World War II: Frontline Command

World War II: Frontline Command by Strategy First.

WWII, the war to end all wars. A time in world history when Europe was aflame in blood and turmoil as warriors from the nations of the world battled each other with everything from guns and mortars to tanks and aircraft to knives and bare hands. WWII: Frontline Command takes you to the frontline with the men of the Allied powers as they forge their way across Europe, purchasing their victories a foot at a time with a bullet and a body.

The game starts you in the center of France as allied commando units preparing the way for the D-Day assault. You start with a platoon of paratroopers inserted behind enemy lines with orders to destroy a radar station to allow for the upcoming Naval assault to arrive undetected. Here you get a chance to learn how to move and fight with the infantry and engineers as well as the basic function of unit commanders and their binoculars.

As the platoon moves toward their goal, they have to pass by a town occupied by German soldiers. Even the most careful of advances runs afoul of German patrols. One of the interesting points I discovered was that even after dispatching the patrols, their friends would chase you across the land to exact revenge.

The second mission is a "simple" assignment to destroy a pair of pesky bridges that are considered eyesores on the countryside.... Oh, and there is also something about their being of strategic importance to slow down some annoying German armor. In this we are introduced to the use of mortars. The nice thing about mortars is they have a really long range and make really big holes in the ground. The problem is that the mortar crews can only see so far. And, if you designate a target that is beyond their visual range, they tend to get up and run towards the target until they can see it before they start to shoot at it (which is generally bad for their health).

One way to get around this minor annoyance is to use spotters. Any allied unit that is near the mortar and in visual range of the target can be the "eyes" for the mortar. The accuracy is not as good (at least on the first shot) but you get a better range and field of fire from your artillery and you don't have to put the mortar crews in harms way. Though I noticed that the people that the mortars shoot at tend to get a bit miffed and charge the mortars, even ignoring screening units.

The third scenario is the D-Day assault on Normandy. Now then, let us pause the review here a moment and ask a question: "Have you seen the movie Saving Private Ryan?". If the answer to this question is no, put down the game and this review, go rent the movie and watch it through the end of the assault on Omaha Beach. After you have done that you can come back to the review and the game and continue.

I have to say that when this scenario started up, I immediately had visions from the movie "Saving Private Ryan". My heart started beating faster, my hands started to sweat and when the action began, I was momentarily stunned at the wanton devastation of the units under my command. I couldn't move fast enough to get the infantry that was landing on the beach in motion and into the relative safety of the cliffs shadow. The death toll was tremendous; some units didn't even have a chance to exit the landing craft.

Suffice it to say that a) I was unprepared for the scope of the scenario based on the type of scenarios preceding it, and b) was overwhelmed by the level of realism displayed during the assault.

Having tantalized you with the opening scenarios lets hope over to boot camp and see what it takes to get trained to be a commander of men in WWII: Frontline Command. There are four basic training scenarios that will teach you everything you need to know to get started in the game. Beginning with how to select and move the troops and basic combat. to the use of buildings and vehicles.

The training scenarios make full use of the game engine and include a voice to talk you through the instructions so you can focus on the game and not on the text scrolling across the top. Overall, I'd say that this is one of the best teaching sections I've encountered. Very concise and easy to follow.

The quality of the graphics in the game is impressive as well. If you zoom in to the max you get a good view of the soldiers in motion as they go about following your orders. The detail on the vehicles and other equipment is excellent. Its kind of fun to watch as the turrets on the tanks rotate around to acquire a target.

Game play and unit control are very simple and clear cut. There are 3 basic modes for units: Movement, Ambush and Defend. And within that there are 3 different types of movement: walk, run and crawl. Though, at times the men get minds of their own and start charging off after retreating enemy units...

Line-of-Site is extremely important in this game. And a soldier that is crawling can use the environment to his advantage, for instance, using a hedgerow or wall to hide behind. The game is a true fog of war in that anything that is not in the LOS of one of your units IS covered in fog. Unit commanders have binoculars that you can use to extend your visual range and seek out enemy troops - definitely a good thing.

The last item on my agenda is the camera control. You are able to pan around in a complete 360-degree arc as well as the zoom in and out function previously mentioned. There is also an option for adjusting the azimuth so that you can get a top down view or drop it to a near horizontal view.

OH, yes! Almost forgot, the game also has vintage footage for an opening sequence as well as additional footage that is shown each time you move on to a new mission set. The footage is excellent and really adds a classic flavor to the game.

Over all this was an excellent game for small unit tactics in the World War II environment. With units ranging from squads to near division strength. My only real issue with the game was the copy protection system by starforce. When I would try to run the game the starforce copy protection program would reset my system every time. I was unable to get this issue fixed until I had a computer tech make adjustments to my system bios.