MAIN
NEWS

Resources
CHEATS
GALLERY
RELEASE DATES
BETA CENTER
LINKS
FORUM
GAMERS DATABASE

Downloads
DEMOS
PATCHES
GAME TOOLS
MAPS/SCENARIOS

SGO
ABOUT US
FAQ
FEEDBACK
HOSTING

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

REVIEWS

Grognard Heaven.

Remember when you sat down to play your first board wargame? Perhaps it was Tactics II, Squad Leader, or maybe Gettysburg. In any case, you were confronted by an overwhelming mass of detail that seemed impossible to comprehend at the time. But slowly, with some effort, the details came to have a logical sense and the game started to flow.

The problems with board wargames are many. First, you have to find someone that also has hours and hours to spare in line with your schedule. Second, you have to go to a chiropractor because you spend an hour bent over sifting through counters for every half hour of play (Drang Nach Osten anyone?). Finally, there’s the perennial threat of kids, cats, or stray earth tremor bumping your game board and instantly nullifying hours of painstaking play. For many, the costs outweigh the benefits.

However, computers are finally reaching the level of power where they can adequately manage the massive amounts of information present in a serious wargame. More importantly, they can now offer a decent challenge to moderately experienced players. There have been a number of games that have tried to bring the wargaming experience onto your computer; some (such as Steel Panthers) have even been commercially successful.

Damn the newbies, full speed ahead!

But the mass-market is generally uninterested in hard-core wargame/simulations. This is not a problem exclusive to wargames, mind you. The flight simulation field has struggled with this for a long time: make a game that is accurate to the last detail and satisifies every simulationist’s dreams and nobody will buy it. Or make a game that’s pretty easy to fly and shoot, and the simulation buffs roast you in USENET for "not accurately modelling the P-51’s rate of climb in humid air below 500 feet" (or some such).

West Front is Talonsoft’s latest attempt to find the middle ground between "game" and "simulation" – with a distinct nod toward the simulation side (YAY!). Talonsoft has lately seemed to be staking its claim versus SSI as the premier computer wargame company and with West Front, I believe they’ve done just that.

West Front, first of all, is a wargamer’s wargame. The first sign is the massive 250+ page manual chock full of tables with numbers (fully 109 pages of tables and a FOUR PAGE bibliography including just about every WWII book I have on my shelf). Wargamers LOVE these things: tables, numbers, and a big heavy rulebook are guaranteed to immediately warm the cockles of even the most cynical grognard. But this isn’t just kiss-up stuff. The multi-page tutorial (along with the excellently designed tutorial scenario) is enough to bring even the novice up to an acceptable level of competence. There are extensive explanations of the campaign system, scenario generator, and scenario editing tools. But make no mistake – despite the length of the text, there are underlying assumptions that the user is moderately familiar with the standard wargame paradigms such as disruption, morale checks, and line-of-sight.

The map is played on a standard hex grid, and the player is offered a range of different view options. Of course there is the 2d view (the comfort-zone of old timers who just must have counters) as well as a high-quality 3d option. There are multiple zoom levels in each, which leads me to my first minor gripes. At the medium zoom 2d, I couldn’t get units selected reliably, despite rather persistent clicking., so I ended up playing most of the game in 3d. This is not as bad as it seems – the units are pretty distinct and easily selected. Talonsoft spent a lot of effort on the the 3d view; the German tanks for example bear the correct camo patterns for their operational theater/time frame.

In this vein, however, I have a slight problem (the same one that I had with Steel Panthers): you’ve got these great unit graphics, but they aren’t visible unless you zoom in so far as to be tactically useless. So what’s the point? I don’t get it. In any case, the camo is ironically so effective that I challenge anyone to play a game in the bocage withOUT the "unit bases" option selected and not forget a unit somewhere! (The option places a highly-visible country-coded circular "base" beneath the unit stand, making it visible to even a cursory glance – and it vaguely makes you feel like you’re playing with plastic armymen…)

You mean I don’t have to check the rules every 5 minutes?

The play of the game itself takes good advantage of the computer to manage the multitudinous details and numbers leaving the player to concentrate on what’s happening. The platoon-scale units are controlled by action points (ala X-Com, 101^st, et. al) that count down as actions are performed. Every unit starts with 100 ap’s, and burns them as it moves or fires (for example, a rifle squad firing takes 33 ap’s – meaning it can typically move across 1 or 2 hexes and still fire). The computer keeps track of ammo expenditure, fatigue status, morale, supply and the various combat factors (assault, fire, defense, etc). Armor facing effects are modeled, although the AI doesn’t take them into account, and they are recommended for Human vs. Human games only.

