paecmaker
08-04-2011, 04:52 PM
Almost everyone has heard about Company of heroes but today Im am going to review another WW2 strategy game that isnt that famous.
The game name is Faces of war
http://www.gamereactor.se/media/21/flerekrigerskescreensfra_82132.jpg
You can say that Faces of war is a mix from commandos and other RTS games like CoH or codename panzers. For example you cant build things and can only control one or two squads, more too it later.
Gameplay
The gameplay is too some degree similar to the commandos serie and almost as hard too. Normally you only control one or two squads ranging from 4 to 6 persons and/or a vehicle. you can change the ecquipment the squad is carrying and every single soldier or vehicle got an inventory that you can use. This means that if you run out of ammo, steal ammo from enemy soldiers (dead of course).
Your squad got several special abilitys that you can use, for example if many enemy soldiers are in the way you can order your squad to lay out supressing fire on that position(for non military geeks that means you order your men to fire on full auto to force the enemy to take cover) There are similar orders for grenade, medkits, snipering and Anti tank (called AT from now) etc. One of the more important and one you will probably use lots of is the reinforcement button, pressing this button close to allied soldiers makes them if possible go over to your squad replacing casualties.
http://xbt-torrent.ru/shot/138519_1.jpg
Your soldiers arent super soldiers so they cant survive much punishment and cant carry infinite ammo so be carefull, cover every corner and look everywhere for ammo.
As your soldiers dont eat bullets for breakfast so the use of cover is very important if you want your soldiers to survive the war. the cover system works really good even if Ive seen one or two guys take cover on the wrong side of the cover. When you have your units selected you can move your pointer over something that can be used for cover and you will see a few "ghost images" of your soldiers to show where they will be and how exposed they are.
http://media.insidegamer.nl/screenshots/public/4574/76673.jpg
One big thing in the game is the physics, for example the cover. If you hide behind a thin wodden fence it wont survive very long as bullets wear it down, however a larger stone wall may survive longer if you dont encounter heavier things. Like bodies, destroyed vehicles dont disappear magically but they remain as burnt out shells where your units can take cover behind.
As I said before your units can take up enemy ammo and weapons, now this also work for heavier stuff, if you need to protect a bridge but you dont have any heavier weapons, take an enemy machine gun and move it to the bridge. this works for everything from AT guns and machine guns to tanks and cars (There is also a tractor you can use)
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/737/737759/faces-of-war-20061006041425950_640w.jpg
If you have a vehicle you control it as you control your normal soldiers, just that if you have a tank you might want to see what ammo you got. Tanks (and most other armed vehicles) can fire two sorts of rounds, either AT rounds of HE (high explosive for infantry) while tanks take damage from AT rounds, HE is useless against anything larger than a car, the other way around for infantry.
One of the most funniest things in the game is the direct control mode, if you press down one(certain) button you can control a unit yourself. Even if it works a little clumsy its very fun and also very effective aiming the machinegun or the sniper yourself. this doesnt turn the game into a FPS, you still look from a RTS view but use the pointer to aim. This also works for vehicles and adding the destruction engine you will have lots of fun.
think that you drive a tank but a AT cannon blocks your way, instead of pushing and a possible death just go smash through one of the buildings on the side and flank the cannon from the side. The destruction in the game is beautiful, everywhere concrete just smashes apart in big dust clouds while bricks fall into the ground and splinters into thousands of small pieces. And if you got a flamethrower just burn the houses enemy snipers hide in and see how the windows explode from the heat and the roof burns up until just a stone shell remains.
The main campains in the game follows three nations (americans, germans and russians) with two small campains each nation, special forces and regular army campain that when you finish both they merge into one big last mission to complete. In most missions you are not alone but there are several allied forces waging war beside you even if most of them die pretty fast.
Now the storytelling isnt very good, accually the only story telling nameworthy is when some guy speak of the operation in the mission screen.
Your squads are almost as known to you as the german enemies, witch means not at all. Your squad consist of a few anonymous soldiers, and in some missions all my original soldiers died so I dont know who the guys speaking are.
However most missions are still very entertaining and replayable thanks to the number of ways you can do to finish it.
For example I played a mission where you have to defend a place for several waves of enemies, I had survived the last ones barerly and had almost no ammo left. As an act of desperation I started searching the place for medkits and weapons. In a shed I found a box full of grenades, mines and similar toys and could fight back the last wave. This I could have done in some other way, I could have used the derelict tank that was close to my position or used some other way.
