Men of War

[sparks50 0]

Heres a game I happened to slip over. I am normally not one for RTS type of games, but this seems pretty interesting. Has anyone tried earlier games in this series? The focus seems to be greatly on realism.

http://www.digitalmindsoft.eu/games/men-of-war.html

Quote[/b] ]No base building, no unit producing, no tanks with healthbars instead you will receive a fully tactical gameplay, the most accurate armor penetration system ever, lethal weapons of 6 playable nations and much more! But the most outstanding feature: Direct control each single unit you have and fight the battle yourself, as a soldier, tank crew or gun commander!

I'm pretty hyped about this.

[Blackhawk 0]

I saw this in a PC Gamer (Or PC zone) magazine, It didn't tell you much but it did look amazing.

It's pretty much the same as Company of Heroes but different..

[madrussian 347]

Has anyone played the earlier games in this series?

I'm not usually big into RTS games, but the first two games were a big departure from what normally comes to mind when you think RTS.  First off, in the campaign you don't really build anything.  You get a (sometimes severely) limited number of units and you have to keep them alive until the mission is completed.  Generally, you don't get any reinforcements, and on the rare times you do, it's a one time type thing.

The destruction is these games is second to none.  (Well at the time anyway... I haven't kept up lately)  The buildings break apart realistically (better even than in Company of Heroes, in which the walls had no depth).  And best of all you can control individual soldiers and vehicles and play through the campaign in non-respawning coop. (When you die you can take over as friendly ai units. Plus there is limited revive, in the form a set number of revive kits that are used up when you perform a revive. Best limited respawn system I've seen yet in any game, other than maybe in Ghost Recon 1, though of course no revive there)

Soldiers Heroes of World War II was the first game.  My LAN buddies and I played the whole thing through in coop, and had a blast.

Unfortunately the sequel, Faces of War, had no friendly fire, and it was hardcoded to OFF with no option to turn it on.  So I boycotted it.  Aside from that fatal flaw, man did they have a good system going.  Best building destruction ever!

Hopefully they will get the FF right again with the latest edition, Men of War.

edit: typos, clarified how death is handled

[Shashman 0]

WWII...

Next!

[POPKA 0]

WWII...

Next!

A bit synical don't you think? I think it could be quite interesting if it falls somewhere between the lines of Company of heroes and the combat mission games.

[NeMeSiS 11]

Looks exactly like Soldiers:Heroes of World War II to me.

[sparks50 0]

Yea I think its the successor to it, pretty buggy stuff I hear hehe.

[Blackhawk 0]

Soldiers : HOWW2 Was an amazing game though, if it's the successor i'm getting it!

[Dwarden 1125]

http://www.menofwargame.com/

X8OGoIQXz3w

This is quite nice RTS (you can loop enemy troops , vehicles or else corpses around battlefield)

unit's hide from grenades, grenade fragments damage, some physics, you can tell units to climb on some trees

and way more including 4 nations and MP http://www.menofwargame.com/overview.phtml

plus very moddable ... with MP and Co-operative campaigns

available for 40 Euros on http://www.gamersgate.com/index.p....B-MOWSH

the download is not preorder, you can already download and play

and as bonus You get for free brother of Faces of War named Silent Heroes (something between FoW and Soldiers: Heroes of WW2)

Edited May 11, 2010 by Dwarden

[Spetz 0]

How would this game compare to other ww2 RTS? Brothers in Arms arcade style or like Theater of war style?

[Baff1 0]

More like Theatre of War except squad based rather than army based.

This game is the third in the series the previous two titles were called.

Soldiers. Heroes of WW2

and

Faces of War.

Faces of war modelled historical engagements, this one seems to be just invented scenario's that tell one man's story

on the Russian front.

I am a big, big fan of these developers. If you have played the previous titles, the gameplay has barely changed. Only a couple of very very minor interface refinements.

Co-op was particularly laggy on the previous two installments. Unplayably so. I wouldn't get my hopes if I were you.

I havent even bothered to test the new one for it.

I'll save the co-op for Panzers Cold War Crisis, next month.

[mr burns 132]

Judging from the screenies they haven´t changed much in teh gfx department, some shiny new explosions and thats it.

Still the same clumsy soldier models from SHOWW2 which was released back in .. 2003?

Pro: It runs fluid even on older comps

Contra: Been there, done that.

Actually any mission came down to "equip rambo unit, go on sneaky rampage" and "repair/steal enemy tanks, shoot ´em all up"  

It´s been a fantastic game, particulary due to the outstanding object damage system - there still is no other game coming close -

but from the looks of it Men of War seems more like a well done community mod rather than a full priced 40€ game.

[.kju 3245]

Probably me and not spending enough time.

Yet the SP demo had no real tut and was frustrating to play.

Way too complex and almost zero explanations how to play the game.

[Baff1 0]

Spot on Mr Burns, it felt like a MOD to me too.

Terrible voice acting.

Nonetheless since I had played both Soldiers and Faces of War in the last 10 days, seeing a new set of missions was a big pleaser for me.

That said there was very little engine improvement from Soldiers to Faces of War also. This isn't really a game system I'm looking to improve upon that much.

I did like the pre mission map overview however.

I like the new aiming animations and I particularly liked not having to open the inventory and equip a hat every time I picked one up. The improvements are there and they have made the game more user friendly.

There is no tutorial on this version.

For some hints on how to play, be sure to hold "X" down so you can manage the inventory screens. You can loot dead bodies or crates or vehicles and even live units.

Hold Ctrl down to manually target and fire a unit and press down "Home" to toggle into manual control and use the arrow keys to move a unit individually.

