of year because I’ve been swamped with computer games for review recently. Rather than leave some out, I’ll do a few reviews of two games together, where the games have a common theme.
Eastern Front 2 and Operational Art of War 2 are both games to fill a wargamer with delight.
Eastern Front 2 is a sequel to the original, with a lot of enhancements to the engine and graphics, as well as some new units. The game is a simulation of the battles between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, as well as a host of minor countries such as Finland, Hungary, and Romania during World War II.
You can play any of the more than 150 scenario battles, or go for it with the huge campaigns. The campaigns are always the most fun in these sort of games, and Eastern Front 2 isn’t any different.
In the dynamic campaign game you choose your name, nationality, type of force you want to command, dates during the war, and so on. You’ll then play through a series of hypothetical battles, based on historical events. In the linked campaign game the battles are scripted, as they closely follow true historical happenings.
As you progress through the campaign you will receive experience points, promotions, and replacements. In the dynamic game you are even represented on the battlefield, which gives a certain immediacy to the game when your character comes under attack.
Operational Art of War Volume 2 deals with battles dating from 1956 to 2000. (Volume 1 dealt with 1939 to 1955). This is less of a campaign-based game than a game set up for battles.
The battles can vary greatly in scope, with icons on the map representing individual companies right up to entire corps. You can play battles ranging from guerrilla warfare up to huge mechanised conflicts. The game comes with several scenarios, and you can download more from sites on the Internet. An add-on CD is being produced called Flash Point Kosovo.
In both games the rules can be as realistic (read complicated) as you like. These are way beyond the Panzer General-type wargames. You have to worry about supply, transport, headquarters, airpower, fording rivers, clearing minefields, repairing railways, clearing out guerrillas, changing formation, lines of communication and more.
Both games encourage you to design your own scenario battles. You can design everything from the map to the forces involved. With Operational Art of War 2 you can place “random” events to take place, such as orders to cease fire, refugee problems, weather changes, and even orders allowing nuclear or chemical weapons release.
Both manuals have many pages devoted to detailing statistics for weapons and troops of the various countries involved. They are rated for things like strength, range, ammunition, and so on.
The screen map in the games are very similar. You look down on the map from an angle, allowing you to see all the terrain and troops. There are many different types of terrain, all with varying effects on movement and combat, such as marsh, road, ruined buildings, desert, seas, contaminated ground, snow, forest, and more.
The troops are well detailed, and you can zoom right in to see the local action. In Eastern Front 2, the troops and vehicles all have historically accurate camouflage and markings according to the season and year.
They are turn-based games, where you give orders to each unit in your turn. With Eastern Front 2, you can play against friends via the Internet, network, modem and e-mail.
Both games are Talonsoft. You’ll need a low-level Pentium with quad-speed CD-Rom drive and SVGA graphics to run them. One of the beauties of these wargames is that they don’t require a super-PC to run. They’ll go fine on your laptop.
These really are hard-case wargames, and not for the fainthearted. Prepare to sit and study the manuals before playing, and if you’re going to try out the campaigns in Eastern Front 2 you’ll be spending many hours in front of the monitor.
These two are probably the most involving and detailed wargames I’ve come across – perfect for the true wargames fan.