One other thing I like about this game is the difficulty level, even the "arcade" mode is rock hard and then they got the tacktics mode. Before you start in that mode a warning sound tell you that the battles ahead are probably the most hardest youve seen and that you wont survive, and I have to say its right. No RTS have made me more carfull than faces of war tactics mode. Your soldiers die in one or two shots and facing tanks are a true nightmare as not even run into a backyard (they just go through the houses or walls). Try to face a panther front on, they are almost invisible and the I havent mentioned the King Tiger (BIG MEAN german tanks)
Graphics, sound and AI
The graphics are really nice for such an old game (it came out as CoH) You will see other colours than brown in your journies and the destruction is almost unmatched in a RTS.On higher graphics the game can be demanding but if you got a modern gamer pc it shouldnt be a problem. Explosions look very nice and feel just as heavy as they should be. The sounds in the game are also a job well done, most sounds from tanks to small rifles sounds like heaven but if thats heaven then the voices and the music bust be hell. The music is just awfull and you wont spend many seconds before you try to take it away, the voices are also very bad witch doesnt help the already bad telling a bit.
The AI is much better than the the guys voicing( is that a word?) them. They take cover automatically and try to throw back enemy grenades. If facing a tank they MOSTLY dont stand still like fools but sometimes it still happens. The tanks AI is mostly more "stand still and spray" bullets over you, but they try to avoid grenades and AT cannons while trying to always face the enemy with the hardest part first.
MultiPlayer
The multiplayer offers several game types, co-op,
Deathmatch(you vs another army)
Battlezones (almost like qoncuest in battlefield)
Frontline (one team defend the other attacks), King of the hill,
Escort (one team must transport a vehicle across the map while the other team tries to destroy it),
Chicken hunt (A pretty funny game where you have to steal eggs from a farm trying to get more points than the other team, apart from the other team you also need to worry about the angry farmer with a VERY strong shotgun)
And at last Stalker where you have to find various objects and bring them back to your base.
I havent played so much of the multiplayer so I dont know so much about it sadly.
Owerview
Faces of war is a ww2 RTS witch borrows lots from the commandos serie. Its basicly, you control a small squad trying to finish you mission and survive. The game is very hard and sometimes its good to spam the quick save button, even more in the "tactics" mode.
The graphics looks good and the sounds are also good(though not as good as in CoH) except from the music and the voices. The storytelling is a joke so dont buy this game if you want a strong story.
I recommend this game if you love ww2 and if you love destruction or just playing around. This game is also for those who wants to get knewehigh in tactics adn military things like flanking and supressing and AT, HE and so on.
Last, I like that this is one of very few games that lets you play as the germans.
Points
gameplay- 8/10 The gameplay is very challenging and as a big toybox in the same time
Graphics 7/10 the graphics look beautiful but they are turning a little old now
Sound 6.5/10 the normal sounds are good but the horrible voices and music turns it down
Atmosphere 3/10 The story telling sucks and you dont get much into an atmosphere
total 7/10 Except from the story telling this is a really good game that is sadly forgotten.
The game name is Faces of war
http://www.gamereactor.se/media/21/flerekrigerskescreensfra_82132.jpg
You can say that Faces of war is a mix from commandos and other RTS games like CoH or codename panzers. For example you cant build things and can only control one or two squads, more too it later.
Gameplay
The gameplay is too some degree similar to the commandos serie and almost as hard too. Normally you only control one or two squads ranging from 4 to 6 persons and/or a vehicle. you can change the ecquipment the squad is carrying and every single soldier or vehicle got an inventory that you can use. This means that if you run out of ammo, steal ammo from enemy soldiers (dead of course).
Your squad got several special abilitys that you can use, for example if many enemy soldiers are in the way you can order your squad to lay out supressing fire on that position(for non military geeks that means you order your men to fire on full auto to force the enemy to take cover) There are similar orders for grenade, medkits, snipering and Anti tank (called AT from now) etc. One of the more important and one you will probably use lots of is the reinforcement button, pressing this button close to allied soldiers makes them if possible go over to your squad replacing casualties.
http://xbt-torrent.ru/shot/138519_1.jpg
Your soldiers arent super soldiers so they cant survive much punishment and cant carry infinite ammo so be carefull, cover every corner and look everywhere for ammo.
As your soldiers dont eat bullets for breakfast so the use of cover is very important if you want your soldiers to survive the war. the cover system works really good even if Ive seen one or two guys take cover on the wrong side of the cover. When you have your units selected you can move your pointer over something that can be used for cover and you will see a few "ghost images" of your soldiers to show where they will be and how exposed they are.
http://media.insidegamer.nl/screenshots/public/4574/76673.jpg
One big thing in the game is the physics, for example the cover. If you hide behind a thin wodden fence it wont survive very long as bullets wear it down, however a larger stone wall may survive longer if you dont encounter heavier things. Like bodies, destroyed vehicles dont disappear magically but they remain as burnt out shells where your units can take cover behind.
As I said before your units can take up enemy ammo and weapons, now this also work for heavier stuff, if you need to protect a bridge but you dont have any heavier weapons, take an enemy machine gun and move it to the bridge. this works for everything from AT guns and machine guns to tanks and cars (There is also a tractor you can use)
http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/737/737759/faces-of-war-20061006041425950_640w.jpg
If you have a vehicle you control it as you control your normal soldiers, just that if you have a tank you might want to see what ammo you got. Tanks (and most other armed vehicles) can fire two sorts of rounds, either AT rounds of HE (high explosive for infantry) while tanks take damage from AT rounds, HE is useless against anything larger than a car, the other way around for infantry.
