Experience World War II Combat with Men of War

Experience World War II Combat with Men of War
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Overview

Experience tactical combat with Men of War. Developed by Digitalmindsoft in partnership with Best Way, Men of War is a real-time strategy game based on World War II, and a worthy successor of Soldiers: Heroes of World War II - another real-time tactical game. The war-themed PC game features multinational battle grounds with the introduction of locations such as Greece and North Africa. Incorporating different units and campaigns, Men of War displays impressive gameplay as well as graphics. The PC game’s real-time strategy is action-packed, making it one of the most enjoyable and challenging tactical games I’ve played in a while.

Gameplay (4 out of 5)

The Men of War PC game is based on the well-trodden battle grounds of World War II. There are three different campaigns included in Men of War, broken into 24 war missions. The first mission is almost like a tutorial, where you learn a few commands through the actions of two friends belonging to the Red Army.

The first campaign, the Russian campaign, allows you to take part in missions on the eastern front. This is the lengthiest of the three campaigns, but it is quite engaging as you are exposed to challenges that get few pages in the history books. Then there are German and American campaigns, focusing on the fighting in North Africa. What makes Men of War special and addictive is that it provides you with a wide variety of tasks to accomplish in each mission. For instance, you will learn various war tactics of the Red Army in the first campaign, where you must assemble the troops surviving an unexpected bombing raid, defend the important targets and stop the Germans from entering Moscow. The missions require strategic planning. There is a realistic damage system that has to be handled. Players can search bodies of fallen soldiers to find goodies for their inventories, or place anti-tank mines, and have other tricks at their disposal to make this game a little more interesting than the usual all out combat all the time school of strategy. Beside this, it will take you to the lesser known theatres where games generally don’t pay much attention.

Graphics and Sound (4 out of 5)

The graphics of Men of War are solid, although not the best. You can experience a realistic war zone environment from the battle grounds and combat locations. For instance when you see the blowing smoke, you will come to immediately expect troubles ahead.

This PC game delivers impressive sound, though the music is a bit repetitive. You can pick out the minutest sound of your enemies crawling over the grass. It doesn’t get any better and clearer.

Features (4 out of 5)

Men of War features more than 50 different units including tanks, APCs and artillery. The PC game includes 30 hours of single- player gameplay, which is quite impressive for a hardcore strategy game single player experience. It features 19 single player missions at the core of the campaings, and you can also play a number of bonus missions that involve both defending and attacking objectives.

The multiplayer mode of Men of War includes 5 different factions - The US, Great Britain, Germany, Soviet Union and Japan. You can play in different game modes such as Combat, Battle Zone, Frontline and Cooperative, and two new modes Victory Flag and Valuable Cargo. The multiplayer mode supports up to 16 players. It is really interesting that you can play through the missions and campaigns cooperatively with a friend, a welcome and unusual addition to a strategy title.

Pros and Cons

The most noticeable feature in Men of War is that you can take direct control of one of your units. This opens up a number of tactical options for you to follow as you can control your unit like in a third-person action game, pulling off some heroic moves and turning the tide of a battle. Plus you can use historically accurate war vehicles in it, and an absurd variety of them at that!

Honestly, I enjoyed the vintage war vehicles, but it is not easy to get into the game. The difficulty of Men of War really makes it challenging to succeed on the battle grounds. At times, it feels really tiresome when the gameplay is all about well trodden war strategies, threatening to overshadow the innovative part of the game and spoil its gamplay. Also, the music in Men of War sounds repetitive and becomes irritating at times, impeding your focus during the long missions. Even the visuals would have been much better and prolific. Developers should keep note of these small drawbacks.

System Info

Men of War does not require much to run on your computer.

  • Windows 2000/XP/Vista
  • 1.7 GHz Processor
  • 512MB RAM
  • nVidia GeForce 3/ATI Radion 9600 video card
  • DirectX 9.0
  • 4GB free HDD space
  • DVD drive
  • Compatible sound card

Most possibly, 4GB free hard disk space is the only concern to consider. But given the challenging and interesting gameplay of Men of War, I think we can compromise on that.

Screenshots

Visible battle grounds