Order of War PC Game Review

A favorite of game developers, World of War II has been fought time and time again on the screens of gamers the world over. Entering this saturated market is Order of War, a real time strategy game from Square Enix and Wargaming.net made for the PC platform. It promises to bring a historically accurate portrayal of the closing days of the greatest conflict in human history. Can Order of War make it in this already over populated genre?
 

Gameplay

The first thing that I must stress is simply the scale of the game. With each side capable of holding up to one thousand troops, it is truly something to behold. Each unit of the game consists of multiple members, such as a unit of infantry holding somewhere between 40 and 50 men. This can quickly lead to some massive battles. A great example of this is the first mission of the American campaign, Operation Overlord the invasion of Normandy.

Fitting with the scale of game, are the game's missions. Each mission can take the better part of an hour, and is broken down into several submissions to undertake throughout the course of the level. However, with no mid-mission saves or check points, one mistake late in a mission could bring you back to the beginning to play once again. This is the source of the greatest frustration with the game. With some of the longer missions taking the better part of an hour, having to replay an entire mission due to one slip up may cause some mice to fly in rage.

The historical portrayal of the various units and missions deserves a special mention. Many games holding to history accuracy often compromises gameplay. For the most part, this is not the case with Order of War. Those who wish to have a realistic view of how the battles took place are in for a real treat. Before each mission, a montage of maps, war footage, and in game cut scenes gives a sense of history to the mission you are playing, as well teaching you about the mission's real life counterpart. This gives a real sense of what is happening in the world, and how you are affecting it. No where is this done better than the German campaign. After each victory, a map has been shown about how your victory was short lived. It is a strange feeling to know that no matter how well you do, the campaign will eventually end in defeat. For the history buff, this is a key selling point.

The two mars on gameplay that the historical accuracy inflicts are in difficulty and troop count. Difficulty in the sense that it accurately shows just how out numbered the troops really were, and blindly going ahead will quickly cause the loss of men. Taking care of your men is the key, for you only have a set number of them. It is very tough, and expensive to build up a larger army than you start the mission with. This leads to some frustration as you try to figure out how to meet your objectives without a great loss of life. The game rewards smart gameplay, and will quickly punish those who try to break too far away from the mold that the real battles cast. Armchair generals who wish to flex their strategical minds may find themselves frustrated at how locked down they are.

One thing Order of War does to try to step out from the mass of WW2 and RTS titles is to completely remove base building and resource management from the game. This brings the focus to your troops, and their well being. During the mission, you will gain reinforcements, or switch to a different group of troops after completing some objectives, but not counting these cases the troops you have at the start of a mission is pretty much your entire army for the level.

With base building gone, in order to gain bonuses in battle you are given resource points. These points slowly build up over the course of the mission, but gain quicker as you control more control points on a map. These can be exchanged for troop reinforcements, bombing runs, or air strikes for example. The costly use of these points is the only way to gain extra troops. While these options are expensive, learning when best to use them will provide be a key point in ensuring victory on harder levels.

On-line, players can to choose from the game's three factions, Americans, Soviet, and German, in a single deathmatch mode over six maps. These matches quickly devolve into a slugging match between the two forces, with very little in the way of strategy due to a lack of a fog of war. From the start of the match all units are viable for both sides, allowing an enemy to quickly exploit any weakness in your line, and vice versa. Without a fog of war to cover troop movements, the idea of strategic troop movements becomes a moot point. On-line play is typically not as time consuming as the campaign missions, usually taking about half an hour from start to finish.

As I said before, the game is just immense in size. With maps covering kilometers of forests, towns, swamps, and hills, it can take a long time to completely traverse the entire width of the map. While there are troop transports, even with them it takes a long time to move a great number of troops. This can bring some missions to a crawl when you must travel great distances. Another issue with the scale of the game is that frame rates can suffer during large battles. Without a powerful machine, large battles will be presented in a slide show.
 

Graphics

Showing off the game's graphical power, the cinematic camera puts you in the thick of the fighting. However, this camera isn't the blessing that it may seem. While the game is beautiful, it is still strange to watch soldiers stand out in the open and shoot at one another. While it isn't a big deal normally, the cinematic camera really puts a spotlight on these flaws. That said, following a plane during a bombing run is just amazing, and shows what could have been. Perhaps it is asking too much of the tech to want to see soldiers diving for cover, and behaving more realistically when dealing with this scale.
 

Sound

Backing up the sold visuals, is a dramatic sound track by Jeremy Soule. His work is very well known throughout the gaming industry. He has done music for Elder Scrolls Morrowind and Oblivion, the Guild Wars series, the Dungeon Siege Series, and Supreme Commander to just name a few. His score for Order of War gives it a feeling of an old war movie, without being cheesy about it. It is a very nice effect.

The other standout piece of audio work is the voice acting in the game, most noticeably the narration and pre-mission segments. The voice actors did a great job of showing the toll the war has taken on them, and being dramatic without going overboard. A great example is the German officer after a mission for their campaign. Hearing him talk about having to fall back after each victory is just chilling. You can hear that the war effort for him is a lost cause, yet he continues to fight.
 

Value

Order of War's new take on the RTS genre, and presentation of historical accuracy is truly remarkable. The game does not come off as preachy, nor does it attempt to glorify the war in any way. It simply gives the emotion and history of the conflicts and allows the gamer to choose how to feel about them.
 

Final Verdict

With the gaming market full to the brim of both RTS and WW2 games, it is hard for a title to really step away from the masses. Order of War has been able to do that, and shine as a game. While the more seasoned of RTS players may find some of the design choices questionable, the difficulty of some overly hard even on easier settings, it is still a joy to play. It is a must play for the RTS fan, and those who wishes to know more about WW2.

Pro:

• Accurately depicts the closing days of World War 2
• No base building required.
• Strong historical accuracy.
• Beautiful graphics.

Con:

• No Soviet Campaign.
• Can be brutally difficult, even on the easiest of settings.
• No fog of war.
• No mid-mission checkpoints

Overall Score: 7.5/10

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