One of the most funniest things in the game is the direct control mode, if you press down one(certain) button you can control a unit yourself. Even if it works a little clumsy its very fun and also very effective aiming the machinegun or the sniper yourself. this doesnt turn the game into a FPS, you still look from a RTS view but use the pointer to aim. This also works for vehicles and adding the destruction engine you will have lots of fun.
think that you drive a tank but a AT cannon blocks your way, instead of pushing and a possible death just go smash through one of the buildings on the side and flank the cannon from the side. The destruction in the game is beautiful, everywhere concrete just smashes apart in big dust clouds while bricks fall into the ground and splinters into thousands of small pieces. And if you got a flamethrower just burn the houses enemy snipers hide in and see how the windows explode from the heat and the roof burns up until just a stone shell remains.
The main campains in the game follows three nations (americans, germans and russians) with two small campains each nation, special forces and regular army campain that when you finish both they merge into one big last mission to complete. In most missions you are not alone but there are several allied forces waging war beside you even if most of them die pretty fast.
Now the storytelling isnt very good, accually the only story telling nameworthy is when some guy speak of the operation in the mission screen.
Your squads are almost as known to you as the german enemies, witch means not at all. Your squad consist of a few anonymous soldiers, and in some missions all my original soldiers died so I dont know who the guys speaking are.
However most missions are still very entertaining and replayable thanks to the number of ways you can do to finish it.
For example I played a mission where you have to defend a place for several waves of enemies, I had survived the last ones barerly and had almost no ammo left. As an act of desperation I started searching the place for medkits and weapons. In a shed I found a box full of grenades, mines and similar toys and could fight back the last wave. This I could have done in some other way, I could have used the derelict tank that was close to my position or used some other way.
One other thing I like about this game is the difficulty level, even the "arcade" mode is rock hard and then they got the tacktics mode. Before you start in that mode a warning sound tell you that the battles ahead are probably the most hardest youve seen and that you wont survive, and I have to say its right. No RTS have made me more carfull than faces of war tactics mode. Your soldiers die in one or two shots and facing tanks are a true nightmare as not even run into a backyard (they just go through the houses or walls). Try to face a panther front on, they are almost invisible and the I havent mentioned the King Tiger (BIG MEAN german tanks)
Graphics, sound and AI
The graphics are really nice for such an old game (it came out as CoH) You will see other colours than brown in your journies and the destruction is almost unmatched in a RTS.On higher graphics the game can be demanding but if you got a modern gamer pc it shouldnt be a problem. Explosions look very nice and feel just as heavy as they should be. The sounds in the game are also a job well done, most sounds from tanks to small rifles sounds like heaven but if thats heaven then the voices and the music bust be hell. The music is just awfull and you wont spend many seconds before you try to take it away, the voices are also very bad witch doesnt help the already bad telling a bit.
The AI is much better than the the guys voicing( is that a word?) them. They take cover automatically and try to throw back enemy grenades. If facing a tank they MOSTLY dont stand still like fools but sometimes it still happens. The tanks AI is mostly more "stand still and spray" bullets over you, but they try to avoid grenades and AT cannons while trying to always face the enemy with the hardest part first.
MultiPlayer
The multiplayer offers several game types, co-op,
Deathmatch(you vs another army)
Battlezones (almost like qoncuest in battlefield)
Frontline (one team defend the other attacks), King of the hill,
Escort (one team must transport a vehicle across the map while the other team tries to destroy it),
Chicken hunt (A pretty funny game where you have to steal eggs from a farm trying to get more points than the other team, apart from the other team you also need to worry about the angry farmer with a VERY strong shotgun)
And at last Stalker where you have to find various objects and bring them back to your base.
I havent played so much of the multiplayer so I dont know so much about it sadly.
Owerview
Faces of war is a ww2 RTS witch borrows lots from the commandos serie. Its basicly, you control a small squad trying to finish you mission and survive. The game is very hard and sometimes its good to spam the quick save button, even more in the "tactics" mode.
The graphics looks good and the sounds are also good(though not as good as in CoH) except from the music and the voices. The storytelling is a joke so dont buy this game if you want a strong story.
I recommend this game if you love ww2 and if you love destruction or just playing around. This game is also for those who wants to get knewehigh in tactics adn military things like flanking and supressing and AT, HE and so on.
Last, I like that this is one of very few games that lets you play as the germans.
Points
gameplay- 8/10 The gameplay is very challenging and as a big toybox in the same time
Graphics 7/10 the graphics look beautiful but they are turning a little old now
Sound 6.5/10 the normal sounds are good but the horrible voices and music turns it down
Atmosphere 3/10 The story telling sucks and you dont get much into an atmosphere
total 7/10 Except from the story telling this is a really good game that is sadly forgotten.