Rock, Paper, Shotgun

505 Games and Reverie World Studios are rather pleased with themselves for launching their fantasy MMORTS, Dawn Of Fantasy. A bit of a shame that no-one thought of a decent name for it, but at least it’s looking extremely bloomy pretty. I’m not really precisely clear how it works – I’m going to have to play it to find out! – but it apparently offers both a story-driven quests-based RTS type stuff, and also co-op and PvP modes. Yes, it could hardly be more generic in its setting – “elves, orcs, and men” – but since MMORTS games are so rare I think it might be worth investigating.

Launch trailer belooooow. I’m going to make some tea.
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Games about shooting people in the head remain moderately popular, it seems, because Sniper Elite is back, Back! BACK! And baddies are going to get shot in all kinds of locations, but particularly in the head. Not only that, but the new game is being self-funded by Rebellion, whose bossman Jason Kingsley has said they wanted to create a PC-specific version which “will be built specifically for PC to take advantage of the more flexible and powerful hardware, with strong support directly from Rebellion.” So that’s good. It’ll be coming out on Steam, and possibly retail at some point. Assuming the shops are not on fire, I suppose.

505 Games, who have taken on the console version of the game, have celebrated its existence by releasing a grisly cinematic trailer, entitled “One Bullet Can Change History”, which features a cut-away sequence of a Nazi’s head, showing the bullet going through his spine and the base of his skull. Mmm! Lovely.
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MMORTS games keeping being talked about by various beardymen, but I can only remember ever playing one, or maybe two? Anyway, they weren’t great, nor memorable, clearly. Reverie World Studios are aiming to change that with Dawn Of Fantasy, which is both beautiful and epic (see trailer below) thanks to judicious use of GRAPHICS. Woo! See how they sparkle.

The game will be released June 3rd 2011, and we’ll play it. You can try to play it now, actually, as there’s a closed beta in progress. Anyway, when I have played it we will say that I have played maybe three MMORTS games, so it’s a real genre now. Okay.
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I’ve been playing through a number of the Men Of War levels again for a second time, trying to feel like I’m somehow closer to mastering the game. I wanted to break down how one of the levels plays out to try and explain the game to people who haven’t yet played it. This afternoon my level of choice was an assault on a German hilltop entrenchment, before an attack on a fortified base. It takes about an hour to play through, and my first time around it was one of the most chaotic gaming experiences I have ever known. After perhaps fifty hours of play I should now be a veteran of the game able to breeze through this early challenge quite easily. Right? Wrong.

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Men Of War, seriously, look past the name. This is a game that is at least as interesting for real-time strategy lovers as Dawn Of War 2. If you ignored the demo, please go play it, and understand that even that undersells the immense battlefield missions with hundreds of units, not to mention to vast scale of a game that has three full sized campaigns. Campaigns whose maps are also playable in co-op. I’m posting the videos after the jump with a sense of futility, because I know they don’t and won’t sell it to many people. Nevertheless Men Of War is second only to Empire in awesomeness for games I’ve played so far in 2009. It really is a fine thing. I recommend you take a look. The game is out now in Europe and will be out on the 17th in North America.

Update: you can steal the hats of your fallen enemies. Yes!

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One of the most intense Ukrainian games destined for our hard-drives in 2009 is Men Of War, which I’ve been lucky enough to have some time with over the past couple of weeks. It’s rather similar to previous games Faces of War and Soldiers: Heroes of World War II, but since that’s not exactly the most universal reference point I’ve written some impressions of the new game beyond the jump. They should give you some idea of why this particular RTS is so interesting.

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One of RPS’ best chums has been working on iconoclastic soldier sequel ArmA 2 and he told us that stuff happens in it because of clever AI. Sounds amazing, we reckon. Obviously a trailer can’t get across the nuances of stuff happening because of AI, clever or otherwise, it just shows off helicopters and trees. There’s a story too, that our chum is helping write. It’s a love story between helicopters and trees whose parents do not approve. Sigh. Trailer!
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Our chums over at 505 Games have dropped us a line to say that they have five copies of Armed Assault to give away. For details on how to win, and a truly impressive ArmA video, click past the jump…
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