Digital Reality’s War Front: Turning Point is a real-time strategy game, set in an alternate history in which Hitler was assassinated at the start of World War 2 and combing elements of science-fiction with historical fact. Presented in third- and first-person views, in addition to slightly more prosaic RTS fare, the game’s a blast to play. I’ve enjoyed several hours of LAN play at a recent press event, and I’m looking forward to more.
Players enter multiplayer games with a single construction unit. Building a basic base is a straight-forward affair, and relatively quick: it only takes a few minutes before tech level one ground vehicles start to appear. Two further technology levels exist, and advancement to a higher level requires both the construction of specific buildings and the completion of research. Research is a “construction” option at a headquarters building, and takes a little time to complete. Often, the delay is sufficient for a rush of first-level tanks to wipe out an opponent working on tech level two; on the other hand, even a squadron of first-level units are generally no match for the superior firepower of the second-level options.
There are three primary classes of mobile combat unit: vehicles, infantry and aircraft. All have their strengths and limitations: the many vehicle options provide a wide range of offensive and defensive capabilities, while the combination of infantry and an airfield provide paratroopers, which can provide crucial battle reinforcements. Aircraft are limited in numbers, depending on the number of airfield (and airfield extensions) built, but will make short work of undefended tanks and buildings.
Various support units exist: examples include engineer trucks, bridge builders, and resource collectors. Not all resource collection requires a vehicle: on multiplayer maps, oil rigs can be captured, and crates containing money can occasionally be found. Once an oil rig is captured, it will generate currency on a regular basis, without being visited by a resource collector – but unless defended, an oil rig is open to capture by an opponent.
Each unit has its own strengths and weaknesses: some are particularly effective against certain classes of target, whilst others take more damage from particular attack styles. Others are completely incapable of attacking certain classes of target: an aerial defence vehicle, such as the allied Bofors, has no application against land targets, for instance, while most tanks and infantry are incapable of attacking aircraft. This information is displayed via tooltips, which I’ve found to be an immense help while learning the game.
This does mean that a mixed force is necessary for ground attacks: I’ve had a reasonable degree of success with groups consisting of aerial defence units, mobile artillery, and medium to heavy tanks. The destruction of any one class of units in an assault force generally renders the entire group impotent, and I’ve found the loss of air defence to be especially crippling – enemy aircraft are capable of destroying an undefended squadron in seconds.
The visual quality of the game is high: textures are sharp and crisp, models are detailed and smoothly animated, and the environment is partially interactive. The tress in particular impressed me: not only do they look good, but they fall to the ground when shot or when driven over.
The game features a physics engine, which offers some subtle but effective visual improvements: for example, the turret of a firing tank will recoil, an exploding aeroplane will scatter shrapnel across the blast radius, which will collide with obstacles, and a destroyed vehicle will act as a barricade, requiring the efforts of other vehicles to shove it out of the way. The passage of time is also simulated visually, along with various weather effects, which include precipitation and cloud shadows. At night, each individual unit carries headlamps, which cast light on both terrain and objects in the beam’s path. The night-time visuals are particularly effective in third person mode.
Like many contemporary RTS games, the camera controls in War Front allow the battle view to be panned, rotated and zoomed. It is also possible to attach the camera to any combat vehicle, offering a rather visceral third-person view of the battle. When combined with the physics and lighting effects, the results are rather stunning: watching an enemy’s bombers decimate a force of friendly ground units from their perspective is a beautiful sight – just perhaps not one to look forward to!
It is also possible to take control of turrets in a first-person view, manually controlling their fire. This shows off the impressive visual quality of the terrain and foliage, which isn’t quite so apparent from above, and provides a bonus to the effectiveness of the turret – at the cost of a reduced awareness of the rest of the battlefield, of course. I wasn’t able to make effective use of this feature during my multiplayer games, but I expect a more experienced player could do some real damage with a manually controlled turret.
The above notwithstanding, I’m not entirely convinced of the usefulness of third- and first-person mode during actual gameplay. The first-person turret view provides a tactical advantage (at a cost), but as far as I can tell, the third-person view provides no benefit in battle, while restricting the player’s view. On the other hand, watching a battle from the perspective of the participants is an awful lot of fun… and at the end of the day, isn’t that the point?
The multiplayer mode features a fairly standard technology tree – certain buildings are prerequisites for other buildings and units, and research must be performed to unlock more advanced construction options. The lower-level units are mostly based on historical designs, whilst the more advanced units tend further towards the fanciful, with unique options available to the three factions. The Soviet Kharkov is a most formidable enemy, and the German Ice Spitters (capable of freezing an entire base, leaving it vulnerable) were responsible for several of my defeats. Other more esoteric units include Sonic Tanks, Exoskeletons, and Force Shield Generators.
On the single player side, the game features two story-driven campaigns of 11 missions, along with a skirmish mode for multiplayer-style battles. In campaign mode, the player takes the role of either a German or an Allied commander, with story being told via both pre-mission briefing animations and in-game events and despatches. The single-player campaigns centre around the faction Heroes: heroes are more powerful than regular units of their type, and their presence in an army has a morale-boosting effect. A nearby hero will improve the performance of units within a certain radius.
There are also RPG-style elements to gameplay: after an individual unit has racked up several kills, it will be promoted, and a certain number of units can be added to the player’s “core army” in campaign mode. This is a small cohort of units which follow the player from mission to mission. Additionally, heroes earn both experience points and levels, which are spent on new skills and abilities, providing a degree of continuity between missions.
I’ve had a blast playing War Front, and I’m looking forward to its release: I’ve been feeling cravings since the multiplayer press event, and the multiplayer lobbies for the preview build are far too empty for my liking. At the end of the day, it’s pretty, it’s fun, and I get to blow things up... and I’m very happy with that.
As I'm currently living off a student budget, my recent purchases tend to be from the various budget ranges of older titles: I'm more likely to be found playing Quake II or the original Unreal Tournament than Thief III or FarCry. I'll probably make an exception for Doom 3, though. (For the record, I did try Doom 3, and wasn't very impressed. Thief III has made it to the budget range here in the UK, and one day I'll play it. Perhaps after I've updated this profile properly...)
I enjoy online games, but I prefer the persistent world offered by the MMORPGs to the competitive environment of the CounterStrike servers. I've a feeling too many years of leisurely RPG playing have ruined my shooter reflexes; needless to say, I tend to end up on the tail end of the scoreboards in online FPS games. That said, I enjoy the competitiveness of multiplayer gaming, but prefer the face-to-face encounters of LAN gaming to the anonymity of the public servers.
