Men of War

Men of War is a real-time tactics video game and the sequel to the 2006 game Faces of War, developed in partnership with Best Way (Soldiers: Heroes of World War II) by Digitalmindsoft and published by 1C Company, 505 Games and Aspyr Media. The game was released in 2009. The single player campaign takes place during World War II and features battles in Europe, the Soviet Union, Greece, and North Africa, across three different campaigns for the Allies, Germans and Soviets. Men of War features Japan as a new multiplayer faction.

I have never played a game like this before, it plays like a strategy game but in this one you have to micromanagement your units, which means that you have to check there inventory over time to see if they have enough ammo left for further encounters with the (mostly much larger) army of the enemy. In the prequel, Faces of War, you mostly controlled a few men while fighting large battles alongside many allies. In Soldiers: Heroes of World War II you controlled small groups fighting the enemy.

In Men of War both scenarios take place (sometimes you even play with one unit) but sometimes you have control over a complete army (100+ units) and then it's almost impossible to micromanagement all your units. In some missions you're also able to call in reinforcements, which can be infantry, tanks, artillery support or ammunition deliveries. In order to call in these reinforcements you have to get sufficient points (The amount of points required varies on the type of reinforcement you choose) and you get these points over time. Unfortunately these reinforcements are limited so in some cases you have to use tactics to defeat a larger force. For example, you can use your main force to suppress a bigger enemy force and then order a small attack force to flank them. A thing I like is that you can destroy different parts of vehicles, like the tracks of a tank. In some cases that's also the way to destroy a much stronger tank than yours. For example, a King Tiger tank is much stronger than a Sherman tank, you can't just penetrate it's hull because it's to thick for your ammo. That means that the King Tiger is much stronger than the Sherman, but it's also a lot slower. First take out the tracks, then drive around it and destroy it's engine and it's crew will burn to death. You can also sacrifice some infantry by running right towards it and throw some anti tank grenades but I don't recommend that.

The singleplayer game features 19 missions divided in three campaigns (Soviet, German and Allies). When you're just beginning with the game you can only play the Soviet campaign, when you complete it the other campaigns become available. There is also a bonus section with five extra single missions which you can play after you've completed the first campaign. It took me 35 hours to complete all missions on an easy difficulty setting. Some of the missions are really hard, especially when you have to defend a certain area against a much larger enemy. The vid below is one of these missions.

A thing that I've also never seen before in a strategy game is direct control. You can choose to directly control a single unit with keyboard and mouse, turning the game into a third person shooter.

The graphics of this game are great. You can almost destroy everything. Being suppressed by a group of enemies in a building? Just blow it up! The sound is also great, but the soundtracks can get lame over time. As you can hear in the vid there aren't many different soundtracks so you'll hear the same music over and over again.

Tired of trying the same level over and over again? You can also play multiplayer.

In multiplayer, there are 5 different factions to choose from; The United States, Commonwealth forces, Germany, Soviet Union and Japan. This game introduces a ranking system based on the ratio of a player's wins to losses with the various multiplayer factions.

In conclusion: I really had fun with this game, you should really try it when you want to play something else than the typical strategy game. The graphics are great and the game is really challenging.