Also "+"on the number pad manually reloads.

[Spy17 1]

The series features some things I always hoped to see in ARMA:

- real good dammage system for buildings an vehicles

- spreading fires

- a good inventory system (including vehicles, you can reload amunition manually)

- working mines (and mine searching)

- a good cover system including cover behind debris.

- nice animations for the boarding sequence of vehicles.

- indirekt fire for artillery.

on the negativ side:

- it is a RTS not an FPS (problems with LOS)

- in FOW some scenarios where verry restrictive and forced you into a "tunnel" kind of gamestyle by making some objects indistructable .

- to manny enemys

- short fiering distances.

- it is not very realistic that you can completly repair all vehicles

The new demo did not show me any bigger improvements of the (great) engine. I hope the scenario design is more open this time.

I would have hoped for more realistic engagement ranges and numbers of enemys.

[mr burns 132]

Probably me and not spending enough time.

Yet the SP demo had no real tut and was frustrating to play.

Way too complex and almost zero explanations how to play the game.

Try the Soldiers: Heroes of WW2 demo, afair it began with a tutorial mission, and it´s basically the same game. Still very hard, but fun!

You´ll need to think RTS+FPS. Being able to control any unit yourself via directional keys and mouseaim made it totally different from anything else.

Get yourself a MG34 out of some german kübelpanzerwagen and go berzerk

Additional to Baff1´s explanation:

End - manual control

Space - switch stance

i - inventory

u - use (mines/explosives/matches/etc.)

x - examine (finding repair kits in disabled panther´s will always cheer you up lol)

That´s all the keys i needed.

[madrussian 347]

As a fan of the original, I tried the demo last night.  All I can say is, these guys really need to make a simulation FPS.  That building destruction is simply out of this world!

On a more negative note, back when FOW was released, I treid it but promptly boycotted the game as soon as I found out they had friendly fire hardcoded off with no ability to turn it on (which was definitely not the case in the original SHWW2).  Imagine a war where you never had to check your fire, and could blast away at anyone and everyone with no repercussions!  Pretty stupid decision by the devs, imo...

Can anyone with the full game of Men at War let us know if there is a toggle for friendly fire or not?  I got a very bad feeling when I did not see this option in the demo.  Such an awesome system to go to waste like that.

I am a big, big fan of these developers. If you have played the previous titles, the gameplay has barely changed. Only a couple of very very minor interface refinements.

Co-op was particularly laggy on the previous two installments. Unplayably so. I wouldn't get my hopes if I were you.

I havent even bothered to test the new one for it.

Not sure if you were referring to FOW or SHWW2 specifically here, but a couple of buds and I had a great time playing through the coop campaign on SHWW2 without any lag issue.  Maybe in FOW things got worse?

[Baff1 0]

FOW lagged like pig for me in co-op.

Anyone have any idea about the history of the Eastern front, is this campaign representative of actual historical combats?

[Dwarden 1125]

there is already some patch inbound this week especially for MP and some campaign issues ...

there are glitches like if you enter tree top (yes you can climb onto some trees) and leave then you can't use that tree top anymore

also i'm missing feature to save coop multiplayer game etc

the game is quite good and with patches and mods it will be probably best in serie (since S:HoWW2)

about FF it seems to be enable i already got killed by own mg , driven over by own tanks and blasted by own arty/andes including bad toss and exploding in my face

coop is still laggy but it depends a lot on map sometimes big one dont lag yet small lags ... (maybe there is some fps sync issue and if someone got low fps everyone does)

[Goeth 0]

Big fan of the both previous games so this is definetly on the list of games to buy.

[madrussian 347]

about FF it seems to be enable i already got killed by own mg , driven over by own tanks and blasted by own arty/andes including bad toss and exploding in my face

Interesting...

That appears to confirm the answer I got when I asked over on the 1C forums.  Specifically, someone said that FF was definitely on in MP (making a general statement).  I asked if he meant just versus and about coop and I'm still awaiting a response.  Dwarden, were you playing in MP at the time and if so was it versus or coop specifically?

Maybe is has to do with whether you are actually doing the shooting or if it's someone else on your side?  Likewise AI doing the shooting or a human player?

I really want to buy MOW, but I feel like I really got burnt with FOW.  In that iteration, at least in single player, FF was definitely hard-coded off for all ammunition except explosive rounds. No idea how they came up with that.

Thing is, in the MOW demo (single player), I am currently able to shoot right through my AI buddies, indicating FF is off at least in certain modes/for certain things.  Can someone with the full game specifically check some iterations of FF in coop mode?

In case anyone is interested/willing to check, here's a list of the combinations in coop that will sort it out:

1. Player small arms against friendly AI

2. Player explosive round againt friendly AI

3. Player armor piercing against friendly AI

4. These three again but against another friendly player

Thanks a million!

[SHWiiNG 0]

I dont know.. whenever i see this, is see Company of Heroes

But, it may still be worth a look

[VictorTroska 0]

I dont know.. whenever i see this, is see Company of Heroes  

But, it may still be worth a look

Don't think so, first two parts (Soldiers:HOWW2 & FoW) were released before CoH, and as it seems new CoH:Tales of Valor, ripped off direct control. CoH is great thou, but MoW has nice micromanagement which I prefer more.

[Dwarden 1125]

FF option is not available for coop, you need download micro mod for this to show that option ...

http://files.nordb.no/files/Men%20of%20War/FriendlyFireCoop.zip

and Victor You forgot Silent Heroes (some mix of S:HoWW2 and FoW)

[BLSmith2112 0]

Wow... this is totally the same as S:HoWW2.

Slightly different, but I'll stay out this time.