You're cruising through the PC game shelves and you come across yet another real-time strategy game set during WWII and your eyes start to glaze over. Surely this ground has been trampled over so thoroughly that it would be virtually impossible to come up with a new angle that would entice you to shell out your hard-earned dosh?

Well, before you let your scepticism overcome you, bear in mind that Men of War comes from the same stable as Faces of War and Soldiers: Heroes of WWII, both of which injected a healthy dose of realism into a genre that was seriously lacking it.

Here you have three campaigns to follow, beginning with the Russians in November 1941 where you follow two students gathering a squad together and ultimately trying to prevent the Germans reaching Moscow. The German campaign centres on Crete and Libya, following the determined career rise of Gunther Borg, while the Allied campaign involves the tough conflicts in Algeria and Tunisia and focuses on journalist-turned-soldier Terry Palmer trying to get vital information to High Command.

As with the two previous games, all the buildings, foliage and vehicles are fully destructible and vehicles such as tanks can be damaged to varying degrees of severity, so you might have time to repair and fight on.

Ground troops can use any object as shelter (a ‘preview' icon shows how this will work in practice) and the introduction of a new inventory system means that any dead soldier (friend or foe) can be approached for vital supplies. Each individual soldier has their own limited capacity so you must choose your contents carefully. One minor niggle, though, is the need to rearrange the items in the inventory to fit every time, rather than space being allocated automatically.

The maps are large and carefully constructed to make the most of your strategic planning. Because the AI is easily one of the strengths of this game, the enemy is constantly looking at ways to outflank you or bring in countering weaponry. Fortunately Men of War also retains the Direct Control system of the earlier games where individual units can be assigned independent tasks such as suppressing fire, lobbing anti-tank grenades or laying mines.

The 3D graphical details are highly developed throughout and stay sharp even when you zoom right in on the action. Shells and bullets obey the laws of physics, explosions are often cinematic and the developers have incorporated more than 1,000 sounds effects of weapons and combat gear, so if you crank up the volume you'll feel the adrenaline of a full scale battle.

Newcomers to the genre be warned, however, that even on the Easy setting the single-player campaigns are demanding and frequently overwhelming, so you'll need to keep your wits about you from the off. There's no extensive tutorial to ease you in and if you pause for too long before making decisions, the enemy will come at you in numbers.

At least there's no distracting base building, and the introduction of a multiplayer option (with a range of modes including Capture The Flag and High-Value Cargo) extends the longevity of the game by including a new nation (Japan), co-op campaigns and the chance for 16 players to compete for supremacy.

Verdict
A WWII RTS game that puts the emphasis firmly back on strategy, using your meagre troops cunningly to out-think and out-gun the enemy even when they have vastly superior numbers. The campaigns are tough but the sense of exhilaration at 'mission completed' is immense.

Company: 505 Games

Tags: world war ii crete moscow real-time strategy games video game strategy history