I missed this game when it first came out in 2009 because my PC wasn’t up to spec to play it but damn what a great game.
Its as if the developers sat down for a meeting, the boss picked up a photo of me grinning gormlessly and said, “OK, we’re going to make a game for this guy.”
I’m not a fan of strategy games but the storyline piqued my interest, its 1989 and instead of going quietly into the good night the Soviet Union decides to invade…well everyone.
Interesting storyline which tries to remain within the realms of semi-plausibility, sympathetic characters, easy to understand gameplay mechanics and short intense missions. The ‘tactical aids’ are a stroke of genius, I have had few gaming moments as satisfying as calling in a Tu-95 carpet bombing strike on the bastard yankee imperialist tanks massing to overrun my plucky soviet soldiers.
My only qualms would be that the gameplay mechanics do become somewhat repetitive and even playing on the harder difficulty levels its a little too easy (although I did cheat by pausing the game to consider my next move which I don’t think is really meant to be done) however personally I was playing it to see the outcome of the story by the time I reached that point.
For a game that is now three years old the graphics are still pretty impressive and just downright pretty in places.
Part of the reason I enjoyed it so much is because I have an interest in the Cold War but I was (a) hoping to bring the game to the attention of others (b) wondering what other people thought of it and (c) looking for games of a similar nature.
Edited to add that I spotted in the credits that storyline goes to Larry Bond who I have personally always thought to be a superior storyteller than Tom Clancy.
I played this game back when it first came out and enjoyed it. Would have loved a movie version but the remake of Red Dawn probably put the kibosh on that.
It’s a bit unclear from the OP - did you play it with the vanilla game installed, or just the standalone expansion? 'Cause the Russkie missions are pretty damn good, but the original game is completely awesome.
The only and utterly singular complaint I have with that game is that the individual units have too little character. It’s not Patton/M60/M103, it’s just Light/Medium/Heavy Tank most of the time. I wish they could have expanded on that. Though the infantry bits are better. (And getting to play as the HJK/FSK - Norwegian Rangers - in the arctic was a real treat.)
Indeed, but I’m not sure if a movie could depict the non-linear storytelling aspect as smoothly as the game did. On a sidenote the redemption of Captain Bannon was pretty frigging awesome, staying behind to lure the Rooskies to their doom.
The game in general made a good job of making each character sympathetic and understandable with very compact storytelling (about one cutscene each if I recall).
I played the Complete Edition where the extra Soviet missions are intertwined with the original missions.
Agreed that it would have been nice to have more specific units but I think it was just the nature of the game that they would have unit types rather than the alternative.
btw it was only on the last mission that I realise the infantry units had conversations among themselves when zoomed in.
I positively loved the single player game - the story’s very good and the multiple viewpoint characters, the little details we learn about them piece by piece… it all has a very Red Storm Rising feeling to it, taking care to make all sides sympathetic. Graphically, not only is it top notch but the devs evidently spent an inordinate amount of time adding little details and polishing their maps. Zoom full in and you can read the signs or notice tons of little things that give this game a whole lot of character.
Then you cover that shit in tread tracks and blow it up sky high until it looks like the surface of the moon
That being said, I really didn’t care for the multiplayer - mostly because when everyone’s got tactical aids up the wazoo and there are 6-8 players involved, the whole map becomes a confusing, blow-upy mess and units hardly matter when there’s a nuclear strike being called in every 30 seconds. I guess that’s “realistic” when it comes to all out modern warfare, but it’s not much fun
I agree, it was a great single player game (I’ve never tried multiplayer). I’m not sure if I actually played right through though. I was playing the complete edition and the last mission I remember is the NYC one. I might try again when I have some free time. And this time I might zoom right in now and then to see all the cool details that I apparently missed the first time through.
Indeed, kind of makes you feel bad to go and wreck it all!
Never tried multiplayer, doesn’t sound like I’m missing much.
There are only a handful of missions after the NYC one, if you don’t want to have a very cool moment ruined don’t read the line below…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I averted the airstrike on the Statue of Liberty with seven seconds to spare, thats movie-hero stuff, reminded me of the climatic scene in The Rock
