By Adam Smith on March 30th, 2012 at 11:25 am.
Apparently taking some cues from Silent Storm (a good thing), Zeal Game Studio’s Team Assault: Baptism of Fire is a turn-based, skirmish level WWII tactical wargame. With an emphasis on realism, including morale management, and bullets that penetrate cover and have a tendency to kill rather than chip away at health bars, it sounds like exactly the sort of thing I often rudely expect other games to be. Put a point and click adventure in front of me and even if I’m enjoying the plot and humour, I’ll be making mental notes about the lacklustre attention to damage modelling and the over-simplified chain of command. Trailer and more details cowering in the foxhole below.
My biggest reservation at the moment is the lack of a campaign, although the ability to customise forces and edit maps makes Team Assault seem more like a box of toys, laden with rules. Pick units, deploy them and fight against the AI or a friend, all the while learning systems and improving skills. That could be plenty, provided all the systems work well.
You can buy it over at Matrix Games, £13.99 as a download or £20.99 if you’d like a boxed copy. I’ll hopefully find the time to put a platoon or two through the meatgrinder in the near future and, if so, will let you know if this is my particular cup of war-tea.
30/03/2012 at 11:34 Jams O'Donnell says:
IMPORTANT QUESTION: Can you drive the tractor?
30/03/2012 at 14:12 Hodge says:
SECONDED. The world needs to know!
30/03/2012 at 15:22 roethle says:
You could in Men of War. So I would assume drivable tractors are becoming an industry standard.
30/03/2012 at 11:35 coldvvvave says:
> Theatre: Western Europe
uh-huh
30/03/2012 at 11:38 Njordsk says:
I loved silent storm, but I’d have like a demo to test it.
30/03/2012 at 11:39 ObiDamnKenobi says:
I want a WIT on my desk at 1900 hours! Dismissed!
Also: Pvt Walker? I didn’t get to see what his healing skill was.
30/03/2012 at 11:41 sneetch says:
“My biggest reservation at the moment is the lack of a campaign”
The excitement I felt at the mention of Silent Storm took a nose-dive when I read that. It’s currently plummeting towards the deck! There are people down there! My God! It’s going to hit those peop-
30/03/2012 at 11:51 cassus says:
You had me at Silent Storm.
30/03/2012 at 13:56 Belua says:
Me too. Then you lost me at “no campaign”.
31/03/2012 at 11:50 RegisteredUser says:
Me three, then I saw the gamplay video that revealed it was both nothing like it and full of visual and UI fail.
30/03/2012 at 11:54 danimalkingdom says:
I don’t know if I can take any more French hedgerows. Please, can a developer be a bit adventurous and try setting a game elsewhere? Vichy Syria? Civil war Spain? Korea? The Balkans? 1922 INA vs IRA?
I mean, don’t the devs get bored making these interesting games in these over-done settings?
30/03/2012 at 12:25 Baboonanza says:
Shush man! You’ll put the French Hedgerow modellers out of work, not to mention incurring the wrath of the Guild Of Nazi Soldier Animators. Trust me, you don’t want to be on the wrong side of the Animators – they have ways of making you walk.
30/03/2012 at 12:42 Elmar Bijlsma says:
I don’t mind that it is Normandy again. Normandy was an important point in history that non-Gorgnard customers can get excited about. And it offers plenty of opportunities to have exciting battles based on historical engagements.
But did it have to be the Yanks? Every single time the Yanks.
30/03/2012 at 12:48 sneetch says:
Everyone knows the yanks were the only side fighting in Normandy! In fact, going by the games I’ve played, quite often the Germans weren’t even invited as the US fought other US guys in German uniforms while putting on funny voices! “Ze Americans, zey are attacking!”
30/03/2012 at 13:09 tigershuffle says:
wouldnt mind sluggin it out through Sicily and then mainland Italy for a change.
Nice mix of German/(Italian) Axis troops v Commonwealth and US troops with some partisans for extra spice
30/03/2012 at 16:30 Fumarole says:
Forget that, we need Italians & Ethiopians.
30/03/2012 at 12:25 DrScuttles says:
Aye, the chain of command in the Curse of Monkey Island’s naval battle sections was indeed over simplified. Perhaps… casual, even.
30/03/2012 at 12:41 ObiDamnKenobi says:
Perhaps, but the cannonball penetration modeling was really excellent.
30/03/2012 at 14:05 El Mariachi says:
Doesn’t “No HP” really mean “1 HP?” A game where all of the units have zero HP would be somewhat quiet.
30/03/2012 at 14:12 Gundato says:
Honestly, I didn’t get a Silent Storm vibe from the trailer. Probably a mixture of the individual unit being a squad rather than an individual.
30/03/2012 at 14:56 Jason Lutes says:
I love TB and Silent Storm, but I sure do find it hard to get excited about a game with such a dull, sound effect-free trailer. And psst, Slitherine/Matrix: it should be “Baptism BY Fire,” unless the game is about welcoming an actual fire into Christendom.
30/03/2012 at 15:23 thebigJ_A says:
Has it got hats?
01/04/2012 at 14:42 daggerbite says:
Required info please!
30/03/2012 at 15:27 wodin says:
As a beta tester I’m afraid I can’t recommend this game. At all. A massive weak point in the SLitherine\Matrix Arsenal.
30/03/2012 at 15:42 RyuRanX says:
You had me at “Turn-based, skirmish level WWII tactical wargame with an emphasis on realism”.
You lost me at “Lack of a campaign”:
30/03/2012 at 15:47 Enzo says:
FINALLY a game that allows me to play as Americans during World War II.
31/03/2012 at 11:52 RegisteredUser says:
Its what the game(s) been missing.
30/03/2012 at 15:53 dsch says:
I want to fight at ‘renown battle sites.’
30/03/2012 at 16:11 Medina says:
I was in the beta and while the game is far from perfect, I enjoyed the time I spent with it as I found that it really felt like playing a tabletop war game, which is what Ive always wanted a computer version of. If you like tabletop gaming I think it is worth checking out.
30/03/2012 at 16:46 Iain at Slitherine says:
Hi guys
just to clarify, this game is set in Italy 1943, not France :)
Cheers
Iain
30/03/2012 at 17:17 PleasingFungus says:
You just made the rest of this comments thread so much funnier.
30/03/2012 at 16:46 psyk says:
“is a turn-based, skirmish level WWII tactical wargame. With an emphasis on realism, including morale management, and bullets that penetrate cover and have a tendency to kill rather than chip away at health bars,”
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