By Jim Rossignol on February 17th, 2009 at 11:51 am.
The Men Of War demo is here (250mb). The demo contains the first level of the game, which is a tutorial sequence in which you patch up a tank, invade a village, and then attack a German convoy. It does not show off all the best features of the game, but certainly encompasses some of the most vital, such as using the inventories on your little men, learning to use cover, and showing off the destructible scenery. It’s worth imagining, as you play this demo, what the escalation of the second (unfeatured) level is like; in which you have dozens of men, several tanks, and face hundreds of German soldiers and armoured vehicles. This is a game that is more than the sum of its demo. I’m certain we’ll be talking about Men Of War a lot more in the coming months, because it’s one of my favourites of the year so far. You should definitely play this demo.
17/02/2009 at 11:54 Redd says:
Is this the rerereleased Soldiers: Heroes of WWII?
17/02/2009 at 11:57 Jim Rossignol says:
It is the sequel to.
17/02/2009 at 11:58 reiver says:
No it’s the sequel. The third in the series.
17/02/2009 at 12:46 Ben Abraham says:
250mb is a nice change from those 1+Gb travesties. My intertubes likes the small ones, it does.
17/02/2009 at 12:48 Senethro says:
Is the title a parodying all the other WWII X of Y bigade or have they really run out of unique nouns to the point where they have to adopt some as staggeringly generic as “Men of War”?
17/02/2009 at 12:53 Dominic White says:
I’m fairly sure this is just the english title, probably assigned by 1C. It goes by a different name (and a more consistent naming structure for the series) in Russia.
17/02/2009 at 13:20 Heliocentric says:
A small demo shows a developer who actually gives a damn about the demo, rather than pumping one out for appearences.
As does a demo which is a decent amount of content and shows the best of the game, but eh… 2 out of 3 aint bad.
So, can you actually order your little mans to sit on the back of a tank? And does it get them killed really fast in a fire fight. (will download demo later) But, i know its monkey work but when you post a demo can you post the system specs neeed to run it? It would make browsing the “play” section much more pleasent to know roughly how beastly a game is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_of_War
17/02/2009 at 13:22 Heliocentric says:
I meant to comment on the spec…. and i shall! Lovely low requirements! Looks like they read the steam system survey, are those requirements realistic? My weak pc (athlon 3200 xp, with a 7600gs) will utterly ace this on low settings if so.
17/02/2009 at 13:24 Ceremony says:
Oh sweet a WW2 shooter. Haven’t seen one of those in a while. ^_______^
17/02/2009 at 13:47 garreth says:
Just tried the demo, good so far. The ability to save would be appreciated however, since the tank exploded immediately after being repaired the first time and then all of my people were slain by a half-track which had the tactlessness to intrude upon one of the hilariously badly voice acted cut-scenes the second time.
Nonetheless, I remain undeterred. Otherwise very good.
17/02/2009 at 13:49 Jim Rossignol says:
I don’t think there’s a quicksave, but the full game definitely allows you to save at any point. Is there no save in the pause menu of the demo?
17/02/2009 at 13:50 Garreth says:
It was greyed out whenever I opened the menu.
17/02/2009 at 14:01 Caleb says:
I don’t think any of the Bestway games have a quick save.
Soldiers: Heroes of WWII had some novelty with the physics, cover system and difficulty. But it was entirely mediocre and forgettable to me (think blitzkrieg series/sudden). The follow up Faces of War amounted to even less. I was glad for the demo’s otherwise I would have bought both games and would not have enjoyed them (same with Theater of War…ugh).
I hope Men of War changes the trend of not being able to trust the “1C” logo on a retail PC game box! *downloads demo*
17/02/2009 at 14:36 Heliocentric says:
@Ceremony
…Its an rts
17/02/2009 at 14:40 Gunrun says:
*Looks at dawn of war 2*
Oh cool another shooter where you’re a space marine
17/02/2009 at 15:02 Lucas says:
No multiplayer? Lets hope there’s an mp demo coming like Faces had. That really sold my friend and I on the game.
17/02/2009 at 15:06 Jim Rossignol says:
There’s a multiplayer beta going on atm. There’s co-op in the full game too, which is awesome.
17/02/2009 at 15:36 C0ntrol says:
For the multiplayer beta you would’ve needed to sign up few months back to get a CD key. If you want to play it here and now, go get a Fileplant Subscribers account, they have keys.
