Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I don’t know if anyone bought the first Real Warfare game, but I suppose they must have done because otherwise it’s very unlikely that a sequel would have been made. What I do know is that it was very difficult to watch videos of the game in action and not shout “it looks like bloomin’ Medieval Total War”. There was an awful lot of medieval and an awful lot of bloom. Whenever a sword glinted in the sun, retinas were scorched and unshielded eyes risked turning into raisins. The sequel doesn’t dispense with this but it does add a strategic map to the first game’s tactical combat, which should hopefully allow for more varied scenarios. As the trailer below informs, the game is set in “the Medieval Europe”, following the Teutonic Knights as they conquer Prussia.

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Those men, they do like a good war. But what, if anything, is armed conflict good for? It’s good for modding tool updates, that’s what. 1C Company have just released an update to Men of War: Vietnam, focusing on balance issues and ever-popular mod support. A tough game on release, even the mighty brains of Jim and Tim had trouble with the difficulty of the base game, as Jim mentions in his review of the first level. It’s good to see that problem addressed. It’s better to see the comprehensive new mod tools, allowing creation of custom scenarios and entirely new maps. Mod tools, the order of the day.

The new patch will automatically update for Steam users, and is also available to download here.

When people decide to give their games massive names, do they not realise how difficult it is for me to make puns about them? There’s no way I can fit Kings Bounty: Warriors Of The North and any kind of wordplay onto a single line, it simply cannot be done. I should be consulted in naming committees. Henceforth, I’m going to refer to this next in the commendably daft RPG-strategy series as King’s Bounty: Northlands, or KB: Nordic Edition. That’s what it seems to be anyway, with a new hero called Olaf who is the son of the “Northling King”. I’m guessing it’s another expansion-type thing rather than a full sequel, but there will be all new locations, units and skills, as well as valkyrie companions who are described as “gorgeous”. Perhaps that’s one of them in the screenshot above. Gorgeous, is she? You decide. It’s out Spring 2012.

I’d planned to have a review of Men Of War: Vietnam up for its release tomorrow, but I won’t be able to. The reason is it has taken the majority of my time for this review getting past the first level. I know, I know, games journalists are terrible at games, but I’ve long taken sad pride in being a bit more hardcore in my tastes and abilities than my peers, and I absolutely love the Men of War games. This time, however, I am slamming my tiny fists down on the table in indignation. I won’t admit defeat, of course, but there it is: this one is too hard, and I am cross. I’ve been chatting to Tim Stone (who is also playing the game for another publication) and he’s long past that first level, leaving me in his dust. Nevertheless he too admits that the difficulty of the full game is “mad”, which does not bode well for my overall consternation. And I envy the brain that could get through this baffling exercise in frustration. Let me explain a bit more about it, below.
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The project lead on Men Of War: Vietnam, Nikita Altman, has a fascinating taste in shirts, as you can see from the developer diary I’ve posted below. In this dubbed interview, he explains why his team were interested in the setting, and how historically accurate its portrayal of the conflict might be. There’s a bunch of game footage to illustrate all this. Even more interesting is that we have review code, which I will soon be playing. You can read my early impressions of the game here. Will it live up to the legend? I’ll soon find out. And then tell you, I suppose. Mm.

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We’ve got ten Steam codes for excellent real-time co-op strategy Men Of War: Assault Squad to give away, courtesy of 1c and DigitalMindSoft. Not only that, but we’ll be arranging some co-op games for the winners, at some point, as well as for anyone else who wants to get a bit of Assault Squad going. In the meantime, if you’d like to explain why you should win a copy of Men Of War: Assault Squad – and we will need good reasons from everybody – email us at this address, with the subject, “To Win Some Men”, before the end of Tuesday 12th April.

Please make sure to read this, it’s the competition rules thing.

The third Theatre Of War game posits a trip to Korea, and it might be a pleasant excursion for the hefty RTS, which previously made gamers feel tired with its stodgy presentation. This time around it’s looking significantly more dynamic, with a non-linear campaign that adapts to your wins and fails, and lots more toys to direct the carnage with, including the ability to get right down with the vehicles and look around with binoculars to judge line of sight and such. Witness such things in the trailer, below. The game is out on the 25th of March.
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A little bit of a world exclusive, this one. We were lucky enough to be the first publication to get our hands on the complete build of Men Of War: Assault Squad, and I’ve been reviewing the hell out of it. I’ve already been spending a lot of time on the beta, but now we’ve been able to look at the full thing. And it’s kind of awesome. Up front I want to say one thing: people who were worried about the skirmish and multi-player focus detracting from the single-player challenge have nothing to fret about. The fifteen skirmish maps are all excellent, and are close to constituting a new campaign in their own right. But there are some caveats to that, obviously. Here’s Wot I Think.
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This is excellent news! There’s a demo available for the new Men of War game (out Feb 25th) and you can get it here. It’s not really clear which level the demo is, but I am guessing it’s the first one, where the USA attacks a Japanese fortified position. I played it last night, in fact, because I have a build of the full game. Related to that last fact: a big old bit of writing is coming up. You’ll be able to read it soon.

EXCITING UPDATE TO ORIGINAL STORY: You can’t use that link if you have the game pre-ordered on Steam, for some reason, so go here if you want the standalone demo.

Yesterday afternoon, Phill and I managed to spend some time initiating the deaths of historical combatants in Men Of War: Assault Squad, which is the forthcoming multiplayer reworking of tactical cleverness simulator, Men Of War. We weren’t picky: Americans, Britons, Germans, Russians, they all took their turn on the field of co-op glory that is Assault Squad’s skirmish mode. Read on to find out what it was that we discovered.
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