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The demo seemed ok, until it crashed [8|] 2nd time around it didn't crash. The graphics look pretty good, there was some stuttering and I have a Radeon 4890 1GB, very few games stutter with this card. The map is very large, so I can see needing a very good setup to run this game. I didn't dig into it to much, just fired it up and played for few minutes.

ORIGINAL: hadberz

The demo seemed ok, until it crashed [8|] 2nd time around it didn't crash. The graphics look pretty good, there was some stuttering and I have a Radeon 4890 1GB, very few games stutter with this card. The map is very large, so I can see needing a very good setup to run this game. I didn't dig into it to much, just fired it up and played for few minutes.

Ok, the map is very large, so I can see high requirements for that.BUT it also sounds like it's poorly optimized as well.If you are using 4890 1 GB(ATi's highest end GPU) then something's out of wack.But this is the demo and not the full game so we can't judge yet.

I haven't even bothered with the demo - I'm just not that into these kind of games. But I appreciate there are plenty more who do - so I'll bow out [:'(]

I agree completely, there have been too many mediocre cookie cutter WW2 RTS's. I think John Tiller's WW2 Campaign series blows them all away. Not only is it realistic, but it is fun and exciting, and I've had some real tense and nail-biting moments playing it.

In all fairness though concerning the big gaming studio RTS's, there have been a few I've liked:

Codename: Panzers - This one I think is the best of the conventional WW2 RTS's. Very good gameplay and reasonably realistic, all things considered. For example, in one of the France 1940 scenarios (Arras?)the Brit tanks were beating the heck out of me until my 88's arrived on the scene. Indeed there were many memorable scenarios including Stalingrad, Crete, Lake Balaton, and Arnhem to name a few. The only drawback was the badly rendered characters in the video cut scenes and some serious bugs in the Ardennes scenario.

Company of Heroes - Admittedly I've not played this one, but it is highly touted as being a big leap forward with RTS games, and it looks great. I have it in my gaming queue, and I guess I'll get to it if I ever tire of John Tiller's WW2 Campaigns and Dien Bien Phu. ;o)

The Blizzard RTS's (Starcraft and Warcraft 3). Starcraft is quite simply the best computer game ever, and Warcraft 3 is almost as good. I'm sure enough of you out there have played them so I need not elaborate on these great games. I would say though that I refuse to play WoW, and am very disappointed that Blizzard has delayed the release of Stacraft 2 until mid-2010.

Honorable Mentions:

Red Alert 2 was very juvenile but still loads of fun to play. Well-designed campaigns and missions, cool units, beautiful ladies, and a lot of tongue in cheek humor. A great game that works because it doesn't take itself too seriously. I think Red Alert 3, however, was just sort of OK.

Emperor: Battle for Dune - This one worked despite some balancing issues, mostly because it was a Dune fan's dream come true. Very cool units, dynamic campaigns, Freman, Sarduakar, the Guild, and great video cut scenes with Michael Dorn as the Atreides Duke. I also loved the Harkonnen Civil War between Feuyd Ratha and the Beast Rabban!! ;o)

Empire Earth 1 - The breadth and scope of this game was astounding. It starts in prehistory and ends well into the 21st Century. Sure, the battles tended to be heavily scripted, but there were still some very memorable moments; The Trojan War, Alexander the Great, Agincourt, Wellington in Spain, Verdun, and some cool late 21st Century Battles. The glaring weak spot though was the abominable WW2 scenarios.

Wow painting all RTS with the same brush. TOW2 is great! Faces of war was OK, but had much linear scripting. CoH....hated it, some kid modded war hammer into WW2.

And then there is the starcraft style RTS which is a whole other genre I never touch. If Order of war is along the same lines as TOW I'm sold, (for those who played the demo, is it?) but I won't hold my breath.

As for the Japanese theatre, would be interesting, but all these games seem to be armour oriented so Okinawa is never a developer's choice for this scale of game (unfortunately)

ORIGINAL: Arctic Blast

And those AREN'T insane requirements. Several games that have come out recently have recommended similar graphics cards and/or quad core processors. It's the start of the next evolutionary jump forward for what you'll need to run games.

Agreed. Those 'recommendeds' are (just) below what came with the mid-price multimedia machine (not a top-end gaming powerhouse) I bought last summer. I don't even think there's anything particularly 'evolutionary' there, just things moving on in the same way as usual. The Alienware thing is just advertising, of course.


As gunny said there is a distinct tendency to link all the games mentioned together under the label 'RTS' when there are actually huge differences. Many people here would enjoy Men of War and Theatre of War 1/2 even if they wouldn't go near Company of Heroes, I think?

Just played the demo until it crashed on me. The game sort of plays like Sudden Strike or something. Which, I don't really like that much. Basically the only strategy I could see in it is take your army and charge it against the objective. The graphics are kind of weird looking too. At the maximum zoom out the tanks look like they are hovering above the ground the way the shadows are set. I like Codename Panzers MUCH better. Guess I'll be bypassing this game.

Yeah, I gave the demo a try last night. It isn't a bad game by any stretch, and I like the fact you order around groups...platoons and the like, instead of every single frigging infantryman/tank. Also, the maps are enormous.

All in all though, it just didn't grab me.

Now, the demo for Batman : Arkham Asylum on the other hand...THAT put the game squarely on my radar for next month.