I’ve been beta testing the multiplayer beta for… I think 3 months now. You should check attila16′s YouTube Channel if you want to see some HD videos about the multiplayer.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3E5770A16BBDF6E9
17/02/2009 at 15:51 MetalCircus says:
I played it. Was great. A lot of my men got chewed up instantly but I think that’s just me adjusting to the game, and to be fair, I marched them into the middle of a road so… yeah. The tanks are great! Shooting a big shell at an armoured car and watching the contents escape before it explodes fills me with manicidal glee.
17/02/2009 at 16:22 James Allen says:
The MP beta is really fun. This looks to be an outstanding title and, along with Dawn of War 2 and Empire: Total War, should make for a great Q1 2009 for strategy gamers.
17/02/2009 at 17:56 Poita says:
Keeps crashing whenever i lanuch the sp level. Get a list of errors.
17/02/2009 at 18:24 Fumarole says:
If this is anything like Soldiers: Heroes of World War II I’m going to be pleased. Co-op in that game was immense fun.
17/02/2009 at 18:49 Fat Zombie says:
I enjoyed the multiplayer for S:HoWWII, as the purchasing individual units thing, combined with the Direct Control mechanic, meant I was able to buy all the stuff for one fully-functioning tank, then play as if it were a top-down WW2 shooter (like Commandos). Fun!
Otherwise, I didn’t enjoy the original. I never got past any of the first levels, as they were much too difficult. I don’t think I’ll download this, as I don’t think I’ve actually improved any since then.
17/02/2009 at 18:51 Fat Zombie says:
ALSO: The BTRH mod for the original was awesome, as amongst other stuff, it added a flamethrower-soldier. Like a lot of the other weapons, you could nab it off the soldier and switch it into the MG slot on most of the vehicles.
So. Kubelwagon (or better yet, motorbike+sidecar) + flamethrower + Direct Control + multiplayer = HILARITY. Yes.
17/02/2009 at 18:51 Cigol says:
It is. Finally. Based on the demo, and assuming there are no major surprises, it’s not a gigantic leap from the last title but (silly voices aside) is more polished harking back to the original. I’m positively smitten and can’t wait for the full release.
17/02/2009 at 18:54 Radiant says:
I can’t get this demo to work.
It’s asking me for a missing dll and suggests a reinstall [of a folder I unzipped!]
17/02/2009 at 19:20 unclelou says:
Hohum. I loved the original Soldiers to bits, but this feels like the same game, with not even half the production values.
17/02/2009 at 19:41 MetalCircus says:
Dear god, are production values that important? It was rough round the edges, sure, but it’s a cracker, even from this demo. Keep in mind that as Jim said this is a particularly scaled down demo compared to the full game.
17/02/2009 at 20:20 unclelou says:
Dear god, are production values that important? It was rough round the edges, sure,
No, they aren’t. You’re talking to someone who bought Mount & Blade in 2005. :p
But you took my quote out of context. They are worth mentioning when I’ve played basically the same game (going by the demo) 4 or 5 years earlier, and it looked (and sounded) significantly better.
17/02/2009 at 20:41 unclelou says:
Just read an older preview on RPS – looks like Men of War might have a bigger scale than Soldiers had, which piques my interest. Which makes the decision to publish a demo that feels like an outtake from the pre-pre-decessor somewhat strange.
17/02/2009 at 21:11 Biz says:
i was trying the multiplayer beta… it’s a lot of micromanagement. there are a bunch of hotkeys. even if I memorized them, i wouldn’t be able to press them all. you can configure most of them though. the teams have very similar armies… it’s just a matter of who can control them the best… which is quite a bit of APM i’d imagine.
the graphics are fine, but i’m playing it on max smoothly.
17/02/2009 at 21:13 Tim James says:
Sounds like the same crap from the Soldiers demo. I might as well go play that game on Gametap (or did I buy it at GOG? no idea) to find out what the “best parts” are.
P.S. This site is painful to navigate in IE6 on our work machines that I can’t upgrade. I guess I’ll go do work instead.
17/02/2009 at 21:30 Gerfervonbob says:
The game is really fun, however the voice acting is so hilarious every time there is a cut scene I can’t stop laughing. It sounds like most the voice actors didn’t even try.
17/02/2009 at 21:47 Svenska says:
I’m iffy about this one. On the one hand it looks like the game could be fun, and there have been times where I felt like if I could control a unit directly the outcome of the game would have been different….but am I right when I see that there isn’t an AI multiplayer? So it would only be the campaign and online vs. humans mp?
