Theatre Of War 2: Africa 1943
Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 continues the great real time simulation war gaming from Battlefront in the sand and dust of the North African theatre of World War II with plenty of action.
Ratings:
Graphics & Audio: 21/25,
Gameplay: 18/25,
Creativity 20/25,
Fun 20/25
Total: 79/100
Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 puts you in command of United States, United Kingdom and German forces in the real time strategy game that focuses on the lesser covered North African theatre. Theatre of War 2 does a great job of mixing things up with the North African front and putting the sand, dust and sparse vegetation as a main obstacle to combat on a multi company level.
Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 plays as a straight real time strategy game with plenty of chances to play as very realistic or with a quick change to more of a tactical simulator game. Theatre of War 2 focuses on the North African front of World War II and uses the vehicles and equipment as well as uniforms of the actual war for greater realism.
Theatre of War 2 is brought to us by the same company that brought the previous Theatre of War and other military simulation and strategy games so they do know what they are doing. Theatre of War 2 simply begs to be played close up but you just can’t handle some situations too closely as a commander, you need to command from an overall perspective which is easy with the game.
The games interface and camera control may be a bit confusing with a few too many icons and other unnecessary buttons here and there but you get used to the idea quickly. Moving the camera works well and you can change the overall range of the cameras height using the settings for a better view or more narrowed vision for a tougher but more realistic approach.
Theatre of War 2 has the usual group commands and overview map so you can look at the scene from a tactical perspective and not the god view on the main screen. Moving troops and vehicles is easy in setup which is a big improvement over not being able to move anything before battles start.
There are three campaigns from the three perspectives of the US, the United Kingdom and Germany but few missions in each campaign for a total of fifteen. There is also a multiplayer version online and a mission generator to create your own campaigns and battles which works well.
You can pick any of the maps and all of the vehicles and soldiers to create your own battles and string them together to make a campaign with whatever goals and gameplay types you want. User generated missions, campaigns and even mods are starting to come out on the Battlefront website so the actual game content is expanding daily.
The single player campaigns and even your own missions have a setup and then the actual battles with the setup being a troop and vehicle deployment so you have things ready when you click on the start button. Once you start you can send troops and vehicles to action and command from the god view overhead and order troops into battle as well as call in artillery and bombing runs.
The game has several troop types with regular soldiers, command groups with officers and even snipers and bazooka teams as well as a great assortment of vehicles and stationary weapons. Each side of the battles has an assortment of tanks and armored vehicles, stationary guns like antitank pieces and anti aircraft cannons.
In the campaign you are limited to the actual pieces and troops for each mission with a reserve set of troops and vehicles depending on your choices during setup. Before loading the mission you get the choice to set your troop and vehicle preferences as to deployment and reserves.
Each mission has a point system and you are allowed so many points toward the initial deployment with each better troop platoon and vehicles being worth more points. You then get to have the rest in reserve that will be a backup reinforcement group that you will get later on in missions.
Once you set your deployment and reserves you will load the game which usually takes a minute or two and then it’s to the setup and then battle. Setup is a paused spot right before battle where you actually click on vehicles, weapons and troops and can move them where you want in a grid chosen by the mission parameters.
In the campaign these grids are usually pretty small and depend on each mission but in the mission generator you can set the size and area for these grids. The mission generator really adds a lot of value to the game along with the full editor to create game missions and even edit the ground and maps.
Theatre of War 2 really has some great gaming for a realistic wartime battle with very good line of sight, ballistics and other realism features to create a fun real time simulator. The realism can be changed to give more of a fun and less authentic World War II simulator for those that don’t want the realism but want more as a tactical strategic game.
The multiplayer works well with a simple lobby setup to jump into games or setup your own online games that works well, the lobby is easy to understand and has no problems with connecting. The multiplayer gaming is about like you would expect with another person against you instead of a computer for a real challenge.
The graphics and sound in Theatre of War 2 is also very good with some fantastic models and effects for vehicles, troops and explosions. The game also has some good sound effects but plan on having some music playing in the background as there is no music or background themes going on during battles.
The graphics are realistic for textures and things like dust, explosions and blood is all well done with plenty of attention to detail on everything. Planes have shadows as they cross the scorched desert searching for targets during strafing runs and blood stains the sand when soldiers fall from their wounds.
The game has all you could want for a strategy game but at a cost of a good computer system, if you want to run this with high detail you’ll need a good computer. The minimum system requirements are actually pretty high at 3.0 GHz for the processor speed and everything else about matching what you would expect from there.
You will also need a little patience to play Theatre of War 2 as it does still have some bugs after the first patch with a few crashes to desktop but nothing else beyond that. The game never shut down my computer or froze it but a few times when I would either start a game or try to do something in a mission it would crash to my desktop and I would have to start over.
This is actually easier than you would think as the game allows you to save deployment and reserve setup and the in game setup for placement as well as anytime during a battle. The saves work well and make for a great way to quickly get back into a battle after making a really bad decision as a commander.
Theatre of War 2: Africa 1943 is a pretty good game and well worth the cost of about $45 from the Battlefront website as a download or the full DVD game. Theatre of War 2 plays well and with the user created content that is becoming available makes for a great value in a strategy war game with plenty of great graphics.