A novel concession is made to display every possible bit of information about a unit without cluttering the gameboard – the info box. The info box is a floating window that pops up whenever a friendly or known enemy unit is highlighted, giving all the (known) details about that unit. Since they’re no longer limited by the teeny space a unit takes on the game surface, they’ve iconized a lot of the information to be readily obvious at a glance. There are 20 different icons representing capabilities, movement status, command/control status, and even the maximum bridge loading. Amazing. As well, all the "chrome" of a Western Front game is also included –gliders, paratroopers, amphibs and everything.

Suffice to say that the rules are trustworthy – with a design team that includes names such as Jim Rose and Bob McNamara anyone with any history in the wargaming field will warrant the paradigms behind the rules are as good as they get. In fact, the only wart that I could find is with the scale, and this is arguable. At 250m per hex, realistically I am hard-pressed to understand the ability of infantry to do ANY damage to tanks. In my opinion, however, it’s an acceptable concession to gameplay: forcing infantry to assault tanks to knock them out would quickly make this a tank-dominated game.

The Fog of War is particularly well applied (it’s an option, so the faint of heart can turn it off), as a hex’s population is revealed individually (rather than the "everyone is visible or not" of previous games). You may fire on a command vehicle and drive it off, only to suddenly see a Panzergrenadier platoon pop up from the same hex and hose you – and you’ve spent your AP’s for the turn! The battlefield intel is also well integrated with the sound effects – so you may hear tanks moving around, but you can’t see them.

The price of this comprehensiveness is that the learning curve for the interface is steep but not insurmountable – fortunately there are hotkeys for almost everything so play is really quite fast when you get used to it (but you will be playing with the reference card for a while). The most commonly used functions are buttonized at the bottom of the screen (such as load/unload, show unit range, show visible hexes, end turn, etc.) It would have helped to be able to customize the bottom toolbar, but once you play the game, you use hotkeys anyway.

Where are you from, again?

West Front offers the broadest scope I’ve ever seen – and this includes a comparison to Advanced Squad Leader (the boardgaming god of squad-level combat in WWII). Really, the title should be "not East Front" because it covers EVERYTHING that’s not strictly the war in the East. Norway, Low Countries, France, Italy, Balkans/Greece, West Africa, North Africa and the Med – they’re all covered. There are 42 different terrain types, multiple elevations, 11 and different visibility levels based on weather and light.

And did I say the scope was broad? There are 53 different BELGIAN units, for goodness’ sake. Nothing against the Belgians specifically, but that’s an impressive TOE. Everyone from the West Front is represented here including Vichy, Italian (both Facisti and Allied!), Norwegian and Yugoslav units.

Are we there yet?

One of the things that are clearly a major credit to WF are the scenarios. The tutorial (a specially-designed scenario) is a must-play for everyone (yes, even you!). Accompanied by a hefty segment of the manual (26 pages!) it is actually a pretty entertaining scenario that covers a LOT of ground.

I made the mistake of playing out the scenario as a "game", and the scenario designer (Saunders) smacked me for it. On turn 7 of 12, I had completely secured the town, and had my armor and paratroopers strung out and double timing to come to the assistance of the rangers, who were having some trouble near the chateau. No sooner had I hit the end-turn button with a chuckle – wondering what sort of cutscene I’d get for such an overwheming victory – than I heard the rumble of approaching tanks. The chuckle turned to a grimace as the 2 paratroop squads I’d left in Charnie spotted the apporaching Panthers and haltracks loaded with Grenadiers. Ohmigod. Then I heard more rumbles, and two Panthers were spotted on the hilltop perpendicular to my road-columned armor. Aagh. Needless to say, it was not a good day for the allies, as my exhausted paratroops scrambled back into the town to try to hold on, and my armor tried to beat off the Panthers while the SP guns and halftracks got out of harm’s way. Screw the Rangers – let them solve their own problems.

The end result? I managed to hold the town, after some fierce tank battles in the streets while paratoopers fought Grenadiers for control of the houses. The Panthers fortunately spent their fire on luckless Shermans, leaving my Fireflies at least capable of answering. The German tanks rolled into hasty ambushes and after some expensive assaults my infantry saved the day. The Rangers, who had gotten off the beach and regrouped to the east of the Chateau were unable to take their objective, but held on in enough force to pin the Germans there.*( Sadly, I found I couldn’t take credit for this – the scenario designer had fixed them to their positions. Damn!)

Stupid me, but it goes to show you that the scenario – even only as a teaching exercise – was well timed and pretty well balanced.

Likewise the 56 other individual scenarios included are likely to all be high-caliber, by such individuals as Jim Dunnigan and Glen Saunders. (No, sorry, I didn’t play more than a couple! But I will be….)

WF has also included not one but TWO different campaign games, the Linked and the Dynamic.

The Linked Campaign is an interconnected series of scenarios, where the forces you fight and situations you encounter are based on your performance in the previous battle. Likewise, your troops are the same from one to the next episode, with the possibility of a few reinforcements in between. There are 5 Linked campaigns ranging from the Bulge to Tobruk, each scenario tree with multiple branches offering replay value even within the LCG’s.