17/02/2009 at 23:03 Andrew says:
Good fun this demo. I failed it first time after the tank got destroyed in the village fight, but I just sat and watched the crew for a bit after they got out of it and was quite impressed by the AI. They sought out cover near the tank, then fought off some German infantrymen nearby, throwing a grenade into a house and mowing down the survivors. Without me lifting a finger.
17/02/2009 at 23:30 Vincent Avatar says:
The voice acting in this game is so awesome I nearly shat myself. It’s like the VAs have never even heard of Russia and were just making a go of trying not to talk with a heavy British accent.
18/02/2009 at 00:54 Ginger Yellow says:
Awesome, awesome fun. I love the destructiveness of the tank and the fact that the units aren’t useless when left on their own.
But…
As commented above, the voice acting is truly appalling. One of the Russian soldiers even sounded German, which was just weird. No big deal, and it’s quite amusing in small doses, but I do hope you can play it Russian with English subtitles. More seriously, it seems to have gamebreaking bugs. Specifically, once I’d taken over the tank, I advanced on the village to the East. My tank survived, but somehow Victor Smirnov died (probably sitting on the side of the tank – heh). This isn’t apparently a fail trigger, unlike losing the tank, but it wouldn’t let me proceed regardless. The red “go here” arrow just pointed at Smirnov and the fog of war beyond the ford didn’t lift, so I was stuck. Considering that this is the very first mission, in a demo designed to show off the game, it’s not encouraging.
18/02/2009 at 01:00 Svenska says:
I can’t get the demo to work. Missing a file.
Same as above poster.
18/02/2009 at 03:11 Stromko says:
I actually bought and enjoyed Heroes of WWII years ago. Yeah it’s micromanagey as hell, but I liked the little details, the fly by the seat of your pantesdness of it.
I don’t see any improvements of the gameplay in this demo, and perhaps several cases where it’s gotten worse. I won’t pick on the interface too bad because maybe I’m just not used to it yet, but it seems like it’s harder to manage vehicle crews.
They don’t have much intellect on their own either. Maybe the ‘easy’ difficulty the demo defaults to is making my own troops stupid, but it seems like a fully crewed and operable tank should give a damn when thirty Germans are charging it from the front. I could’ve sworn in the old games, troops would jump off the sides of the tanks they’re riding on when they’re getting shot, but now they just sit there and take shot after shot until dead.
It seems like they’ve disabled the ability to fix up and commandeer enemy vehicles, which may be realistic toward military tactics but disappoints me. No more starting out with twelve troops and a repair box and ending out the mission with two Tigers and a Panther.
Also the third time I tried to struggle through the demo, I stalled out because a bush (as in foliage) was blocking the left tread of my tank. It required repair but my troops refused to do it because of the bush, even though they could walk through it fine. I tried chucking all sorts of grenades into the bushes but they wouldn’t go away, so that was that.
18/02/2009 at 08:00 spamtwo says:
My ears are still bleeding from the voices in the game. They really are awful and I hope they get changed before the full game is released
18/02/2009 at 08:05 Skurmedel says:
I tried it out and found it quite fun. The voice acting was really bad, I don’t mind much…
My main concern is that it’s a bit unforgiving in a Sudden Strike kind of way, sometimes you don’t really understand why your men die or why they are unable to fire on a enemy standing up in front of them. It makes it hard to improve your tactics when you have no clue why they fail.
Reading the comments above I seem to be locked in a bit by my Sudden Strike mindset as I had all my troops on “Hold fire” and “hold ground”. Maybe they perform better when they are allowed to use their microscopic brains which was certainly not the case in SS at all times :)
Looking forward to a review of this game.
18/02/2009 at 08:22 Jim Rossignol says:
@various
You are wrong. There is campaign-mission co-op, with full enemy and allied AI.
I’m fairly sure they haven’t – but iirc there’s no non-wrecked vehicle for you to steal in that demo level.
They aren’t great, but after two cutscenes of the full game I didn’t care.
Yes they are.
18/02/2009 at 09:43 Skurmedel says:
So Mr. Jim, is this a good buy? :)
If so I will pre-order.
18/02/2009 at 10:42 RealHorrorshow says:
Direct fire with tanks was pretty interesting. Otherwise…god damn, what a dull game…
Demo mostly served to excite me a little more for CoH Tales of Valor which is jacking the direct fire system for the Tiger Ace campaign.
18/02/2009 at 15:18 Deuteronomy says:
Are we ever going to see another Close Combat game? I’d kill for a modern installment of the only RTS I’ve ever really liked.
