Review

Theatre of War, review by UTexGrad

Points: 3
I just got here

Disappointing

In it's current form this game is pretty lousy. The AI is terrible, infantry can't enter buildings, infantry can't pop smoke, mortars are treated as off-board artillery, your anti-tank guns can apparently be seen for miles by the AI (not to mention that the AI magically knows when the AT gun is crewed or uncrewed), tanks turn around and present their hind end to the enemy, no freaking LOS calculations (forget going hull down with your tanks), cover is non-existent and appears on the map as eye candy only.

There are many more issues with this game (just go to the Battlefront forum if you want to see more) that make it unplayable for me.

I love Battlefront and their games. The Combat Mission series are the best tactical wargames I've ever played. I let myself believe that TOW would be CM with amazing graphics (despite hearing words to the contrary on Battlefront's site) so it's my own fault for expecting more than the game delivered gameplay wise. But the other problems strip all the realism from the game and reduce the missions to a puzzle-solving exercise on how to beat the AI rather than using any sort of realistic tactics.

I know that Battlefront has already started work on a major patch for the game. I'm hoping that it will address many of the issues I talked about, but until then there is no room for this game on my hard drive.
Posted on 04/25/2007 09:09
3.0 very bad