As a person who has tried numerous war games — from board to computer — I'm always amazed at the sheer variety available. I've played strategic, tactical, third-person, first-person and board games in various flavors. I would have to say that John Tiller's Campaign Series is something akin to a tactical to extreme tactical game. Published by Matrix Games, in cooperation with Campaign Series Legion, the game brings you three fronts to get lost in for hours. The East Front, West Front and Rising Sun - with 350 scenarios. Add to this linked campaigns and any war-game fanatic should be able fill his World War II war-gaming needs.
Are you wondering why I said extreme tactical combat? I was surprised to find you can play from battalion to corps level in the campaigns for each scenario. Keep this in mind, as I played only at the battalion level.
My curiosity led me to see what a corps-level layout was like. Talk about eye-opening! As the playing pieces are section and platoon size, seeing the layout for a corps which was close to 400 units was a bit astonishing. The first part of any scenario or campaign starts with a setup phase before the actual play begins. It would have taken me over an hour just to set up a corps before starting the first turn.
Some of the notable features are tanks, artillery, amphibious vehicles, transport vehicles, prototypes, early era and more. The gaming map can be viewed in two ways: 2D cardboard-style or 3D figures in three-quarter view, with zoom out features included. The playing field is a hex system with large and small maps, dependent upon the scenario. I feel the need to say again there are plenty of scenarios to chose from, and if you play through a campaign, many are tied together.
You begin the game as a captain on whatever front you chose to play. You can change your face and name. I suggest starting off with the boot camp scenarios in battalion formation so you can get a feel for the game. You then are greeted with the setup phase. This is the point where you place your units to maximize your advantage and win within the given turns played.
This is where my niggles begin. There is no static line showing correct placement of units. It's hit or miss, with the unit refusing to drop on the selected square if you place it too far on the map. Otherwise, the unit could be short of the starting line. I was also forced to deploy in 2D mode as the 3D view was awful, since scrolling was the tune of the day when it came to placement. I had to setup in 2D mode to see the map better.
The graphics are ... dated. This left the units hard to see unless I toggled the base mode. Playing that way made it easy to determine who belonged to which side. Without it, your units had a way of blending into the background. Also useful was the next-unit toggle; although, sometimes it could take a while because there a lot of units. Knowing that not all of the pieces had moved or fired required toggling through again.
There are a number of different views from field-of-view mode to movement-view mode -the two I found most important. These helped greatly when it came to movement and targeting opposing forces. One brings up action points, which determine if you can attack or move. Use too much, and you are restricted from attacking or moving that turn. There are buttons that toggle to help you retain action points for attack or movement purposes.
Indirect fire from units require a unit to be in the field of view of the targeted opposing force. Indirect fire also requires enough action points. You can direct fire and indirect fire at the same time depending on those points. Winning a scenario requires meeting the goals in campaign play or gaining enough victory points if playing a scenario. There is quite a lot of micro-management in this game. One scenario I played was 18 turns long and took over three hours to complete.
Now on to some of the less fun parts of the game. I mentioned graphics, which had me play mainly in 2D mode so I could see the map at its best. I found the mini-map to be useless. The 3D mode was slow as molasses movement wise. Then again, 2D was instantaneous movement. The actual play gets frustrating as the units' strength points decrease when damage is taken. At some point, your unit becomes ineffective even though it hasn't been killed — or to be blunt, useless since you can't inject replacements into that unit. During several of my turns I did no damage to the opposing side if when evenly matched. The action could have been paced faster in my opinion. Three hours for 18 turns was a bit much.
All in all, though, I like some aspects of John Tiller's Campaign Series. There are few tactical games that go from battalion to corps size. For that matter, having three fronts to play in is rare, as well. If you enjoy long play times and the idea of playing the Russian, American, German or Japanese side, you have this game to keep you busy for hours.
Father of two, now grown children.What are my kind of games? Strategy, RTS, RPG, Fantasy, Science Fiction, and online games such as Dark Age of Camelot and Asheron's Call. Of my dislikes I would say puzzle games such as Myth, FPS type games such as Doom. Also simulation type games, and games that are just plain bad.
My knowledge of the industry mostly evolves around beta testing games, such as Earth & Beyond from EA, Saga of Ryzom, and companies like MSN and Acolade. Self taught web design is another interest I have. Family life is entertaining at times. It also can get weird as well, after you have been married 31 years.
Neither the concept nor the graphics have changed since we were all first sent to the East Front in the early nineties. By the sounds of it. I think that's because it's so good. The game play enables the same joys and sorrows between human opponents as did the classic WWII tactical wargames of the previous century.
This release was necessitated because all those old treasured CD roms of East Front II, West Front and Rising Sun don't run on vista. There's a community so hooked on the east front experience that the release is presumably commercially justified. It might even cause me to make my first ever online purchase as I can't get it over the counter on my continent!
You should try playing an 18 turn corps level scenario! And when you've played enough of them, you should try designing on or two with the game editor function! Now that is a mech-head paradise!