18/02/2009 at 16:26 Zer0 says:
@ Deuteronomy
Ask and ye shall receive……..
http://www.matrixgames.com/products/350/details/Close.Combat.-.Modern.Tactics
I actually have the game, and although it has a few bugs (namely vehicle pathing issues) it certainly scratches the modern CC itch I have every once and a while.
18/02/2009 at 20:12 Fumarole says:
After playing the demo I’m sure I’ll be buying this if the price is right. I enjoyed the hell out of the first game after finding it on GoodOldGames a few months ago. This looks to improve on that formula, which is a good thing. Hopefully they keep the co-op aspect of it intact.
18/02/2009 at 22:06 Seraphim2150 says:
put on my preorder list. Absolutly love the demo, though want to see some more british units. Churchills crushing terrain brings back memories of Close Comabt: Bridge too Far
18/02/2009 at 22:30 RiptoR says:
This game is on the number 1 spot in my “to buy” list. If anyone wants to try coop in this (or even soldiers), give me a shout.
19/02/2009 at 04:59 Doc MacRae says:
The demo was alright. It’s too much micro-managing for my tastes (though I might be doing it wrong). Second time around I did well, got to the ambush point and my tank wasn’t out of gas. I had my surviving infantry on one side of the tank (the tank was facing the road straight ahead where the convoy would go). I was doing OK until two things happened. The tank got hit in the treads and I couldn’t repair it (out of repairs? I don’t know…). It was too far to hit them directly on the road. Then an armored car went on top of the hill and shot a 20mm through the 5 guys that were supposed to be safe. :/ Really bloody. After that, the krauts snuck up on my immobile (but still shooting) tank and put it out of commission. I heavy price for the Germans (14 vehicles and 125 men) compared to my losses (10 dudes, 1 tank) but I still lost. :/
19/02/2009 at 17:49 Lack_26 says:
I love this, took me a few times to get good at this. Also, you can repair some of the enemy vehicles, but I’ve only managed it once (with a armoured car). When I have too take out the hill, I put two men on a AT gun, use a truck to take it down on the village side of the river (southern-most) side and set it up just over the river from the end of the road, so I can cover the road. I position the truck as cover to the right of it (they can sneak across the river through the fog-off war/map boundary). I bring up the armoured car for defence and put it next to the AT gun to cover it from the left. I take another man up across the ford, when the light-tank comes down off the hill and onto the road I sneak up and us a anti-tank grenade and then run up and shelter behind it (using direct control), grenade the AT-gun and draw out the infantry and kill them. Then I take out the second AT gun and move my tank along the river to the right. And take out the convoy (using direct control).
I just love that the game lets me do stuff like this. Also, man you need to kill behind cover (e.g. a tank/truck) + AT shell = splat
19/02/2009 at 18:10 Fleeter says:
If you enjoyed playing with toy soldiers as a kid, then this and its predecessors is the ultimate “playground” for you. Even more so than CoH or CC.
That first sentence could be used as a horribly written marketing endorsement. But it is the most honest thing I feel I’ve ever written about a game. Direct control, among other bullet points, sweeps my mind right back to marching HO scale army men around, “taking control” of individuals that would win the day for their side.
To anyone who has thoroughly enjoyed the demo: Have you been able to take control of enemy vehicles other than the Opel or Pak? I’ve attempted to take the repair kit out of the given tank and repair enemy vehicles I’ve disabled but it wont let me. Is there a certain trick to it? Such as disabling a vehicle without destroying the engine or some other major component? I can’t recall if this mechanic was in the other two games.
19/02/2009 at 18:38 Skurmedel says:
I was able to repair the heavy artillery close to the Opel. But I couldn’t use it… a bit strange.
19/02/2009 at 18:48 Lack_26 says:
With the armoured car I captured, I had just destroyed the turret (with a HE shell, not AP. I think.) I couldn’t get the others to be occupied.
19/02/2009 at 19:08 Fleeter says:
Interesting, hah, well maybe they restricted certain vehicles in the demo, like that heavy artillery.
Lack, I just tried disabling the turret, couldn’t do it with the armored cars, but was able to disable and capture one of the Panzers during the final battle of the demo through disabling it’s turret. I believe AP was loaded, lucky that I didn’t destroy it I guess. I definitely appreciate randomness in a game like this.
19/02/2009 at 20:23 Lack_26 says:
I tested again, it must of been AP. HE blew the whole thing into little bits. I never let the Panzers close enough that I could send infantry up to them, what are they like?