The Dynamic Campaign hearkens back to the old days of the original squad leader, where you start as a lowly corporal with little objectives and few troops. You fight in battles (spawned from the scenario generator also included) and your performance will dictate if you get promoted to higher levels of command and greater responsibilities. There are 7 dynamic campaigns, also covering many theaters. You select your campaign, the level of command you start at, and the type of unit you are commanding. Then the scenario generator flings some enemies at you (scaled to represent a challenge to your force – if you choose to be the Captain of a SS Heavy Panzer division, you will be called on to stop some major enemy actions. As the commander of an infantry unit, your opponents will be substantially smaller.)

I played through the Kampfrgruppe Peiper LCG, and had a great time – actually, I got my ass handed to me, but it was fun! There is a definite tension to the LCG as the pressure is really on to get your troops across the board in one piece – a definite step toward reality from the classic "Pyhrric Victory" that is satisfactory to so many gamers. The Linked campaigns are definitely a very strong point in favor of WF – playing them through will, I expect, take me months.

I also played a few scenarios of the dynamic campaign game and found them entertaining, but clearly random – there wasn’t a lot of logic behind the random-seed terrain (roads in circles, etc.) and this cost the scenarios a little in credibility. However, when there’s a "you" on the field, you are always haunted by a little "survival calculus" going on in the back of your brain. USENET and the forums have seemed to frown a little on the DCG as being repetitive and too stingy with replacements, guaranteeing that even a tremendously successful player will eventually be ground down by the tougher and tougher computer opponents. I didn’t play the DCG enough to run into this every time, but I did feel HQ did screw me on reinforcements, so perhaps this wasn’t just my experience.

I personally have a quirk – I want my wargaming experience to be as realistic as possible. I don’t like playing scenarios twice. I’ve always felt that the "sense" of an encounter – the feel for how the units work with and against each other, as well as more mundane factors like when and how reinforcements arrive – is unique. To play it a second time is to grant the player a far better feel for what is "about to happen" than is realistic. Therefore, I am delighted when I see the quantity AND quality of the scenarios included in WF.

Let’s get this party started!

WF has a great multi-player system, and this is where the game shines. I love multiplayer – there’s no AI that’s half as devious or a pain in the ass as a human. And WF gives us a perfect vehicle for playing serious wargames on the net. WF supports up to 16 players with 8 per side. Cooperative multiplay is a rare feature in today’s computer gaming market, which I miss. I think the dynamics that take place between humans on the same side are almost as entertaining as between combatants. Anyone who’s ever played a massive wargame at a games convention would probably agree. I was unable to find/coordinate enough opponents to have a multi-player-per-side battle, but I look forward to it. The h2h internet play works smoothly though, with the connection trouble free even at a ping that peaked as high as 800 (the advantage of turn-based!).

One issue that needs to be addressed in the wargaming community is the issue of the multiplayer interfaces! I think we’ve gotten to the point where every designer understands that internet play is a necessity for commercial success. But the rudimentary and retarded interfaces are horrible. Don’t misunderstand – WF is no worse (and no better) than most I’ve seen. But the FPS genre has figured it out – utilities such as Gamespy make connecting to an internet game a breeze. Certainly FPS are more suited to drop-in action than a strategic wargame, but there has to be a better way than what I’ve seen in the strategic arena to date.

No, I think that looks better over there!

And if the overwhelming surplus of scenarios and campaign games STILL isn’t enough for you – wait, there’s more! WF ships with a full set of OB (Order of Battle), map and scenario editors. They’re pretty straightforward to use, although the number of options may be confusing to a newcomer (what are they doing editing scenarios anyway?). Again, nearly 20 pages of the manual are devoted to explaining the various editor tasks and allow the player set up just about anything they can imagine.

It’s common in todays market for the editors to be an afterthought. There’s room on the cd, so throw the editors on as well. Typically, they are the editors used by the designers and user friendliness is usually not their prime concern for internal tools. But the editors in WF are pretty good – they’re stable, and just about every function is buttoned (or hidden in a logical menu tree). The scenarios coming out will no doubt simliarly extend the lifespan of this tremendous title.

No really, what do you think?

The wargaming population nervously anticipated West Front. East Front (it’s predecessor) was widely acclaimed as a great game, except for the code which had more holes than a tennis racket.

The fact that West Front has arrived with all of the expected features, many of the hoped-for features, and (not least) in a stable and bug free format is the answer to USENET’s prayers. It’s also a testament to Talonsoft’s respect of its fan base. They took the volume of commentary that peaked after the release of East Front (mostly complaints, truth be told) and distilled them down to some clear design goals.

The result is this – possibly the best turn based computer wargame I’ve ever seen. I can’t say much more than that.

Reviewed by Steve Lieb

Copyright © 1998 Strategy Gaming Online. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or in any medium without express permission of Strategy Gaming Online is prohibited.