20/02/2009 at 00:03 Fleeter says:
Ahh interesting, so AP is what does the job. Well, I managed to capture the Panzer… funny thing is that as I drove it away in attempt to repair its damaged turret – it took a rear shot from one of the surviving Panzers and it went up in flames with my soldier ejecting himself and getting mowed down by infantry. So, well, it drove nicely for the few seconds I had it under my command.
20/02/2009 at 07:25 PleasingFungus says:
Tried it. Was really impressed! Thought it would be lovely in the full game, where you could actually save! But it’s ludicrously difficult as-is.
Complaints:
– The AI seems kinda… dumb, a lot of the time? At one point, a passel of enemy infantry attacked my tank, which had been disabled by one of those odd German not-tanks. (I really haven’t any idea what they are.) They walked up to it. And gathered around. (Getting shot whenever they walked in front of one of the machine-guns.) And wandered away after a while.
– Not quite certain what determines whether you can capture a disabled enemy vehicle, as noted above.
Praise:
– It is so very detailed. (I made a habit of switching my officer-man’s pistol to a machinegun. Also, on one go, I gave one of my hatless soldiers a German helmet! He looked adorable.)
- The detailed thing again. (It deserves re-iterating.)
- It’s hard – but in a good way, the way that makes me feel that with a little more practice (and a quicksave!) I’d be able to get it right
– You can drive a tractor! (I used it to tow a stolen Pak.)
Summary of too-long comment: Lovely demo, I will very seriously consider buying the full game (despite having just purchased Left 4 Dead in the weekend sale – I’m one of the 3000%!), tractors are fun.
Thanks for linking to this, RPS hivemind!
21/02/2009 at 12:08 Lack_26 says:
I captured the half-track with the AT gun, I just shot the crew with a machine-gun.
21/02/2009 at 22:07 Sam C says:
I’m impressed. It took a few tries for me to figure it out – the first playthrough everyone outside the tank died in the first few seconds of the assault on the town, then my tank lost a track,was mobbed by Germans and shortly dispatched by an antitank grenade. Still, it was exciting – even though I was being slaughtered, enough so that I gave it another try.
Then I discovered the direct control, and it became even more interesting, letting me blast away with the main gun while the AI blazed away with the coaxial machine gun. That and wiping out the convoy at the end, and getting the trucks to explode in a fiery chain reaction.
The key to survival seems to be taking it slow, and letting the enemy come to you, and keeping your soft, squishy infantry units behind cover at all times.
The micromanagement I’ve seen (inventory management, direct control) seems to be pretty optional (the good kind of micromanagement), you could get through the entire demo without having to mess with any of the finicky details unless you want to. Units left on their on fight back fairly well, although they have a habit of running out Rambo-style and getting mowed down in short order.
@Jim: My one worry is that it might become unmanageable once you’re given more than a small squad to control – does it? I could see having to switch between direct control of more than one unit – say, if I split my men (of war!) up into two groups to flank something – would turn into a disaster quickly.
21/02/2009 at 22:10 Sam C says:
Also, sidenote: Did anyone else have a CTD bug with the Panzershreck? You can find it in a crate on the last hill you have to capture before the convoy comes through. I can get a soldier to pick it up, but the two times I’ve tried to fire it, the game crashes hard.
21/02/2009 at 22:14 Heliocentric says:
Tractors of war.
For real though, thats awesome. Ideally patching will steadilly improve this title. Its not coh, but thats okay when i can use a cheat and play it like a shooter :p
22/02/2009 at 02:11 Men of Garbage says:
Wow, the voice acting just threw me off completely….
“Guys, this is bad..” LOL wth was that?!
Anyways.. the game’s not that bad.
I’m so used to COH though to have any appreciation for it.
23/02/2009 at 02:19 vah says:
i can’t repair vk tank.help me plz((((
03/04/2009 at 19:41 seba says:
i can,t repair de tank in the first mission , i can take de repair kit in the break tank please healp!!!!1
19/04/2009 at 19:43 Joseph says:
anybody else have the answer to the dll error??/ after unzipping it i cannot get it to start
HELP SOMEONE PLEASE
HELP HELP HELP
31/01/2010 at 10:48 jack says:
search for the .dll online and place inside the game folder (appears as icon)
you can tip the armored cars over, then capture them without damaging them, though kill infantry & crew asap, best to sneek them as fairly vunerable
good game, prefer to play online, campaign is insane
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